It's Mother's Day.
A Holiday, a day to be celebrated, sometimes - for me - a day to dread.
I'm 30 years old and I don't see my Mother too often, maybe twice a year. However, sometimes I've gone years without seeing her. This isn't typical, and some may read the words I type and wonder if I'm a rude or uncaring son. I hope that's not the case.
As with any situation you encounter, beneath the readily perceived surface is an invisible depth of history; a story to reveal the reasons for why I'm not a fan of Holidays, particularly Mother's/Father's Day.
Holidays seem to typically be family-centric, and my experience of family history is an incredibly unpleasant one. I have a YouTube channel through which sometimes I talk about how to increase focus and productivity in your life. There are a lot of factors that can contribute to someone having a lack of focus. Personally, I've had a few: Lyme disease, anxiety, stress, etc.
While recognizing, researching, and correcting some of the contributing factors to my lack of focus & productive in my professional life (which led to a decently successful YouTube channel,) there's something else I've learned very recently that also contributes to this problem: a series of mental structures I've built because of prolonged childhood trauma that primarily occurred in the home. In other words, defense mechanisms that served me in the past and harm me today. I've never written about this online before, and never talked about it during my 10 years on YouTube.
Another symptom of this, also which I've learned only recently, is the life-long development of an avoidant attachment style: primarily with family.
When I text, or call, or am physically present with family, it's as if there's an automated process built within me that begins to shut many of my mental processes down - and - if I attempt to resist this process, experiences of panic and dissociation occur. Not something someone who is educated in Psychology, helping others, wants to be experiencing. The first hand experience certainly adds to my credibility, but takes away from it if it's something I do not address.
Mother's Day in 2019
I've been in psychoanalysis for a year, which has assisted me in realizing some of what I've explained above. I know that the next steps are beyond me learning/studying about my self, my mind, and my problems. The next steps involve experientially confronting the angry Shadow within me and making the strong effort to reconnect/heal with my family within a manageable, yet consistent, pace.
So maybe next year, I can do more than send a text or make a phone call to my Mom.
"You can't give up on family. Never. I mean, what else is there?"
―Donald Margolis to Walter White in S02E12 of Breaking Bad