1/66 PROLOGUE

How about your mom?
Er... We don’t have what you’d call a great relationship.

Well, you know... mother-daughter relationships are always complicated.
Actually, “complicated” doesn’t begin to describe it... I stopped seeing her years ago. Healthy communication with my mother is not an option. She hurt me tremendously and never acknowledged any wrongdoing. I’m not asking her to lie on a bed of nails and repent. One word would suffice.

Maybe your mom’s actions were motivated by love, but she couldn’t express it.

Maybe your mom’s actions were motivated by love

How do you avoid tumbling into the trap?

The trap of believing that people are trying to minimize what you endured

The trap of wanting to convince others that what you went through with your mother wasn’t just a matter of not getting along

The trap of thinking that they would like to close the lid on your shameful, hidden, unspoken suffering

“Once you’ve read my story, you might have a different perspective.”

That’s a better response.

Then, let go and allow people to see things however they choose.

That’s what I’ll do from now on.

photo ©  Kenny Eliason

2/66 SHHH!

When I was little and tried to tell people what was going on at home, they invariably interrupted me. They assured me that I wasn’t experiencing anything abnormal; on the contrary, I should count my lucky stars that I had such a wonderful mother. Once I grew up, the message changed: I ought to be more understanding. I ought to forgive. Above all, I ought to quit seeing therapists.

Today, at forty, like the contemporary artist Marina Abramović who works from her body, I am finally allowing myself to drain my wound of its pus, of this taboo anger that has been rotting me from the inside.

I should count my lucky stars that I had such a wonderful mother

At home, violence threatened to erupt at any time. No one protected me. I lived in terror. If I tried to defend myself against my mother, my father silenced me, urging me to “stop pouring gasoline on the fire.” With these words, he held me partially responsible for her behavior. Rage surged through my guts like lava, burning me a little more every day.

I couldn’t confide in anyone. In public, my mother donned the mask of a saint. A brilliant manipulator, she charmed everyone, from our extended family to our teachers to shopkeepers. Inside the house too, I had to cover up my feelings: to reinforce her power, she pitted my father, my brother, and me against one another. She coaxed each of us to share our intimate thoughts so as to be better able to expose and humiliate us when she saw fit.

To this day, I’m wary of everything: of myself, of others—even those I know well—of performing the most mundane tasks.

photo © John Salvino

3/66 “THE WICKEDNESS IS COMING OUT”

Someone recently introduced me to a woman who, upon learning where I’m from, exclaimed, “I love your country! May I give you a hug?” I hesitated for a fraction of a second before accepting.
In retrospect, I realized that my hesitation had nothing to do with the unusual nature of the request.
This woman doesn’t know me, and she wants to hug me? She isn’t physically repulsed by me?
After this revelation, I began to take note of those feelings.

At work, a colleague supports my ankle to symbolically stabilize me on a ladder, and I can’t help saying, “Thanks a lot. I’m okay now, you can let go.” I feared that this contact— touching my ankle—would repel her.

Another time, a new friend, older than me, suggests that I try on one of her wool-lined gloves. I waver before slipping it on. On the subway ride home that winter evening, I ponder my instinctive reluctance and root out its essence. She hasn’t spotted my flaws yet, but my hand in her glove will betray me.

I’m overcome with intense emotion: she wasn’t disgusted by me. My eyes fill with tears of relief and gratitude.

It also occurs with my husband. When he sleeps later than me, he sometimes rolls over to my side of the bed and uses my pillow. That always sends a ripple of joy through my soul. Something in the very heart of me is reassured.

Indeed, after years of therapy, I can see with my own eyes, and I find myself truly beautiful. I’m unscathed. Never mind the glasses and a few extra pounds. It doesn’t matter that I don’t look like a magazine model: I glow with healthy hair, soft skin, and a serene smile. Right on!

And yet... it’s as if a vile spring were welling up inside me, oozing tangible evil and spitefulness.

My mind was tainted by the very person who brought me into this world. From earliest childhood, I was berated for any number of faults. When I tried to improve, she accused me of the opposite failing. I know now that this tactic has a name: the double bind. If I laughed, I was vulgar and attention-seeking.

