It sounds like you have tried to get help in so many ways, yet nothing has worked for you. That must be incredibly frustrating. There is no question that being left by a parent is painful. You are entitled to feel anger and hurt, though I hear you say that you don’t want to feel that way anymore, that you want to let it go. If you want to let it go, you will need to find a way to forgive your mother. When we forgive, we actually release ourselves, not the other person. Your mother is still responsible for the choices she made. Forgiveness does not mean that you are OK with her choices or that you condone them. You can’t change the facts of her choices, but you do have an opportunity to change what those choices mean to you.
There is no quick fix for these kinds of feelings, and the strategies that work will vary from person to person. Some people respond well to mindfulness work, whereas some people find cognitive behavioral approaches (REBT in particular) most impactful. I can offer you a couple of strategies to try, though in my experience, working through these strategies with the help of a professional is most effective.
The strategies I can suggest involve reframing how you tell your stories. Right now, you tell your story about how your mom left you when you were 16. My hunch is that each time you tell it, you may re-experience some of the emotions of loss, anger, confusion, or grief that you felt at the time. This can reinforce those feelings of hurt and keep them activated. The first step to making a shift is to start telling the story from the third person rather than first. Become a neutral observer watching the events. Instead of saying, “My mom left me …” you narrate the story, saying, “The mother left her daughter and the family …” By approaching your story this way, you start to get some emotional distance from the events and they aren’t quite as triggering. You may notice details that you didn’t pay attention to before. This is the first step.
When you are ready, you can try telling the story from the points of view of others—other people in your family, and eventually your mother. Consider what they were thinking and feeling, how they made the choices they made, how they saw events. By taking on the perspective of others, it can sometimes shift how we feel about a set of events. Again, I’d recommend that you do this with the support of a therapist who can help guide you through this process.
Another approach I’d like to mention is re-parenting work. Again, I strongly recommend doing this with therapeutic support. The main goal of re-parenting is to go back to the time when you felt abandoned, hurt, and let down, and to allow yourself to feel deeply while also becoming the loving parent to yourself you wish you’d had. Allowing yourself to fully experience and feel the pain of your abandonment is the key to healing here. You learn to offer yourself the unconditional love and support you wanted from your mom. You learn to nurture yourself and heal those deep, painful wounds which can ultimately allow you to release the anger you’ve been holding on to. This approach can be intense, and it is important to find a professional you trust to help guide you through the process.
Best of luck,
Erika
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