I Started 2022 by Separating from My Mama

Trauma with my mama is still very much so present.

Back story: I was Divinely inspired to create Trauma With Your Mama in early 2019 and since then, so many people, particularly women+ and non-binary femmes have resonated with the message.

Really and truly I feel like most things that I offer to the world are also offerings to myself, ways to help me get through what I am going through, even though I do not fully realize it all of the time. When I created Trauma with Your Mama, I didn’t realize how much I needed my own offering let alone did I realize how much I would need it in the years to follow.

Last year I moved out of the country, physically moving away from so much pain, hurt, trauma and people. As a different land welcome me, so much started coming up.

Now, I have never been one to believe that moving away from something painful would mean healing; I know it is not an “out of mind out of sight” kind of deal. I am very much so a realist (sometimes a bit too real); for years I have been studying psychology and trauma. What I did not anticipate was that moving away from everything, everyone and every place that I have known would have unearthed all of the things that I thought I had healed.

I finally had space. Space to breathe. Space to be. Space to feel. And in all of that space, all of what I thought had been reconciled hit me in my face.

FUCK. I still resent my mama.

My whole life, especially the last 2/3 of my life, I wanted my mother to show up for me and love me the way that I needed her to. More often than not, I was disappointed because something always came up that was more of a priority than supporting me in the way that I could receive it. OR my mother didn’t know how to express things in a timely manner, so the explanation came after the hurt was already inflicted.

In talking to my “work mom”, S, she helped reflect to me that what I was crying over in 2021, was the same thing that I was crying about in 2013. She helped me remember that dwelling on the “why’s” and the “coulda, shoulda, wouldas” would not bring me closer to my happiness.

I thought I had healed, was healing, but the same pain was affecting me; I was still allowing this hurt to affect me. In my big 30 years of living, I was still wondering why my mother had chosen the man that she did to be the person to seed my life. I was still wondering why I was feeling the way I was feeling toward her. In the space that I was blessed with, so many more layers were peeled back and quite frankly, it was nerve-racking.

In the emotional overwhelm, I realized something: My mother has changed over the past few years, but she hasn’t healed. Her pattern has been that she wants everyone to change around her so that she is comfortable instead of taking accountability and the agency to change herself or at least her perspective.

What was I going to do about it? What did I need to do to preserve my happiness?

Honestly, I knew that I needed to up the ante regarding my boundaries AND THAT TERRIFIED ME. The first thought that scared me was, “What if I undo all of the progress I/we have made over the past few years?” The second thought was, “What if she gets upset with me and takes me out of her will again?” (Yeah, she has taken me and my sisters out of her will because “we weren’t acting like family” **insert the confusion of the child of a Jamaican parent**),

Do I continue to seek, fight, contort, and beg for my mothers love, continuously being triggered and hurt repeatedly, or do I decide to love myself and focus my attention on the things that I actually want?

I had to make a choice, a hard decision. Probably one of the hardest decisions I have had to make in my life. I had to choose myself. I had to choose to love myself. I had to choose my happiness. I had to choose my marriage, my chosen family. My best friend helped me understand that I had not had to engage with any other abusers of my past, hence being able to heal from the hurt. But with my mother, I was constantly being retriggered, the wounds constantly reopened so I never had a chance to truly and fully heal.

I had talked about sending a message to my mother with my husband and my best friend. They helped me gather my thoughts and to get my message across without emotionally guilting my mama. I wanted her to (hopefully) understand where I was coming from, where I am, what I desired and what my boundaries were.

On December 31, 2021 I messaged my mother.

“I have been reflecting on how I want to grow and heal in this new year. While we have made a lot of progress in our relationship over the past few years, I know I need distance from you so that I can truly heal from the hurt + (emotional) abuse without being constantly triggered. I can’t do that while trying to be close to you. My inner child cannot take it anymore. Things from the past are still affecting my present (it’s spilling into other relationships) and that is not okay for me. What happened in our dynamic is not something I can just “let go” or “forgive and forget”. I know you would like to move on from the past, but trauma is deeper and more complicated than that.

I am tired of crying over how I want you to show up for me. The generational pattern stops here. It stops with me. I am embodying the agency of reparenting myself because as long as you refuse to acknowledge the past, you will not be able to even meet my needs, let alone truly see me as an adult.

I am responsible for myself. I cannot and will not contort myself to please you, make you happy, for you to love me because that is not loving to myself.

For people to be close to me in my life, I need consistency in words and action and I need my boundaries to be respected. In order for us to have a true form of intimacy, or an intimate relationship, I would need to see that you are actively healing or working on healing whether that looks like counseling/therapy, something; I would need to see and know that you are willing to be brave to take true accountability. I can’t force you to do anything whatsoever, but this is the boundary that I need to ensure my wellness and mental + emotional health.

This isn’t “me cutting you off”. I still absolutely love you, but I do need the space to heal without any interference or regression in my journey. Please do maintain your relationship with ——, but I ask that you not contact me. I don’t know for how long, but I ask that you lovingly respect my wishes.

Ps. I know that wasn’t easy to read and I am proud of you for doing it. Allow yourself to sit with the discomfort and really take the time to process it.”

When I tell you I literally took a stress shit after hitting send. I was so nervous and anxious. What is wild is that nothing happened after that. I didn’t hear from her and that is okay because I asked her not to contact me…my mind created all of these scenes that never happened.

Two days later and I honestly feel good about the decision. I feel really proud of myself. I feel refreshed, as if I am reawakening. I know that so much change is about to happen, which I am a bit nervously excited about, but I know that it is all for my highest good.

Lastly, I want to say that this doesn’t necessarily feel that I have “divorced” my mother, more like separated from her. I still do not believe that divorcing a parent will automatically beget healing especially if you are not doing the personal and internal work.

Have you been considering separating or taking time away from your mama? Have you taken space from your mama and things have improved? What are your thoughts about what you’ve read?