If I acted with restraint, she said that people complained about how boring I was.

According to her, even my intentions were bad. For instance, if I greeted an elderly lady in the neighborhood, my mother would guilt me afterward: I had taken an aggressive tone, or I had been trying to soft-soap her. I thought that she read my conscience better than me, since she could sense noxious motives in my good behavior that were not apparent to me.

I was forced to write letters detailing what I had done wrong. They had to be convincing; I needed to persuade her of my flaws, of my malicious objectives, even if it meant inventing further examples to show her that I had understood, and that she was right. I also had to thank her for being so devoted to me that she was willing to confront me for my own sake. And if the letter didn’t suit her, I had to rewrite it. By then I would be crying, and she’d say, “Good. The wickedness is coming out.”

photo © Melissa Castillo

4/66 PRESCHOOL

In preschool, they give us a pillow to sleep on during nap time. Our parents are asked to make pillowcases for them. My mother has mine made from a dish towel.

I admire my classmates’ pillows, but I don’t envy them. The situation seems normal to me. Decorations and softness don’t apply to me.

What’s she complaining about?

A dish towel is unique, and at least it’s a sturdy fabric.

Yeah, right. And lemme tell you how soft.

So yes, if this were an isolated instance, it wouldn’t be a big deal. I agree one hundred percent. But what about the ugly haircut—super short with uneven bangs—and the huge glasses that swallowed up my small face? Were those isolated instances too? Was that the style back then? I’ll stop you right there.

If people are kind and well-meaning, the things I’ve just mentioned don’t matter. But when they aren’t, when they are sneaky, these things become clues, and refusing to see them as such is a problem.

She has nothing better to do than feel sorry for herself and criticize her mother decades later! I lost mine, and I’d give anything to see her again!

#SociallyTabooToCriticizeYourMother

photo © Patrick Hendry

5/66 GRANDMOTHER

My mother managed to convince me that my grandma merely pretended to love me, that it was only my brother who really mattered to her. That I couldn’t see it because Grandmother was careful to hide her lack of interest, forcing herself to smile at me, giving me presents on my birthday. But I shouldn’t let that fool me: she didn’t care about me at all.

I believed her.

Many years later, flipping through old albums, I came across a picture of Grandmother and me doing crafts—just the two of us. On the back, my grandma had written, “Isn’t this delightful?”

Reading those words, I figured out, or at least decided, that she did have feelings for me.

Some time after that, during therapy, I remembered something. I used to gently tickle her neck, like my granddad used to do. She had suggested that I do it, and it had become a nice little bonding moment between us. One day, when no one else was around, my mother reproached me for the behavior: it was sexual, disgusting, an old lady’s eccentricity, and I should never do it again. I felt ashamed of what I had done, and ashamed that I hadn’t recognized the disgusting sexual nature.

But then, digging through this buried memory, I realized that no, there was nothing inappropriate about it, especially since it sometimes happened in public. What an adorable scene, a little girl tickling her grandma’s neck. 

The memory gave me something else that was invaluable. Grandmother couldn’t have found me totally repulsive, for she let me put my fingers on her. 

How do I expel the rage that takes hold of me when I think of my mother’s manipulations?

photo © Sebastian Molina

6/66 MY SAD BEAR

I thought my teddy bear looked sad.
I used to whisper in his ear to help him feel better.

photo ©  Trym Nilsen

7/66 A KISS!

I didn’t receive any tenderness. Not from my mother, not from my father, not from my brother. We didn’t hug in my family. We didn’t touch. Nobody told me “I love you.” When I was on my way to bed, my drunken mother never left her couch, but she would order, “A KISS!”

A few years ago, I figured out that my aversion to the word “cuddle” was rooted in my childhood. A bizarre twist of logic had made me hate what I didn’t get. I found the word ridiculous. Ugly. A term  reserved for the weak, for silly wimps who had been babied growing up. The word “tenderness” came second on my most-hated list.

Still today, there are people who tell me, “Your mom is such an amazing lady.” What do I say to that?

photo © Tom Roberts

8/66 HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY

In school, we make cards for Mother’s Day. We have to write things like “Mom, you are the best. You  never fail to shower me with sweetness and love.”

