separation anxiety

My mother and I have begun what I feel is the start of two weeks of fighting, anxiety, hurt feelings, and tears. I always have this hope that it can be different. We began seeing a family therapist this year, and I sometimes feel like it’s the only hope for us. I wish we had him on call, to pull out in tense moments, because I don’t know how to talk to her without a mediator. We both always end up hurt, having said things fueled by emotion, and it seems near impossible to make real progress.

I am leaving the country to live in Korea for the next year, flying out in 12 days. Today at lunch, I nervously sat down with her to look at my calendar, and show her my plans for what days I would be in town, wrapping up my goodbyes, seeing friends, and taking care of final appointments. I feared she would be hurt. I feared she would be angry. I feared she would tell me I wasn’t giving her and my dad enough of my time. I feared she would not understand why the things I had planned were important to me, and that she would make this last two weeks (for awhile!) here in Portland all about her. I feared that my guilt and her ability to manipulate me would convince me to cancel my plans and neglect some of the things I really want for myself in this short time. These fears have been keeping me awake at night.

We began. With each day in the calendar that I explained, I could see her growing more and more agitated and hurt, and expected that she was feeling that I had not prioritized my family enough. This is a schedule that I agonized over and planned with great effort, in hopes to get everything important to me squeezed in, including plenty of family time. This is a schedule I worked out around something she told me weeks ago, which was that my parents really wanted me for the weekends, and week nights would be good times for me to get together with friends. This is a schedule that had me in Beaverton with them for 7 nights, including the remaining weekends, and in Portland for 5.

The conversation went through many stages and spirals, many tears and accusations, many emotions. She said "someday, you will have children, and you will understand. your sister didn’t get it, you don’t get it, and most people your age don’t get it." And later, "What you are doing to us is exactly what my sisters are doing to us. You’re thinking of yourself first and not taking any consideration for your father and I."

her sisters are coming into town this Saturday "without any consideration for us and our schedules, putting themselves and their feelings of guilt before everyone else."

I tried to remain calm. I tried to be sensitive to her feelings and fair to my own. I ended up trying to defend myself, saying "sometimes, mom, I feel like like you want to be the only person in my life. Sometimes, I feel so much guilt whenever I want to spend time with anyone but you."

she was hurt and asked how long I had felt this and if I really did feel this way. I told her "I have always felt this way, whenever a transition is coming, or there is a specific limited amount of time that I am going to be able to spend with you. I remember feeling it whenever I was home from college visiting, and it would happen that I wanted to spend time with friends. I’m feeling it now." She became tearful again and told asked me how I could go so long, so many years without telling her this. She told me this was terrible timing because now she has to "resolve this" on her own, as I am leaving in two weeks, and leaving her with this "mess" to sort through. I told her it isn’t her mess to sort through, this is my own problem that I need to figure out, and maybe I shouldn’t have said anything to her about it. she said as a psychology major, I should know that to try and take something back is just a defense mechanism, and that what’s said is said because it needed to be.

This is so hard. I’m feeling so fatalistic about my relationship with her–like I don’t know how I can ever live up to her expectations of me and also be true to my own wants and needs. I sometimes feel like I want to sever all ties and never come back, it’s just too much work. But I can’t do that. I find myself wishing that she could be more like other people’s mothers that I know, and realize that my life is separate from hers. I am an adult, an individual, and I have my own life. That does not mean that I do not love and appreciate my family, it simply means I have more in my life outside and in addition to them.