Free to Navel Gaze

Tag: mother daughter relationship

  • Holy Cow! My Daugther is Autistic!

    Holy Cow! My Daugther is Autistic!

    E. Marmer | Free to Navel Gaze

    A few days ago, I learned that my 28-year-old daughter Sophie is autistic, and I’ve been walking around semi-stunned ever since. Not because the diagnosis changes any of the facts on the ground- my daughter is who she is and I’ve observed her social and emotional difficulties, and some cognitive processing problems as well, over her entire life. I’m stunned because a vital and previously absent piece of information has now been revealed to us, and the impact of that information is enormous. It is ground-shifting, for my daughter of course, because now everything that she struggles with and has over her childhood, adolescence and young adulthood makes sense to her, but also for me. I have a different lens in place now, and the consequences are profound.

    peterdarcy.com.au

    My Sophie is many things. She is passionate, she is sensitive. She is extremely intelligent, diligent, observant, loyal, funny, talented and loving. She is also a monopolizer of conversation and attention, brusque, loud, emotionally volatile, quick to anger or upset, preoccupied with how she is being judged, easily overwhelmed or distressed, and afflicted by several mental illnesses, among these, bi-polar disorder, borderline personality, anxiety, an eating disorder, OCD and PTSD. As her mother I quite understandably have dedicated much of my emotional energy to trying to understand her, support her, soothe her, navigate her abrupt reactions and changes in mood, and even “fix” her, just so she would have an easier path in life. I also continually asked myself what I was doing wrong. When she was a child and was unable to connect with peers, when she had a tantrum, when she lashed out and when she withdrew, I always quavered internally with the worry that I was blowing it. Did I not model correctly, did I not teach properly, did I not counsel or discipline or comfort the way I should have?

    photogallery.indiatimes.com

    These are questions that plagued me over the decades, to the point where I was often frozen with uncertainty, and incapable of any action or meaningful contribution in a variety of contexts. Ironically, and sadly, my uncertainty and sheer confusion, my feelings of deep concern for her and my fear of inadequacy as her mother, often led me to do harm during her childhood. I said unhelpful or even hurtful things in my floundering. I focused and lectured on the extremity of her responses instead of addressing the underlying feelings which produced them, which left Sophie feeling unseen and unheard, and moreover conveyed the idea that she was different, or “wrong”. I remained silent when I should have spoken and left her feeling alone in her experience of the world or in her own family. But perhaps the worst thing I did was broadcast through my eyes and facial expressions my heavy and helpless worry that she would not be able find her way in this world. Sophie saw and felt that concern there every day and took it to mean, as any child would, that she was somehow causing me pain. That is a terrible thing to show a daughter who knows she is different but doesn’t know why or how to change.

    I know that I couldn’t have known she is autistic. The field just hadn’t advanced enough and only now is exploding with greater understanding of what autism is, and what are its symptoms. People now know that autism is not a linear spectrum, but more like a pie with sections which are filled in differently according to areas of deficit, which is why autism presents differently in different individuals. There has been a reckoning, moreover, with the failure to recognize symptoms of autism in female-presenting individuals, who are taught from an early age to be social, to fit in and please others and thus possibly are more motivated or skilled to mask the ways in which they are different. When an autistic person masks many aspects of their autism while still displaying others, it presents a perplexing tangle of seemingly erratic and confusing behaviors or tendencies that can create problems with family and peers, but which are all the more difficult to comprehend. It’s like looking at half a picture.

    So, intellectually I know that I shouldn’t blame myself for many of the mistakes I made. And yet, I still feel great sorrow at having made them as there is no question that they had an impact, and contributed a great deal to my daughter’s suffering. Perhaps she wouldn’t have struggled with so much anger and insecurity throughout her life, or carried the resulting scars, if I had simply understood that a lot of her behaviors were not within her control or resulted from different cognitive wiring. These are things I cannot now change.

    Going forward, however, this new lens brings tremendous clarity and a grounding for a positive future. My daughter burst into tears of relief when she received her diagnosis, and I wasn’t far behind. The central piece of a puzzle has been put into place. Even her other mental illnesses make more sense, because, as we’ve learned, they are very often present with autism, and indeed even directly related. Sophie, (and I) now know that she doesn’t need to change, that there is an explanation for how she is configured, and that the world is catching up to understanding and making room for people with autism. I plan to read all that I can about autism, and hopefully will be able to support my wonderful, complicated daughter in whatever ways I can with a greater understanding and an even greater appreciation of all her amazing qualities, her dedication to getting to the bottom of her unique emotional and mental makeup and her daily struggle to make sense of a society set up by the neurotypical majority. I’m so proud of her.

    E. Marmer | Free to Navel Gaze

  • Oh Mom

    Oh Mom

    Oh Mom.

    Mommy. My mommy.

     

    You are my mommy to the fullest degree of meaning that term caries. You are the person to whom I can still, at age 56, show melted, back-to-age-four, unfiltered and undefended affection. As an adult I had to pull away, even at times push you away, but I have always, always, secretly, deep down thought of you as my mommy.  I have always remembered the softness of your touch, the looks in your eyes, adoration and concern, how much as a young child I wanted your attention the way a camper wants the attention of the pretty head counselor, the one all the girls want to be close to, because that’s how blissful and melodious it was to be in your notice.

    from CBC News article by Stephen Smith, posted 5/31/2017

     

    Here you lie, the woman who would come to us after 8 hours of being professional, confident, commanding, and show us her softness, her frustrations and vulnerability, her plea for support.  Knowing all I know now about raising a family and running a household, I feel such regret that, only partway formed, I couldn’t show you the support you needed and deserved.  You were our superhero, tending to the demands of providing meaningful and effective instruction to developmentally disabled students, then coming home to buy our groceries, cook our meals, teach us skills, tend to our hurts and make my father feel like the head of household we all knew he wasn’t.  Did you learn how to do all that from your own mother, or were you just this incredible from birth?