“Mom, you are the best”

photo © Evie S.

9/66 HANSEL AND GRETEL

In fairy tales, evil mothers don’t exist. One might think they do, but they don’t. Those are stepmothers. The mean woman in fairy tales is never the biological mother.

Back in the day, my favorite story, and also my brother’s—the one our aunt had to tell us ten times in a row—was Hansel and Gretel.

At the end, the children lock the mean lady in an oven, and she burns up.

photo © Natalia Y.

10/66 YOU REALLY SUCCEEDED IN BREAKING THEM

There was a children’s clothing store in our neighborhood. My mother sometimes went to have a long chat with the saleswoman. When I say long, I mean long. Of course, we were young and didn’t know how to tell time, and when kids get bored, hours seem like centuries, especially when they’re standing still. We certainly weren’t running around between the racks or touching the clothes. The saleswoman always complimented my mother: “They’re so well behaved! So calm, so patient.”

When I think back on it now, it upsets me, because as I learned much later, it isn’t natural for a bored child to be good as gold indefinitely. The saleswoman might as well have said, “They’re so subdued. Lifeless, even. You really succeeded in breaking them.”

photo © Monika Kozub

11/66 COMING HOME FROM SCHOOL

Even though the school is only a ten-minute walk from our house, our mother never goes with us. Her mornings are for sleeping. She doesn’t pick us up either.

My brother and I each have our own key, but occasionally we forget them. When that happens, we ring the bell, a particularly shrill bell, I should mention. She doesn’t always answer.

photo ©  Michael Dziedzic

12/66 DEATH THREATS

Sometimes, at night, she slammed doors and screamed down the stairwell. She was drunk. She threatened to set the house on fire, to kill my father in his sleep. I was afraid. Our father didn’t react, so we followed his example.

Once, when I was maybe eight years old, we were all summoned to the bathroom in the middle of the night. At moments such as this, my motionless, mute, submissive father behaved like a third child. Her face twisted with rage, my mother pointed at a bath towel that had slipped off the rack.

“Who did this? Was it you? You? Or you? I’m warning you. Next time, I’ll kill you.”

We all returned to our bedrooms in silence. I cried noiselessly. I was terrified.

photo © Viktor Talashuk

13/66 NIGHT

As a child, I was like Marcel Proust: there was no way I could sleep soundly before my mother went to bed. However, while Proust wished with all his might that his mother would come into his room, I wanted the opposite.

I didn’t try to keep her out, though, because that would have made her mad—which would have woken my father. The slightest noise disturbed his incredibly light sleep.

If I needed to use the bathroom at night, I wasn’t afraid of the dark; I was afraid of waking my father, that the door of the little room where he slept alone would open to reveal his concerned face, pale and crumpled with sleep.

I was worried about him having a heart attack the next day due to fatigue. He might die, and then we would be left entirely to her, with our limited financial resources squandered on alcohol. We would no longer be able to keep up with our schoolwork, the key to future freedom, because of a total lack of structure and schedules—even the concept of night and day—and a persistent sense of danger.

She watched TV until two or three in the morning, and when she came upstairs, drunk, my internal alarm would waken me. I froze, barely daring to breathe, and listened: she was liable to make good on her death threats any night.

Sometimes she stopped outside my door, probably debating whether to enter.

When she did come in, she threw the door wide open, which made plenty of noise. It didn’t seem to wake anyone up, though, because no one ever came to check on what was happening.

She climbed into my bed.

That body that she forced me to stare at in the bathroom

White limbs attached to the bulging belly

Dark, abundant hair over the genitals 

Browned, bloodstained sanitary napkins lying around on the radiator all day 

That body about which she snapped, “Don’t look so disgusted.” 

(fear, not disgust) 

“This is what being a woman is all about. You won’t escape it.”

Indeed, when she entered my bed, I could not escape from that body. She pressed herself against my back and I pretended to be asleep, eyes wide open, waiting for it to end. Sometimes she fell asleep, which made it last even longer.

