My Mother’s Destructive Behavior is a Coping Mechanism Learned From Childhood
She doesn’t seek to hurt me; I’m simply caught in the crossfire of her attempt to feel safe
My earliest memory is one of feeling unsafe. “Please don’t leave us,” I am pleading.
“Shush. Your Savta (grandma in Hebrew) will be here very soon,” my mother unkindly responds. I am in the living room in a makeshift bed on the couch because I have the chickenpox. My baby brother is sleeping in another room. The energy in the room is desperate.
My mom is standing by the door. It must be winter in Israel because she’s wearing a long coat. She has been suffering from postpartum depression since my brother arrived. He cries a lot so it’s not surprising that she is desperate to escape. Except that this time he’s not crying — I am.
She stands by the door that is now open and walks out.
My grandmother, her mother, arrives soon after; it may have been five minutes or thirty. I am quickly learning that my mom is not a source of comfort. I do not feel safe around her. When I beg her to stay because I am scared to be alone with my baby brother, she instead walks out, slamming the door behind her. I can’t rely on her.
At four years old, I do not grasp the significance of this moment, but something in me holds onto this day and the emotions it elicits. My mother is too damaged from her destructive childhood to care about someone else. Standing by that door she was presented with a choice: remain with her two young children or walk out of the apartment.
For the rest of my life, I will witness her choosing an escape route.
In my mother’s mind, she was not leaving two young children in an empty apartment in the middle of a Tel Aviv suburb. She was literally making a break for it as if her life depended on it; she couldn’t help herself. While it appeared hurtful and neglectful, it was essentially her only method of coping — the only way she knew to survive.
I’ve come to understand that my mother had no choice but to develop these extreme coping skills from an early age. My grandparents are Holocaust survivors. My grandmother was sent to Auschwitz; my grandfather to a death camp. They eventually made their separate ways to Israel and ultimately reunited. Their first son was murdered by a Polish farmer while they were hiding in the woods from the Nazis.
My mother was the only daughter in the household, and her mother spent most of her childhood institutionalized, too traumatized to manage the daily stress of life. My mother has hinted that she was sent away to be cared for by someone else following her mother’s nervous breakdown after her birth.
My mother shouldered the burden of both her mother’s absence and her parents’ unrelenting grief. Beginning at the tender age of nine years old, my mother handled the grocery shopping, laundry, and additional household chores. She was a child with adult responsibility; any semblance of a childhood was stolen from her. She was charged with caring for her father and her older brother.
While some of the details of my mother’s childhood remain uncertain, this singular fact remains true: the lack of a parental figure in her early life prevented her from developing a healthy emotional attachment. Unable to form a secure attachment with a caring adult, my mother was conditioned to believe that any cry for help would be ignored. She learned to avoid relying on anyone for security and protection.
Immersed in her parents’ trauma, she was unable to unload her feelings of despair, sorrow, and rejection. She was too young to understand that her beloved parents would spend the remainder of their lives in mourning, an ongoing shiva for those they lost. She was on her own.
The results of this insecure attachment played out in every aspect of my mother’s life and, ultimately, mine. In my own childhood, my mother was unable to show compassion whenever I expressed feeling hurt or sad. She immediately discounted my feelings and mocked me for acting weak.
These repeated reactions made it obvious that she couldn’t provide the emotional support I was seeking. Her own learned behavior trained me to avoid any emotional attachment to her. The only way to connect with my mother, I eventually discovered, was to engage around topics important to her. This dynamic only worked without a voice of my own to disagree with her. Everything was copacetic until I realized how hurtful her words and actions could be.
Years later, this insecure attachment manifests in her inability to become emotionally attached to her children and grandchildren. It rears its ugly head when I give birth to my first child.
My mother becomes horribly competitive with my newborn, making it impossible for her to enjoy the birth of her first grandchild. She becomes envious of my devotion to him. The situation escalates when I begin to establish boundaries. My mother does not take it well.
As we fight back and forth and she accuses me of horribly hurtful things, I realize she is lacking the proper tools to fight without hurting me, that her fighting words are actually a coping mechanism. We all have them, some more harsh and extreme than others. My mother doesn’t necessarily seek to hurt me; I’m simply caught in the crossfire of her attempt to feel safe. What I perceive as destructive behavior she clings to for survival.
My mother cannot help herself. It is part of the fight-or-flight response to stress. My grandmother, my mother, and I all share this powerful trait — it is literally impressed onto our genes. While the stressors are outrageously incomparable, the choice to avoid confrontation and escape are uniquely similar.
Though I do not condone the behavior, I understand the root of her desperate actions. I am able to be empathic towards her yet still hold her accountable. She only knows how to fight with words that attack and hurt those around her: I will hurt you before you hurt me. It is the only way to survive a haunting, neglectful childhood, being raised by two Holocaust survivors who are too damaged to parent.
Nothing is unique about these reactions if you consider intergenerational trauma.
To move forward, I make peace with the fact that my mother cannot change her behavior; it is out of her control. This revelation — a gift, really — takes many years of therapy and tremendous work on my part. Her legacy is unmistakable: her three children, our spouses, and our children. Healing is mine.
Sharon Meiri Fox, MPA works in medical sciences fundraising and lives in Harlem with her family. Every time she tries to lean in, she fumbles and falls. Writing keeps her balanced.
This essay is part of our Moms Don’t Have Time to Grieve column.
