I was in my 30s before I had any idea that I wasn’t worthless, that I might have some value. This concept had never occurred to me. Not until I was in a psychiatrist’s office was he helping me unravel the incredible mess I had made of my life. And why?
As he gently searched for information about my background, memories began to surface. Quietly at first, a whisper, a hint, a snippet I could face. He must have guessed the moment I could handle his calm question. “You know you’ve been abused your whole life, right?”
I was – what? No, I didn’t know that at all. I thought all families were like this. With one word, everything I knew was shattered to smithereens.
I was more than a little fragile. They are completely unprepared for the onslaught of acidic memories that may explode without warning.
Wanting to keep me, my 15-year-old mother took care of me for a while before I was taken from her and placed in foster care.
She bonded with at least one foster mother before being adopted months later. I had already had my “mother bond” broken twice (or more), and I imagine I felt unloved and unwanted. I was going to take another hit of rejection when I was adopted by a woman who didn’t love me from the beginning.
“She’s so fat and ugly!” She complained about my father who disagreed with her. “Look at that rash on her cheeks! Why couldn’t they give us a beautiful baby? I don’t want to tell anyone about it so she looks better!”
All my life, she would happily tell me this story, and laugh every time.
I was embarrassed. I didn’t deserve to be her child.
I didn’t deserve to be loved.
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I am small. My mother squeezes my upper arm until it stings. She reached under my dress with her other hand and roughly pulled down my panties. I am crying. I know what will happen next.
“Please, mom! Don’t!” I beg her as she lifts me and pats me on my back across her lap.
“Get those legs!” she demands.
“No no!” I’m trying to fight. She grabbed my ankle with one hand and lifted my feet until they were almost above my head. I do my best to push her hands away but she spreads my legs apart.
slap! The slap stings my bare ass.
“Stop fighting! Spread your legs!”
“No, mom! Please!” I am crying.
She pulls my legs as wide as they will go. My hall faces the open door. Oh no! My father or brother might stop by and see!
“you are hurting me!” I am helpless. There is no point in fighting. It’s like every time, and it will be like that for many more years. She won’t stop until she’s good and ready.
I feel like I’m going to throw up.
I deserve to be violated.
Others assaulted me, and others who physically assaulted me. My pleas for protection fell on deaf ears. I learned early on that my body had no value. What I needed and what I felt had no value. Even though I had no words to express it, I believed in the deepest parts of my soul that I was not worthy of protection. I didn’t deserve respect. I wasn’t worth anything.
As I grew older, my mother’s harsh opinions of me also increased. “Why can’t you be like the Vickers girls?” (Or any of her other friends’ daughters.) Or “Shame on you!” Or “You don’t deserve (fill in the blank with anything good)!”
The first real lesson I learned about the value of money was when I was 13 years old. One day after school, I babysat a lady in the alley. She gave me 50 cents an hour, which was the going rate at the time. My mother was angry.
“You don’t deserve that! You shouldn’t get more than 35 cents! Go right back there and give her the extra!”
She was scary when she was angry. Which was most of the time.
The lady wouldn’t take it again. I was terrified. My mother was about to rip my head off. I had no choice but to go home and face the music. I felt so guilty about having that money. This added another layer to the shame I already felt over the fact that I was out of breath.
I deserved less than others.
Once you start having relationships, this profound lack of value or self-esteem will hurt each of them. Desperate for any crumbs of attention I could get, I would eventually settle for situations that were far from healthy. How could I do anything else, given the foundation I was built on?
I left home and dropped out of school when I was 16, got married when I was 17, had a baby when I was 18, was a divorced single parent when I was 19 and lived in my parents’ basement while I tried to get myself together. There have been several occasions when I have met a “nice guy” and invited him to visit me. My parents would meet each one of them, and after they left, my mother would always say, “You don’t deserve him! What could a nice man like that see in someone like you?”
I’ve always wondered about that too.
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Growing up, my mother made it clear that I was responsible for other people’s happiness. Or their misery, their bad days. For example, if I’m talking to her while she’s baking and she accidentally measures something incorrectly, she will get upset. “Now look what you made me do! It’s all ruined and it’s your fault!”
God forbid that I disappoint anyone. What I wanted or needed or felt was of no consequence. I just like to keep everyone happy.
It was the night before one of my weddings (ultimately six). You and I have been fighting for a while. I left our house two weeks ago and went to stay with my parents. He and I have barely spoken since. I didn’t even know if he still wanted to get married. I tearfully told my mother that I would not be able to complete the wedding the next day.
I tore my head off. “I have food in the refrigerator for 25 guests! Two people have paid for a plane ticket to be here! Everyone has gone to the trouble of buying gifts! They are all expecting a wedding tomorrow and you are getting married.”
I didn’t dare challenge her. Moreover, I didn’t deserve to be happy. I had no right to disappoint all these people. You were responsible for keeping everyone happy.