"All moms sneak into their children’s bed for a snuggle every now and then."

All moms sneak into their children’s bed for a snuggle every now and then

That’s what people told me years later, when I mentioned it on a couple of occasions. However, there came a day when a psychiatrist asserted, "No. You should feel safe with your family, in your room, in your bed."

I’ve thought a lot about what I was sensing in those moments, assuming it must have been anger or hate. But it wasn’t. It was despair.

photo © Viktor Forgacs

14/66 LIKE WARM, SOOTHING TEA

One evening, my parents have some people over, which is unusual. It’s a couple with two children. I’m about eight or nine; the couple are a little older than my parents. We don’t know them very well.

When it’s time to say goodbye, the adults are chatting in the foyer. I’m standing next to them when I suddenly experience a heavenly feeling of well-being. A profoundly deep, healthy emotion, like warm, soothing tea pouring into me. What’s happening?

The man has put his hand on my head. He’s gently stroking my hair.

photo © Taisiia Stupak

15/66 THE SWEETEST CHILDREN IN THE WORLD

At the little grocery store not far from our house, the owners’ children sometimes tended the shop. My mother called them “the sweetest children in the world.”

That struck me as incredibly unfair, because they already had two loving parents. I resented them for it—them, not her.

One day, my brother and I asked her whom she preferred, them or us. We weren’t being bratty or jealous; it was a question from kids who received no cuddles, no compliments, no validation. We needed to know.

She never gave any answer beyond, “It’s not the same thing.” Said in an annoyed tone, as if she were clumsily trying to hide something.

photo © Mohamed Nohassi

16/66 VOICE

“Did you think I wouldn’t hear you? Huh? You were wrong. You’d better give up. You’ll never sing well.”

Shoot. I’d felt a small flicker of joy. Once again, I was completely off track. Above all, I’m ashamed to have been caught in the act.

photo © Rafael Garcin

17/66 HAPPY BIRTHDAY

In movies, people behave nobly. They bravely rebel; they stand up for themselves. I didn’t, because of the retaliation.

As a child, I couldn’t stand wearing dresses. I’m talking about an intense feeling, touching on my identity, and not just a whim. I liked it when I was mistaken for a boy. I hated it when my breasts started developing and I had to give up walking around shirtless.
Friends came over to play for my birthday and she always made me wear a dress. You might think that there are worse things in life. And it’s true, there are definitely worse things.
One time, I rebelled. I screamed and cried. She threatened to call all the parents to tell them the party was canceled because I was being a monster. I put on her damn dress.

photo © Jordan McDonald

18/66 TRADED FOR A PAIR OF SKATES

 One day, she puts her arm around my shoulders.

For years, I cling to that exception: she initiated healthy contact. I see it as approval; fondness; let’s even say pride. Until it strikes me that it occurred in front of witnesses. How could I have been so naive for so long? Probably because I needed to be.

She speaks well of us to other people. We admire her loyalty. Plus, it means that in some way or other she likes us—at least a little. It doesn’t cross our minds that this is part of her game plan.

Acting kind, patient, and compassionate in front of others and then being despicable behind closed doors, without ever getting mixed up, requires the skills of a Hannibal Lecter. You know?

The psychopath created by Thomas Harris. Always in control, he fascinates readers and viewers even though he feeds on human flesh.

She ate away at our souls.

“You’re so lucky to have a mother like her.”

I’ve been fed that line forever. Since the world worships her, if she tells me I am almost beyond repair, it has to be true. She knows me. She knows about those murky, nauseating parts of me that I can’t see. I’m lucky that she dares to tell me the truth, because other people are afraid to.

“Other people”… That faceless crowd I have learned to be wary of. The ones who don’t say anything to me directly, but who express their concerns to my mother. I am so used to living in fear and shame that I would never check with them, to verify her version. I don’t doubt my mother, for starters, and I’m convinced that they would confirm everything.

Nor do I confide in Mamita, my other grandma, despite how close we are. What if she finds out about the flaws that my mother is striving to correct, and realizes that she is wrong to love me? I have no grasp of the concept of unconditional love. I have too much bad inside me, hidden in strange places—all the way to my bones, to the very marrow.

