The Emotionally Absent Mother: Detachment Through the Generations

Like many daughters of emotionally absent mothers, I can't fault my mom for her detachment. I've known her story since I was a little girl. Her parents divorced when she was a child. Her mom was an alcoholic who died from cirrhosis of the liver. Her father placed her in Catholic boarding schools and saw her only on the weekends. My mom wanted to enter the convent and become a nun but her dad forbade it. Becoming a wife and mother of four was her plan B and that was never lost on us kids.

flickr creative commons

When we were growing up, it was obvious she wanted to hang out anywhere but at home and do anything but interact with us. I spent my childhood in front of the television set, watching moms such as Florence Henderson on The Brady Bunch and Shirley Jones on The Partridge Family. Those moms were so present – not just physically there in the home but emotionally there for every crush and heartbreak, every fight with a sibling and conflict with a classmate, every tear that got shed and every problem that needed to get solved.

When I watched Mrs. Brady and Mrs. Partridge, I saw them act compassionately through all their children's ups and downs. But, my mom was just the opposite. She got angry when I needed her support, patience, and kindness. She lost her temper, frustrated she couldn't give me what I needed. It was like trying to get water from a rock. I stopped going there after a while, knowing it was futile but never losing the thirst.

When I was eight, my hamster died and I sobbed wildly. It was my first experience with death. But, instead of keying in on that, my mom had no sympathy. She yelled at me to stop crying and told me I was acting like a fool. She said I couldn't get another pet because I couldn't control myself. She shut me down because she couldn't deal with the emotional side of life.

Not surprisingly, I took anti-depressants for many years as an adult. From an early age, I learned feelings were bad. The anti-depressants muted my emotions and, for the six years I took them, I never cried. But I also never felt excitement, joy, and happiness – just a flatness. In many ways, the anti-depressants were turning me into my mother. I weaned myself off of them, deciding it was time to deal with my emotions head-on instead of running from them.

As a kid, I was always told, “you're too sensitive,” as if it were the absolute worst possible thing. In my family, where name-calling, teasing, and cruelty were commonplace, being sensitive was definitely a liability and I suffered because of it. This book made me realize how beautiful it is to live as a sensitive soul but how to protect one's self from the world's brutality.

The Emotionally Absent Mother and Hugging

I still remember the exact moment when I knew my mom was emotionally absent. It happened twelve years ago when my husband and I were going through the heart-wrenching process of getting our 4-year-old son diagnosed with autism. We had to travel an hour away to the nearest Children's Hospital and my mom stayed at our house with our newborn.

flickr creative commons

When we returned home in the evening after a grueling day of interviews, examinations, and long periods of waiting, my mom greeted me as if we had taken my son to the amusement park for rides and games. She knew where we had been all day and what we were doing, but she wasn't invested emotionally in any of it. She didn't connect with me on any level, mom to mom, to acknowledge what a heartbreaking experience I had just endured. I felt incredibly alone.

I still remember that day as if it were yesterday. I felt so vulnerable – like I was standing there naked in front of a crowd and nobody would wrap a blanket around my body. I needed a hug more than ever before in my life, but I didn't get one. At the core of my being, I knew something was profoundly wrong in our relationship and I started to search for answers.

That's when I began reading about emotionally absent mothers and the pieces of the puzzle came together to form a clear image. Every since that day 12 years ago, I've kept in mind how important it is to hug people when they're in pain. So many of us have difficulty coming up with the “right” words to say when someone is suffering but touching is more powerful than talking. We're too worried these days about not invading people's personal space. But there's so much research that proves the healing powers of human contact. Here's some:

• Hugs help people deal with depression, anxiety, and stress.
• Hugs build trust between people, create intimacy, and give a sense of security.
• Hugs raise oxytocin levels, which alleviate feelings of loneliness, anger, and despair.
• Long, firm hugs raise serotonin levels, elevating one's mood.
• Hugs enhance self-esteem, increasing the chances we'll treat ourselves with kindness and respect.

This film won an Academy Award for Best Picture in 1980. I watched it in the theater and on television many times, always transfixed by the strained relationship between mother and son. The mom was so uptight and cold. I wanted her to hug her son so badly and make him feel better. But she wouldn't. Now I understand that this mother, exquisitely portrayed by Mary Tyler Moore, was emotionally absent. She couldn't and wouldn't give her son the emotional support he needed so badly. 

The Emotionally Absent Mother and Depression

For most of my life, starting in my early teens, I've suffered from depression. But, it's only recently that I connected that depression to being the daughter of an emotionally absent mother. With this new-found knowledge, I'm able to deal with my blues in a more positive, pro-active way that includes lots of exercise, meditation, healthy foods, and journal writing.

