Maybe I’m Not a Mother Because I Don’t Have a Village (Yet)
I made sure to have a life before becoming a mother and missed the mark for both.
I’m officially in my late thirties as I’m writing this. I’m writing about this topic because I’m in intensive outpatient group therapy with seven other women, most of whom are mothers. I have to admit I’m triggered. After all, the reason I’m here three times a week for three hours each session is because of trauma.
I’m not triggered because they’re mothers with postpartum depression and anxiety, or because they’re struggling to feed their infants, or even because they can’t sleep through the night with them. I don’t envy that at all. I love being able to (try to) sleep through the night, even if I don’t always accomplish it. I also don’t have to worry about anyone else but me (and my senior pups), and for now, that’s even more than I can handle. After all, I had to go on short-term disability leave from work because of my recently endured trauma.
So it’s fair to say that any kid, heck, every single human being on the planet, is better off without me at this point in my life.
What I do envy is the fact that they are not alone in their journey. These women have a village. Even if that village is just one person, they are not utterly alone.
I’m a product of a divorce, a sick mother, and an alcoholic father. I’ve been alone all my life. I practically raised myself. My parents did not have the emotional maturity to nurture me, so I had to parent myself early. I also had younger siblings I had to try to parent since they were even more neglected than me. Being the oldest and the firstborn was like being a guinea pig on an experiment. Yes, my parents were very young when they had me. Yes, like every other parent on the planet, they had no clue what they were doing. Yes, I’m sure they tried their best to love and care for my siblings and me. My parents lacked the tools to create a functional and healthy environment for my siblings and me to thrive and feel loved and nourished throughout our lives.
They were also alone most of their journey. Their families didn’t live close by. We had to travel an hour and a half to visit our respective families.
Let me tell you something funny and cute about my parents. My dad is three years older than my mom. My mom has an older sister that’s the same age as my dad. They’re all from the same small town in the mountains, so my dad went to school with my aunt, and he would also terrorize my mom when they were kids.
When they grew up, they fell in love (or so I think?). My dad would sing songs to my mom. They conceived me and got married two months later. So yes, I was an oops. My mother was still in college. In fact, she didn’t finish college because she had me. And I’m not saying this with any guilt or blaming her for not trying to finish her education irrespective of my existence; I’m just stating a fact. When I was born, she stopped going to school, so she didn’t complete her Bachelor’s degree.
Since my dad was older, he was able to finish college and was working on sales. When I was born, I believe he was the only one working (at least for the first couple of years). My brother was born two years after me. I remember starting school when I was three years old not because I was a genius (although I think an IQ of 140 makes you one, or so they say), but because my mom had to go to work. My little brother was taken care of by a neighbor in the apartment complex we lived. I remember she made a dish called “Arroz con Leche” (rice and milk) that I used to love. I don’t think I could stomach said dish today.
My mom worked for several years when we were kids. Even when my third brother was born, she kept on working. My younger brother, five years younger than me, didn’t speak until four years old. He was autistic.
We would all go with my mom after school for my brothers’ speech and motor therapy. That was our after-school care for a while. When we got a little bit older, my parents got a divorce.
I have had severe memory loss throughout my life, but I remember feeling that both my mom and dad couldn’t stand each other. They fought all the time. We saw all of it. It wasn’t good. In retrospect, it seems my way of coping with that divorce was to seek attention with illnesses. When my parents got divorced, I started having terrible migraines. We would stay with my dad, which would mean me being in a dark room the entire weekend because my migraine wouldn’t allow anything else. I loved the white metal daybed my dad got me for my room at his apartment as a newly single man with three kids. I certainly used it a lot. That’s all I could do. Be in bed, try not to vomit, try to eat some food, and go back to my mom’s house… our old house as a family when we were all together.
They took me to several hospitals that year. They even had to challenge an initial diagnosis of encephalitis from one doctor in a smaller hospital near our house, so they took me to a bigger children’s hospital to get further tested to find out what was wrong with me.
The hospital was almost at capacity, so I remember having to stay at the cancer ward. I wanted to have cancer so bad. I knew that if I had a life-threatening disease, it would mean that my life would soon be over and that the pain would stop. Because, full disclosure, I’ve been miserable for as long as I can remember. My anguish knew no bounds. I felt too much all of my life, even when I was 3 or 4 years old.