“Your friend wanted to talk to you on the phone, but first she asked if you were in a good mood. Keep that up and you will soon have pushed everyone away.”

“Some of the kids’ mothers are wondering about you.”

I have a best friend from about ages four to ten. I am number one in somebody’s heart! We make potions with cleaning products (it was the eighties), play outside, and tell each other everything (except, in my case, what’s going on at home). When we are eleven, she grows close to one of our classmates.

“The other girl’s parents gave her roller skates. You don’t matter to her anymore. Now she’s that girl’s best friend.”

I fall right into the trap. Deeply upset, I will pull away from my friend without a word.

19/66 THE METAMORPHOSIS

She’s hospitalized for a minor procedure that nevertheless requires an overnight stay. We visit her, and something amazing happens.
Lying in bed, she asks my brother and me how our day went at school. She’s actually nice to us—welcoming, listening, gentle. She interacts with us the way she does with the outside world.
We could be surprised. We could be suspicious, critical. Why do you care about us all of a sudden? But no. We are happy. When you’re starving and delicious food suddenly appears, you eat, especially when you’re a child.

The next day, we pick her up. My father parks the car right in front of the ten or so steps that lead from the hospital entrance to the sidewalk. Halfway down the stairs, she snaps at us. She’s back.

photo © David Trinks

20/66 HAIR

When I’m around thirteen, I come up with the idea of fluffing my bangs a bit. With my fingers, I push aside the thick hair that normally falls straight down like a helmet over my face, already cluttered with glasses.

Grandmother compliments my new look. Thirty years later, I still see it as proof that she could be kind to me—an anomaly in the picture painted by my mother.

What bliss!

1. It’s ten times prettier.

2. Grandmother approved of me: I’m so proud! I’ve finally figured out how to earn (a bit) of her esteem.

My mother quickly squashes my little idea. According to her, my new style makes a bad impression—apparently a calamity to avoid at all costs.

photo © Alessio Zaccaria

21/66 TWO LAPS

I was, er, a bit overweight as a teenager. Okay: I was chunky.

One day, I arrive home absolutely ecstatic: I managed to run two laps around the park in gym class. A real feat for me. My classmates even clapped!

When I tell my mother, she doesn’t smile. Her face takes on a slightly pained expression.

“But are you sure they weren’t thinking instead, ‘Look what the fatty can do’?”

photo © Mike Erskin

22/66 BULK

At age thirteen, I weigh one and a half times my recommended body weight.

My parents take me for an ultrasound to make sure I’m not pregnant, even though I will remain a virgin until I’m nineteen.

photo © Lucas van Oort

23/66 DEMEANING RUMORS

In class, we have to fill out a form about our household. You can check a box if you want to talk to a psychologist.

My appointment takes place at the school. A lady I have never seen before questions me in a small, cold, white-walled office. “How much does she drink? How often?”

I start to answer but soon fall silent, my mind flooded with scenarios. Will they remove me from my family? If so, where will I go? Will my father be blamed? Used to not being able to trust anyone, I envision betrayal. Your daughter tries to draw attention to herself by spreading demeaning rumors about you. I’m ashamed, and afraid.

If my parents find out, if this triggers an investigation, I can expect terrible repercussions in my future. So I say, “It’s not that bad. I see that now.”

That’s the end of it.

photo © Issy Bailey

24/66 LEGS

We are watching Claude Miller’s film An Impudent Girl at home. The actress is wearing a denim miniskirt.
“You’re checking out her legs, aren’t you?” my mother suddenly exclaims.

I stare mutely at her, paralyzed by this fear I know so well: I have inadvertently done something wrong.
“Don’t even think about it,” she continues. “You’ll never be able to wear miniskirts like her. You’ll never be thin.”

Nobody stands up for me.

Photo © Chloë Forbes-Kindlen

25/66 RED

When I’m fifteen, I secretly buy a tube of lipstick. I dab a little on. She notices. She summons my father and, with him as a witness, declares that I look like a prostitute, and that I’m ridiculous.