                                                             f lickr creative commons

I came to realize the big hole in my heart – the sadness that weighed me down – got created by my mother's inability to see me for who I was and to love me unconditionally. My mother wasn't interested in my emotional life as a kid. When I'd say, “I feel this way or that way,” her response was always “no, you don't.” I learned to suppress my feelings – eating to bury my emotions and becoming more and more depressed and fatter and fatter.

As an adult, I started taking anti-depressants (Lexapro and Zoloft) and that's one of my biggest regrets. Taking those anti-depressants for six long years turned me into a virtual zombie and delayed my efforts to find the cause of my overwhelming sadness. I now warn others about the disastrous side effects of these drugs.

If someone absolutely needs to take an anti-depressant, I urge them to take it only if they also do talk therapy. In talk therapy, they can work on finding healthier ways to deal with their feelings. The anti-depressants only put a Band-Aid on the hurt but, in no way, heal it. Once you get off the anti-depressants, you're back at ground zero, wondering why you're miserable. You've gained no tools for dealing with your emotions.

Today, I look back at those six years when I took anti-depressants as a huge waste of time. I resent the doctor who kept prescribing them without urging me to get counseling. We're a society that likes the quick fix of popping a pill, but dealing with depression is more complicated than that. It takes effort, time, and focus.

Once I started reading about emotionally absent mothers, I knew instantly that was my situation and I felt tremendous relief. I knew the key was to start mothering myself – giving myself the love, patience, acceptance, and guidance I never received. I developed an inner-voice (my mother voice) that showed tremendous compassion for me. She would say nurturing things. If I felt tired after a long day of teaching, she would say, “That's enough for today. You need to get in your pajamas and read a book.” If I felt tempted to eat fast food while driving in my car, she'd say, “You need to slow down. You need to take time to eat a healthy meal.”

It seemed silly and awkward to me at first, using this mother voice, but then I started to understand how valuable it was. I had never heard those kind, generous words when I was a kid – those words that said I'm valued and loved. Developing this mother voice was so much more powerful than any pill I could take and it finally gave me peace and comfort.

One of the most important steps I took when realizing I was the daughter of an emotionally absent mother was to read. I had never given myself permission to take the time to relax with a book. I thought I needed to act like a work horse – always doing something to justify my existence. I started to build a home library of books that talked about my childhood experience with a mom who didn't see me and didn't connect with me in a deep, emotional way. This book was particularly helpful because it showed me that my childhood didn't need to define my present and future. It helped me to stop wallowing in my past and to move forward in a positive way.

                       The Emotionally Absent Mother and Food Fixation

Ever since my preteen years, I've struggled with my weight. Whether I was thin or fat or somewhere between, food was a fixation that I couldn't escape. During adolescence I saw my peers doing all kinds of fun and amazing things – hanging out with friends, dating, playing on sports team, excelling in their classes. But I spent most of my time and energy either obsessively avoiding food or compulsively giving in to temptation. I was miserable and would have given anything to experience one day, one hour, or one minute without thinking about what I was going to eat next. I knew this was no way to live, but I didn't know how to fix it.

                                                                 flickr creative commons

As I grew older, went to college, started a career, got married, and had a family, this food preoccupation was always there, limiting my opportunities and hampering my happiness. Sometimes I just gave into it, eating and getting fat just so I'd have some relief from struggling to control my ravenous hunger. But, when I was fat, I felt bad about myself and wanted to hide from the world.

Doing diet plans like Weight Watchers made things worse because they made me think about food even more. Writing down what I ate, figuring out the points, and making adjustments for special events such as birthday parties and weddings helped me lose pounds, but I was a slave to food more than ever. My goal wasn't about reaching a certain number on the scale but getting freedom from my constant thoughts about eating. I wanted to finally put food in its proper place and get on with my life. But, as I was approaching my fifties, this seemed less and less likely to happen.

Then a chain of events happened that motivated me to search for answers. My son got diagnosed with autism and I turned to my mother for comfort and guidance. But she was cold and indifferent to my plight and even downright hostile. It brought back memories from my childhood when I needed her emotional support and she couldn't give it and got angry at me instead. These memories led me to a book called The Emotionally Absent Mother: A Guide to Self-Healing and Getting the Love You Missed by Jasmin Lee Cori. I recognized my story on every single page and in every single sentence. Finally I was on my way to losing weight and finding the freedom from food that I always wanted.