Helpless and Hopeless

by Charity

When we were little and had trouble doing something, our mother would say to us, "Are you helpless, or are you hopeless?"  That was one of the most awful things that she could have said to us.

It's true that she didn't intend to hurt us.  But she did hurt us, even if she didn't realize it.  What parent calls a child helpless and hopeless, even without the intent to hurt?  How could she not realize that those were hurtful words?

We didn't have a proper foundation to deal with the world.  Not emotionally, not socially, not in any way.  When we entered nursery school at age three and a half, we didn't talk there for at least six months.  And when we did talk, our mother told us later, the teachers commented on what a deep voice we had.  Again, what parent says this to a child?  Did she not realize that the most important issue was the reason why we didn't talk, not the pitch of our voice?  How could she be so unaware?

It doesn't matter that she had a terrible childhood in any ways.  As a parent, she was responsible for her own choices.  Her mother was domineering as a grandparent as well, and she did still use words in hurtful ways, but she never had the power to force our mother to do things her way.  Our mother was an adult by then, even if she didn't feel like one.

I know that all of this isn't as simple as I wish it were.  It would be very easy to blame our mother entirely and not acknowledge that she did try, that there were things that she did accomplish.  But we can't ignore the mistakes that she made, the choices that she made without truly understanding their implication.  She approached parenting as a chance to be a better parent than her own mother was.  But it's hard for us not to believe that our mother's motivation to was based at least in part in wanting to relive her own childhood through us.  And that kind of motivation is never a good enough reason to become a parent.

And right now we're stuck in all this residual anger, anger that we can't direct at anyone.  Our mother has been gone for nearly 14 years, and our grandmother has been gone for nearly eight years.  We've been in therapy for 15 and a half years straight, and we're still dealing with the awful pain that lies at the root of our problems.  It's hard to believe that we'll ever heal, that we can ever heal.  And that's why we feel helpless and hopeless.