How can you explain such misery when my experiences of the world as we know it were so few and far between?
I certainly had no clue why I felt the way I felt. I didn’t have any tools to cope with it healthily, so I found unhealthy coping mechanisms. Those seemed to be easier to identify and more available, after all.
I would overindulge with food, books, journaling, music, art, drama, boys, more drama, codependency, new age-y religions, candles, TV and movies, toxic relationships… you name it. And this was all before I found “grown-up” substances. When I was old enough to consume in a socially acceptable way, I dove in and didn’t look back. I effectively lost myself.
My late teens and most of my twenties are all blurry. I was constantly intoxicated. I was never present in the best way I know how to be: numb.
When I wasn’t numb, I felt too much. It didn’t matter what the feeling was, and it was off the rails. Imagine the most amazing, dangerous rollercoaster you’ve ever ridden. Well, my brain is that rollercoaster multiplied by a thousand.
A couple of weeks shy of 27 years old, I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). That was the first diagnosis that made sense to me in my entire life. I had been attending mental health professionals since I was nine years old due to the divorce. I was diagnosed with a medley of items: depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder (I don’t even know which one, I was too high at the time). I even got a psychotic episode once and had to be hospitalized. My therapist got me hooked on Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). I did two rounds of DBT that literally saved my life. However, I needed to be sober for the therapy to work effectively.
When I got sober at 27 years old, I had the emotional maturity of a 15-year-old. That’s what they say in recovery programs, that you pick it up where you left it. And that goes for many things. So now, with over nine years sober, I might be 24 years old emotionally or something? I don’t know. All I know is that I feel like a child sometimes. Not too long ago, I discovered that I am, in fact, an adult child.
As an adult child, I’ve had to start the arduous process of reparenting myself. I had to understand that my higher power was my loving parent and that my parents of origin no longer have that responsibility because I am an adult today.
I guess I’m lucky I never got pregnant. I’m sure being a mother and having to do all this work would have been hard. It’s not impossible, of course. Many people do it, and I commend them for it, the same way I admire all parents I know. I don’t know how they do it. The thing is, since I’ve felt broken for so long, it’s hard for me to picture raising a child with this emotional and mental footprint.
All the women in the intensive outpatient program I’m attending either have boyfriends or husbands. They all have children. Some talk about childcare, comparing notes on how long it takes to get an infant spot. One girl is talking about her fear of her unborn child having an intellectual disability. These are all legitimate concerns. I am trying hard to be empathetic, but I feel inadequate. I’m the only single one, the only one living by herself, the only one without the opportunity to pursue a biological legacy on many levels. Here I am, way past my prime, with hormonal issues that impact my ability to get pregnant in the future, with no suitor to build a family with, with no interest in embarking on the sperm donor journey, ad nauseam.
Speaking about legacy, I’m completely aware that having children of your own is not the only way to ensure a legacy. Being a mother doesn’t guarantee a legacy at all. I know that only too well.
But when Friday night comes, and it’s just my pets and me, I feel lonely. I don’t always indulge in the feeling, but when I do, the ache is potent. Don’t get me wrong; I do have people in my life. But most of them are not the kind of people I would call if I end up in the Emergency Room. Speaking of hospitals and anguish, I ended up in the ER once and broke down when asked for my emergency contact. I couldn’t think of anybody I didn’t feel would be bothered to act upon that responsibility.
The fact that I lacked a village wasn’t so present in my mind until the pandemic hit. That’s when it became evident to me that if I didn’t have a village nearby, I would have to build one ASAP. I used to be in a relationship until not too long ago, so my ex-partner and his family became my village, but they no longer hold that role, even if I want them to. They are entitled to move on, and I cannot cling to them just because I’m lonely. That’s not fair to anybody.
Motherhood was never something I felt I “needed” to accomplish to feel I had “made it” in life, but now that I’m older and not dead yet, I think I might be able to take care of another human being. Given that I’m not likely to conceive naturally, I’m considering adoption once I hit 40.
So if anyone asks me what’s my 5-year plan, that’s what I’ll say. Build a village. Become a mother. Take care of another human being. Try to continue doing the next right thing.
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