I didn’t mind looking like a prostitute. In fact, I took it as a compliment: I could be seductive, despite my flaws. But I was ashamed of being ridiculous. I didn’t even get that I had misapplied a bit of makeup.

photo © Ian Dooley

26/66 DÉCOLLETÉ

I put a Madonna poster up on my bedroom wall. In the photo (by Herb Ritts, after all!) the star wears a half-open leather jacket over a black lace bustier.

When my mother sees the poster, she makes me take it down. I buy into her argument, and feel ashamed for liking such bad taste and vulgarity.

Photo: Herb Ritts.

27/66 STYLE

 She insists that we go into a luxury boutique and makes me try on a high-priced item.

“But… it’s way too expensive,” I say.

She checks that the saleswoman is out of earshot, then declares, “What do you care? Papa is the one paying for it, anyway.”

I don’t give in. One stubborn stain will ruin the piece.

“Suit yourself,” she concludes. “You’ll always look like a bag lady.”

photo © Jorg Karg

28/66 (FRIENDS)

"Your so-called friends aren’t friends. Stop deluding yourself. They pretend to like you, but in reality they’re using you to make themselves look good to the boys because you’re fat."

photo © Tamara Garcevic

29/66 KILL

When I was a teenager, I longed to go to a boarding school to escape from home. They pressured me not to, even my grandma. They argued, among other things, that the quality of the education at my current school was far superior. That clinched it. Since I had just a few more years left at home, I might as well give myself the best chance I could.

That’s also why I didn’t run away. I pictured living on the street with punks who would merely tolerate me. I figured that, later, without a high school diploma, I would only find grueling, poorly paid jobs and perhaps turn to drugs.

That left the option of killing my mother. However, juvie would also affect the rest of my life. No way was I going to screw up my own future.

Still, I remember encouraging her the day she crouched in the bathroom with tiny nail scissors pressed to her wrist and announced she was going to kill herself. “Look, if you think it’s best, I won’t hold it against you, you know.”

photo © Michael Jasmund

30/66 SHOW MUST GO ON

To my mother, a funeral is an opportunity to shine.

Never mind that she didn’t like the person.

Never mind if she criticized them, spread lies about them, or sent a lawyer’s letter accusing them of something.

She stands up in church to speak. 

Yesss… People are gonna see me in the outfit I carefully chose this morning.

She delivers precisely considered words praising the deceased. She finishes by explaining how that person helped her develop some quality or other, a roundabout way of touting her own virtues. Two birds, one stone.

photo © Barry Weatherall

31/66 A KIND OF MADNESS

During school breaks, our family occasionally goes away for the day, but sometimes she prefers to stay home by herself. An ordinary excursion feels like a trip to an amusement park: to heck with everyday life, let’s party! Now and then, however, our plans fall through and we end up coming home in the morning. This was before cell phones became popular.

“Aah! I was so scared when I heard the key turn, I thought one of you was dead, what’s wrong with you, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU??? You’re crazy—you’re all crazy!!! You want me to die, you’re going to kill me, you’re doing it on purpose, on purpooooose…”

After several episodes of this kind, my father gives up. Instead of going home, we change our plans. It doesn’t matter if we go to a museum dressed for a hike in the woods.

Before that, though, he comes up with the idea of ringing the doorbell and singing a song when my mother answers. A tune with lyrics such as, “Everything’s fine, all three of us are here, safe and sound.” Sung in a round. We rehearse and prepare: we force a joyful tone, showing no fear, trying to win over our audience, like those kids who play guitar on YouTube with instruments bigger than they are, and a frozen expression on their strained features as if someone is pointing a gun at them from backstage.

The song doesn’t go over well.

What I find degrading about the whole situation is that both of our parents compelled us to function in a murky, twisted way that was the opposite of simplicity and authenticity.

What we slipped into looked a lot like madness.

photo © Антон Дмитриев

32/66 CLOTHES MAKE THE MUZHIK

Every morning, I knock on my mother’s bedroom door. Every morning, she grumbles something back, then I enter and pick clothes out of the closet as per her orders.

She obeyed her mother like a muzhik!

It’s funny, this word that comes to mind. I check its meaning in the dictionary.

