All You Need Is Love

My Therapist gave me some homework to do before our next session. He said to read up on Attachment Injuries so I'd have the words to talk about what I need to talk about. 

So, what is childhood attachment injury?

Google tells me this: "Attachment trauma is a disruption in the important process of bonding between a baby or child and his or her primary caregiver. That trauma may be overt abuse or neglect, or it may be less obvious—lack of affection or response from the caregiver."

Ah, I see. 

You know, I would never have wished Mom's abuse to be directed at you; I probably actually consoled myself at points that if it was me, it wasn't you. But I don't understand why our childhoods were so different despite living in the same family and house. Mom loved you so much, and you loved her back. Mom would do, and did do, everything you ever asked for. I might still be a bit bitter of how she bought you a brand new car after I had worked to buy my first second hand car. But that's a post for another day. 

Your Mother was not the Mother I knew. Everyone loved your Mother. 

She was a different person to me; I never knew the Mom that you had. But I really wanted to. 

Despite opportunities to reconcile at times through my adult life, she took her reasons to the grave. After she died, and I was going through her stuff to clean up her apartment, letters from you to her, cards that people sent her... I finally realized that it was just me. There was no mental health diagnosis for me to understand or find solace in. My Mother just didn't love me. ME. She never even really liked me. 

I found this picture of Dad and I the other day.

I wanted a childhood full of this. I wanted to be touched and held in a loving manner by my Mother.

This is not something my Mother did with me. I have little to no memory of her showing me any genuine kindness (except for the time when I was small and upset I remember being in her lap while she gently stroked my ear to calm me down). I think I remember it so well because I wanted it so bad. There are no pictures of my mother holding me, whilst in contrast, there are many pictures of you and her, and she is always beaming in those photos. She was fiercely protective and proud of you. Your Mother was the Mother I wish I'd had.

She was always angry at me, disappointed, complaining about me, punishing me, or poisoning me. Sometimes she was indifferent to me and other times she'd lock me in the basement or my closet. She always said she wanted to put a lock on the outside of my bedroom door, but Dad wouldn't let her. 

There were times when her rage towards me was so... intense.

I remember a story Dad used to tell, he thought it was a funny anecdote. He said that one day he and the neighbour heard this little voice saying "Help me, I'm trapped. I'm being held prisoner." So they looked everywhere and finally my Dad found me in my room hanging from the window sill so I could reach the open screen. He thought it was a funny story to tell at Christmas times. But I was a baby still, maybe three or four years old. It wasn't a joke.

So now I have learned a new term. It's called Trauma Bonding.

I don't know how to reconcile any of that. I guess I am about to learn a new skill I wish I never had to need.