Healing While My Mother Rejects My Path
Aloha. I’m struggling with my relationship with my mother and I’d love some perspectives. I grew up with her (my father died when I was little). It was not easy, because I saw her struggling with anger. I thought it was normal to have a mother always angry, sometimes she was violent physically and often emotionally. I thought I always deserved it. Meeting friends and my partner, going to therapy, I recently realized how emotionally aggressive she was and still is with me. She always wanted me to follow a traditional career path, and when I left engineering to work in women’s healing, things got worse. I'm struggling and I don't know what to do. She goes from warm to very harsh often, I never know how to react. She says I’ve changed, that she doesn’t recognize me, since I chose this professional path. She tells me God and my aunts think my behavior is wrong, that she don't want to see me again, then call me like nothing happened.. I’m animist, she's Catholic, and she criticizes my spiritual choices, the relationship with my ancestors. At the same time, she expects me to be there constantly as she ages, and when I try, things end badly and she says I’m not supportive enough. I come from a culture where the mother-daughter bond is sacred, so I feel a lot of guilt in my heart and I want to help her as she is getting old… but I also need to protect myself because I don't feel free to be around her. I don’t know how to have a healthy relationship with her or find peace, respecting my ancestors in the process. Any advice or personal experiences would be really appreciated. Mahalo 🌺 Doris