There will be other weddings that look wrong as they approach. I wanted to back off. But on those occasions, my mother’s opinions kept me going. Even though it felt wrong, wrong, wrong. Even after she died. Her words resonated deep within my soul.
I was in the midst of a divorce. My mother was talking about how wonderful my soon-to-be ex-husband was. She said how lucky I was that he married me and I had no right to leave him. I reminded her that I was leaving because of his abuse.
“Don’t you think you deserve all this abuse?” She snapped. “It’s so hard to bear you and your children!” She wasn’t much of a fan of children.
I remember thinking that my children didn’t deserve to be abused. But it never occurred to me that I didn’t do it.
Over the years, I walked away from all of my marriages, only receiving child support when it came to the kids, but no marital assets or spousal support. “It’s better not to!” My mother would say. “You stayed home all day with the kids. He had to work! It’s his money and you don’t deserve a penny of it!”
I know. I know. I don’t deserve to breathe.
Every time I got divorced, I crossed my fingers and trusted that I would somehow get the money. It’s not as easy as dropping out of high school. But I passed.
Each time I divorced, I was less likely to be employed, and I had less financial security than I had before those marriages. bad luck. You don’t deserve stability
After all, my contributions to raising our children were worthless. I had no value as a wife. She has no value as a mother in creating a warm and inviting home for “Daddy” to enjoy at the end of a hard day.
Nothing I did during all those years was worth anything. You are not worth anything.
I have always been a source of great disappointment and embarrassment to my mother in many ways: dropping out of high school, unmarried pregnancies, and divorce. During my struggle as a single parent, she took every opportunity to rub my nose in my face about my lack of education. So when I was 30 and needed to support myself and my kids, I thought she would be thrilled when I decided to go to college. Finally, I would like to make her proud.
Instead, I said, “You can’t do that!”
My heart dropped into my shoes. “Why not?”
“How will you support yourself? Who will take care of your children?”
“I can get student loans, and there is school and daycare.”
“Oh, you think you should drop out of school and then live off government money when it suits you? You don’t deserve it!”
She was positively seething. I didn’t deserve a chance to do better.
I had no value as a daughter. But my extremely abusive older brother (also adopted) was very valuable as a son. He was absolutely the golden child, and his experience in our family was as opposite to mine as could be.
I was 42 when my mother told me that she and my father had redrafted their wills. My brother will get the house and I will get all the other assets. I was stunned. I wasn’t expecting anything at all. I’ve only ever caught glimpses of her thinking of me as her daughter. This was the first time I had felt that way. That was much more important than money.
As it turns out, my father died first, so everything went to her. And when she died – well, let’s just say she lied about that supposed will. The attorney said he had been representing my father for many years and there had never been a will like the one you described. My brother got it all.
My mother had reached out from beyond the grave and had one last parting shot. You don’t deserve anything. A quick sucker punch where it will hurt the most. It wasn’t about the money. I had no value as a daughter.
She lied in an attempt to ensure that I would continue to help her and my parents as they got older, as I had been doing for some time. I was going to do it anyway. Despite everything, I loved them.
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The psychiatrist I saw in my 30s set me on a path to recovery that would take many years. First, I had to understand—and internalize—the dynamics of dysfunction and abuse that permeated my childhood, laying the foundation for every choice I would make and every relationship I would have in adulthood.
And this was just the beginning. I would also like to know what to do about it.
I will never forget one of the most important moments of that trip.
I was in my early forties. I recently started drawing. I didn’t trust the praise of family and friends.
My daughter convinced me to join an art review site where I could get unbiased reviews from strangers. I was blown away by the five-star ratings and great comments I received, but I was even more shocked when I was ranked number one in the Traditional Art category just six weeks after I joined.
My first art exhibition, at Medieval College Chechel, England | Photo by author
My mother was angry. I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Oh, sure! Just pick up the brush and start painting,” she said sarcastically. “You never learned a lesson! What about all those people who studied for years and never got anywhere? You don’t deserve all these accolades!”
Something clicked inside me. This was the first time I had seen evidence to the contrary.
“I’ll do it, otherwise this wouldn’t have happened,” I said.
This only served to increase her anger. And I didn’t care.
Finally, I understood.
For decades, I believed I was worthless. That I will “never achieve anything,” that I am “stupid,” and that I “don’t deserve anything good.” I believed all the terrible things she said to me throughout my childhood and beyond.
I remember when I studied social work in college, my GPA was a perfect 4.0. Later, I did a four-year Homeopathic Practitioner program and got straight A’s there as well. I wasn’t stupid. You were, in fact, very smart. She deserved those grades.
Up until that moment, I had always believed that the terrible things she said about me were true. They were facts. Suddenly I realized it was just her opinions. These were her beliefs. They had no basis in reality at all. And because she had been cramming them down my throat my whole life, I believed them too. I accepted them as the truth.
This was just her truth, her beliefs. They don’t have to be mine anymore.