     

    I take your hand, too precious now to squeeze as strongly as I’d like to announce my declaration of two, or even one.  So I rest it on my palm, and stroke it, with silent, unworded awareness that this is the hand that diapered me, dressed me, smoothed my hair, caressed my forehead, held me tight, spanked me, washed the dishes in soapy water, pulled the weeds from our walkway garden bed. This is the hand you patiently let me examine as a child, always looking at the rising moons on your nails, your sturdy thick fingers, the ones you gave me, always searching for the tiny freckle on your ring finger that never ceased to delight me.  Your hand is the object of my most reverent respect and gratitude.

    putyourhearttopaper.com

     

    I spent the first half of my adulthood figuring out Daddy – why he was the way he was, and why that merited my respect, sympathy, and admiration; and the second half I’m now spending on you. I think it had to go that way, because before I had traveled far enough on the spectrum of motherhood I don’t think I could have fully come to understand what you carried, the emotions, the concerns and the responsibilities.

     

    And now having traveled this far I must say, my god Mom, how could anyone else have possibly been as awesome? How could any other mother possibly have guided us with as much love as you did, displayed such unwavering, unconditional positive regard, even while yelling at us sternly and with the most effectively scary expression? How could any mother have shown us why we should respect and adore our father, how we should treat our elders, share with each other, shoulder our responsibilities, conduct ourselves graciously, modestly, as you did unfailingly, and vacuum the carpet in the correct direction to produce a smooth nap?  And how could any other mother have hovered over us as nervously, advising us to do things that we’ve pointed out countless time we already know to do, and communicated with her questioning and unasked for suggestions just how much she wanted for us – positive outcomes, happiness, freedom from disappointments.

     

    I’m constantly aware of the miracle of air and take it for granted at the same time.

    You have been like the air. And I see now it was the taking for granted that underscored the miracle, the unquestioned presence, the enmeshment, the essentiality. Mommy.

     

    http://grimoiredomago.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.html

     

  • Declarations

    Declarations

    “Mom,” my sixteen-year-old daughter asked me one day, “did you know there’s a scale for sexual orientation, zero for exclusively heterosexual and six for exclusively homosexual?” A few seconds later she added, “I’m a three.”

    This was not news to me. She’d struggled quite openly for the past two years to understand her sexuality. The surprise twist was my declaration. “I’d say I’m a two-point-five.”

    “What? Shut up!” was her stunned reaction. I could see delight in her eyes even as her brain worked to catch up. It was the kind of delight one feels when admitted into the inner sanctum. The questions came flying: “Does Dad know? When did you know? Have you been with a woman?”

    I explained that I’d had numerous “signs” of my bisexuality since college, when I reacted viscerally to a beautiful female classmate. I’d attempted to strike up a conversation with her, hoping for something I couldn’t identify, let alone articulate. And yet, I told my daughter, despite occasionally finding myself intensely attracted to a woman, I wasn’t ready to understand my bisexuality until I watched her coming to terms with hers. But even then, knowing the truth about myself, I waited until she seemed firmly settled in her identity. This wasn’t just to give her the space she needed—I was still having trouble coming out myself.

    For 22 years I’d been married to a man and had never been with a woman. Some friends said I had no reason to come out, while others said I couldn’t know for sure I was bisexual until confirming it. They were wrong. I had to come out to be freed from the exhausting task of convincing myself I was straight. To feel the relief of understanding it was okay. And I did not need to touch a woman to recognize the surge of lust, just as a heterosexual man or woman doesn’t need to cheat to know he or she really wants sex with someone who isn’t a partner.

    The trust my daughter showed in me, in baring her most personal struggles and fears, was what led me ultimately to be brave. For how could I repay such trust with secrecy, whether to her or to myself?

    A few years later it was my daughter who gave me the key to yet another door. We were folding laundry, the sort of peaceful activity that promotes intimacy, when she said, “I don’t know, sometimes I just feel like there’s this guy in me.” This hit me like a rock. A guy in me. A guy in me. The reverberations spread out over years, both forward and back. Days afterward, I was driving her to the train station when I said, “I so love that you feel you have a guy in you. It makes me feel like I’m not alone.”

    “Well, I didn’t mean really,” she said, scrolling through her smartphone. “I meant that when I’m attracted to a female, I’m a much more aggressive pursuer than when I’m attracted to a male.”

    “Oh,” I said. I was crestfallen and confused.

    “Wait a minute.” She shifted in her seat to look at me directly. “What are you saying? Ma, are you gender fluid?”

    Gender fluid. The words hung for a long moment. I’d never heard that term before, and the tumblers of a lock were suddenly clicking into place. Here was a Rosetta Stone, to make sense of an awareness that had always been without language, had always made me feel outside the norm, a poseur. And it was this: I was living as a female, with the body of a female and the socially established trappings of a female, but was not nor had ever been exclusively female. Now I knew what to call it. Now it was named, acknowledged. Now I could declare my entirety, to my daughter and to myself.

    E. Marmer | Free to Navel Gaze