I'm Charlene's Son

Let me start with the basics. My mom and dad got pregnant around the end of 1948 and were married on February 27, 1949. My mom was a senior in high school at a Christian school. I graduated from high school with her that year and was born on November 1. My mom was beautiful, smart and talented. She would definitely have been college material, but she really wanted to be a mother, and a miracle, she was one!
My sister and brother arrived in a short time span and soon my mom had her hands full with three children. There were problems. They had started earlier in her life. She was a victim of childhood abuse. Her first attempt to harm herself came at the age of 12 or 13 when she “accidentally” set herself on fire at the stove. She bore the scars of that event all her life.
My alcoholic grandfather was killed in an automobile accident the year I was born. He had wrapped his car around a telephone pole on the way home after a barroom brawl. He was 49. A smart, talented but flawed man who was my mother’s abuser.
Mom couldn’t cope with three children. We spent many afternoons lined up in front of the television while she laid on the couch watching soap operas on television. I was forced to take a nap every day of my life until I was 12 years old. Mom was an equal opportunity spanker. She was willing to use any kitchen utensil, branches from fruit trees, wooden hangers and the belt to impose discipline on her brood. One time she made an accurate throw from the kitchen and caught me mid air between the couch and the chair with a salad spoon. Blood flowed and the cut required stitches. She was frequently sick. When I first went to school, mom went to work and when she developed pain her doctor prescribed prescription percodan.
I’m not sure when I first became aware that she was a drug addict having a difficult time with her life. When I was about 11 I remember getting word at school that she was in the hospital and was going to have brain surgery after suffering a seizure at home. Later I learned that a woman had come to the house and had punched my mom out because she had been sleeping with her husband. When she fell to the ground she suffered a seizure. Brain surgery didn’t find any pathology to explain the symptoms.
It wasn’t long after this that my mom began staging suicide attempts and going in and out of psychiatric units.
These culminated in an especially bloody attempt that landed her in the hospital when I was 15 years old. I was taken home early for spring break from boarding school and found myself home alone at my mom’s house. She was in the LA County hospital recuperating from her slit wrists. I remember being in the bathroom cleaning up my mom’s blood. A series of thoughts went through my mind: My mom wants to be dead; My mom is dead, to me!; I won’t feel anything about the death of my mom.
When I was taken to the hospital to visit her I didn’t feel any “normal” emotions. Yes, she was sick. Yes, she was hurting, but as a self-defense mechanism I had cut off the deep abyss of the pain I felt. Normal anger was cut off. Normal grief was cut off. Normal sadness was cut off. I was left with a deep, and non-caring silence in my heart when it came to my mother.
I’m not sure if this was the beginning of my feelings of inadequacy concerning my ability to “make my mom happy” so she wouldn’t be depressed and kill herself. I am sure that it I was driven to get married at a young age to experience the love that would come from a healthy family. Unfortunately the cut off portions of my emotions made it difficult for me to fully trust myself to love and intimacy. These difficulties have plagued my all of my adult life as I have related to the women in my life. I have been in a cycle where it has felt to me like I have never been able to live up to the expectations of women.
I ended up supporting my mom financially most of my adult life. I observed her self-destructive behavior up close, and in an amazing lack of insight, allowed her to babysit my children. Twenty three years after that memorable afternoon when I was 15 years old, my mom succeeded in taking her own life. She was 58 yrs. old. It was two days before Christmas.
Last year on Mother’s day we were visiting some friends in Central California. On the drive to brunch my friend and I began to talk about my mother. I began to get in touch with a reservoir of feelings. It seemed as though I was driving up to a cliff and the abyss of unresolved emotion was just beyond the edge. I turned to my friend and told him we needed to change the subject because I didn’t have time to deal with what lay just beyond.
For the last couple of months I have been going through an existential crisis and recreating the life I am living in nearly every realm. I am adjusting my work life and starting a new business. I am venturing into new endeavors in ministry and struggling with changes in our home life. I am in touch with the abyss of emotion that the 15 year old boy cut off in self-defense as he cleaned up his mother’s blood.
I am angry with my mother. She cut me off from appropriate mother love at a young age. She neglected me. She abandoned me. She hurt me. This unresolved anger has been just below the surface my entire adult life. I am really furious with her for taking her own life.
I have played the role of the hero and the rescuer, with my mother and in nearly every realm of my life. I like to play the hero. I guess I am hoping that I could somehow save my mother. I have alway tried to please the women in my life and I have failed. My two failed marriages are the result of failed expectations.
I have hidden my true self in plain sight. The inner thought goes: “If they knew the real me, they would reject me.” Do you know that one? Instead of being an extrovert, I have played the introvert. Instead of living the life of a creative, I have settled for the hum-drum. Instead of pursuing the call of God on my life, after failure I have remained on the sidelines. I have held back. I have never revealed my inner soul. Cards kept to the vest I have failed to even play the game of vulnerability. Instead I have projected the facade of invulnerability. To say that this has harmed my relationships is not saying half of the truth.
I went to the movies on Sunday and saw “Country Strong.” I should have read the reviews a little closer and gotten a synopsis of the story. I came out of the film and nearly completely lost control of my emotions with the deep pain I was feeling as we walked out of the mall.
For the last several weeks I have tipped over into fight or flight mode. I know my wife does not know what to make of this emotionally fragile hunk of humanity that used to be her semi-predictable husband. I have ranged from deep sadness to uncontrollable rage. It has to be scary. But I have hope. The “true” me will come out of hiding and emerge into a new and more fulfilling life. Eventually I will stop hurting. I will make peace with my mother who has been dead for 22 years and will therefore make peace with my life. I will have a life based on honesty, transparency and vulnerability.
I will acknowledge: I am Charlene’s son, and thank her, honor her and forgive her. Just not quite yet.