Mother's Day

A friend of mine wrote this on Saturday:

"Celebrate mothers tomorrow. This includes not only your mom or those with children in the world but also those whose children (embryos) have died, how does not matter, and those trying desperately to conceive. It includes those raising others children as their own and those who have had to raise themselves. It includes all those who act as moms voice when she can't be there and those whose only children have fur, feathers, fins, or scales rather than hair. That woman over there. Yes... her.. celebrate her..in all her/your forms."

It made the day much easier to get through to meditate on these thoughts. My relationship with my mother has rarely made me happy. It has made me often stressed and sick. I haven't spoken to my mother in several months; and although it is difficult and emotionally taxing, it has not been as difficult and emotionally taxing as having her right in my life. Not talking to my mom has been a revolutionary act in wellness. Cultivating "detached compassion" toward her and other people in my life who have demanded that I mother them has been a breakthrough for me. Ultimately, this shift is allowing me to see more clearly where my professional boundaries should be so that I can function as a clinician and be sufficiently nourished to have healthy relationships in which I choose to participate.

I don't know if my mom and I will ever be able to renegotiate our relationship in adult terms. But I will tolerate that for now. Being on this side of relationship recovery stuff is deepening my ability to understand the difficulties of my own patients.

This was the same weekend that I terminated therapy with a 5-year-old patient. Yes, "patient," not "client." This is not because of any strict adherence to a medical model of psychopathology. Not at all. Rather I have chosen this term because I am aware of the awesome responsibility I have due to the massive imbalance of power in the therapy relationship. It mimics the parent-child relationship in many ways.

So living through Mother's Day... tolerating the lack of mothering, and parting with my own therapy "child." I'm glad to report she is doing well -- phobia cured, GAD reduced, sleeping through the night and tolerating imperfection like a pro! But still it was so bittersweet to say goodbye to her.

So yeah, Mother's Day.