[MUZHIK. Peasant of low social status in the Russian Empire, equivalent to a serf.]

[SERF. Individual who has no personal freedom.]

At age twelve, I obey my mother like a serf. Why? Is it the belief that I am totally incompetent, or the fear of retaliation against my father and brother, that gives rise to my noble sacrifice? Shouldn’t I be the most vulnerable member of the family? I’m the youngest, and a girl, therefore not as physically strong. A mixture of guilt and excessive sense of responsibility, probably. What a thoroughly washed brain!

One morning, she’s so deeply mired in an alcoholic fog that I can’t wake her. Should I keep trying, or seize the opportunity to choose my own clothes? I weigh the pros and cons uneasily. What will provoke the least amount of anger?

I tiptoe noiselessly into the bedroom. Because I admire one of my classmates’ cute, classic style, I select blue jeans, a white blouse with light-blue vertical stripes, and a red cardigan. My friend wears this exact outfit, and I have all the pieces for it; my mother just never assembled them that way. I’m so proud. I feel empowered.
That night, she tells me that I looked like a clown. No—that “people must have thought that” I looked like a clown. Pairing jeans, the most casual of clothing, with a stylish blouse! But… I know better.

Still today, a tad of conformism is my safety blanket. On weekends, while others throw on tracksuits and baggy T-shirts, to me nothing beats the ease of a modest outfit barely jazzed up with a nice pair of earrings. I now understand why: dressing conventionally allows me to put up a smoke screen. If I act improperly without being aware of it, people will not be so quick to judge me thanks to my sensible appearance.

Five years after the jeans-and-blouse episode, it seems that not much has changed, because even though I’m a high school senior by then, the ceremonial is still on. She hasn’t ceded an inch of control. One afternoon, she isn’t home, and I put together my outfit to wear to an oral exam given by a friendly, freethinking teacher. He suggested that we break from the usual and not dress up.

That night, when my mother criticizes my choice, I bring her up to speed: we didn’t need to dress to the nines. She quickly switches gears. Dressing casually, okay; however, a wool sweater over a skirt is horribly sloppy, sending the message that I have no regard for the teacher.

She hits the bull’s-eye. I’m proud to get along so well with this kindhearted teacher; I believe he thinks highly of me, which is priceless. He must have been quite disappointed. It’s the end of the school year, and I feel deep anguish. I liked that teacher so much; now he will remember me as a disappointment.

photo ©  Anna Syperek

33/66 Danielle Steel on Mother Love

Mrs. Steel said those words about her own mother.

We all have preconceived ideas about what a mother should be, and most of us expect too much of our mothers. But mothers are as human as anyone else, I don’t think motherhood ‘improves’ us, I think it magnifies what is already there, both the good and the bad. And some people simply shouldn’t have children, and cause a great deal of harm and pain when they do.

It took me many, many, many years (and therapy) to understand that whatever my failings, the flaw was not in me, but ‘simply’ in a mother who didn’t have a mother’s love to give. Not having a present mother is a loss, but in some cases it is the loss of someone who just has nothing to give us. Their tanks are empty, and their heart.

Because you were unloved by your mother does not mean that you are Unlovable—-there’s a big difference between the two. What crime could I have committed by the age of 6 to make her not love me? None at all.

Interesting things happen too when you don’t have a mother. Throughout my life, much older women have appeared in my life who were wise, loving and compassionate, and took me under their wing for a time, and gave me a kind of love and approval that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Much kinder and more intelligent and wiser women than my mother.

I was able to see [my mother] before she died, and I hoped for a minute that she would suddenly say everything I had hoped to hear for all of my life, but she didn’t. She was who she was, true to herself and true to form until her last breath. Quite amazingly, about a week before she died, she said in passing “You were the best thing that ever happened to me.” I was stunned, had never heard anything like it from her in my entire life, and jokingly said to a friend “she must be dying to say something like that”. It was a final gift, and the best she could do. 

There is nothing wrong with you if you feel that your mother didn’t love you—if so, it was her burden to carry, and her failing, not yours. Our best mothers are not always the women we were born to. Don’t forget that YOU ARE LOVABLE, whether your mother loved you or not.

34/66 ESSAY TOPIC: LOVE

I’m nearly twenty when I fail an essay for the first time. Not because of spelling or grammar: the teacher explains that I didn’t understand the topic.

My paper revolved around the need to constantly improve and outdo yourself in the hope of remaining worthy of love.

Realizing at that age that I was so far off the mark felt like falling off a cliff.

photo © Annie Pratt

35/66 MOTHERSHITS

I call to mind the character Folcoche in the pages of Hervé Bazin’s novel Viper in the Fist. No picnic.

In The Long Road Home, Danielle Steel paints a portrait of a mother who beats up her daughter. Thanks to her husband’s complicity, she maintains a sparkling image in the eyes of the outside world. And yes, there is a happy ending, but it’s not because the mother changes; she doesn’t.

Wendy Walker’s thriller Emma in the Night painstakingly profiles a narcissistic mother. The examples of her low blows ring strikingly true.

In his autobiography, A Child Called “It,” Dave Pelzer summarizes his spiritual poisoning in this terrible sentence: “My soul became so cold I hated everything.”

Goncourt Prize-winning author Michel Houellebecq said of his final estrangement from his female parent, “I knew I would never see my mother again, and I tingled with joy.” “I truly felt that I was experiencing a great moment that was radiant, liberating and peaceful.”

As for films, in Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata, Liv Ullmann asks this question: “Is the daughter’s misfortune the mother’s triumph?”

A scene in Sybil, directed by Daniel Petrie and based on the book by Flora Rheta Schreiber, shows a little girl hiding her hands behind her back. When asked, “Haven’t you got any hands?” she holds her two small fists up in front of her: “I got fists!”

In Lee Daniels’s Precious, based on Sapphire’s novel Push, Claireece tells her mother, “You won’t see me again.” For me, these words conjured up the term dignity, and I wanted to verify its exact scope. [DIGNITY. A sense of self-worth that inspires respect from others. An attitude of self-respect.]

But it was while watching Frank Perry’s Mommie Dearest, based on Christina Crawford’s book, that I relived entire scenes from my childhood. Some say that the film is more of a grotesque farce than a true account. Personally, I didn’t laugh.

photo © Alessandro Benassi

36/66 NON-FICTION

To be honest, I thought the mother in Mommie Dearest was worse than mine. But on reflection, the odds are that the worst was tempered by our father.

Although he sometimes acted like a third child—someone who needed protection and had extremely limited control over the situation—he still shielded us from … well, I don’t know, what did he shield us from?

He spent twelve hours a day in his practice, which wasn’t financially necessary. As for my mother, she stopped working after a handful of attempts ended in violent conflicts. As a ritual, she and my father would then hire a lawyer and issue letters to intimidate her ex-colleagues.

When our father came home, around eight o’clock, he heated up frozen meals or opened canned food. To make sure our schoolwork was done, he had taught my brother and me to recite our lessons to each other. From time to time, on Sundays, we would go for a walk in the woods while my mother slept. The three of us took care of washing and hanging up the laundry, and grocery shopping. Two housekeepers came to clean the house and iron. As for my mother, she sorted the laundry, period.

Most crucially, my father stayed with us. He remained married to the woman who, when he shared a story, snapped, “Cut to the chase!” He could have divorced her and remarried, but he would have lost custody of us, being less skilled at manipulation than her. No, absolutely, he did a lot for us. Sure, he had his verbal tics, “Let sleeping dogs lie” and “Don’t add fuel to the fire.” Yet I remember something else. Away from prying ears, he occasionally said, “You’re a winner.”

For a long time, I assumed that my mother must suffer deeply from not seeing my brother and me, since we are no longer in contact. When I imagined her feelings, my head spun. I thought, Poor thing, how horrible! She hasn’t seen her two children in years. Years! Her two children! Why didn’t she call or write, if only to pretend to apologize? What I came to believe is that she doesn’t feel that kind of emotion.

To justify the situation, she claims that we’re in a cult. Undeniably, it’s brilliant.

photo © Annie Spratt