…the principle of seeking acceptance, or about children and their mothers

The experience of my psychotherapeutic practice with each new case leads to an extremely unpleasant conclusion: “…not every woman who has a child becomes a mother”.

Yes, it is precisely these extremely disappointing conclusions that I want to share with you.

The physiological act of birth is a miracle, which, due to some quite incomprehensible circumstances, a human being comes into contact with. I can call it the Mystery of “life before life” with full responsibility in my wording. In this Mystery, a woman witnesses the maturation and development of a child in her own womb. Moreover, I am deeply convinced that this Mystery will never be revealed to humanity. We will approach It, but we are always condemned to be in short supply, being able to reproduce it. Sometimes it seems to me that artificial insemination is nothing short of this Mystery of “life before life”, where everything seems so transparent and clear but the result, as always, depends on the Other.

Every woman is “programmed” to bear a child and, of course, to get in touch with the Mystery of “life before life”. However, as experience shows, thoughts about a child and a child in reality may not come into contact at all. So, life itself, literature, art, and, of course, the practice of psychotherapy argue that there are often women who completely lack even an ” assumption” of the possibility of pregnancy while being quite sexually active.

The consequences of this fact are the formation of certain features in the love life of adults who in childhood had such a, let us call a “biological” mother, who never found a psychic connection with them. Of course, we are talking about the mother-child relationship.

I am not supposed to argue with the classics, devoting many works, experiments and various deductions to this question. I will say one thing, the bond with the mother is always present and never disappears. The question is whether she gave herself to the child so much that once she formed this connection, she would forever make his inner world a source of his security and vitality. Or has she, by denying it, permanently distorted everything that we in ordinary life would call “human love”?

What are the consequences of the mother’s absence in the child’s life as the subject who “gives” her inner world and builds relationships of kinship and unity with her from the first moments of her life?

The fundamental concepts of life most affected are:

1. Love is always suffering in which painful pleasure and suffering pleasure are sought. And most importantly, neither of these can be abandoned. For example, the relationship in the family is extremely destructive, violent and rejecting, and one of the two sees it all and knows everything and, of course, it is not difficult to guess who, because it is he who categorically refuses to admit it to himself.
2. Denied sexuality. The prohibition of the right to desire, which gives rise to excessive self-hidden aggression, is a substitute for human sexuality as a property of pleasure and enjoyment. Excessive aggression and sometimes sadism is the underlying strategy for relating to oneself and the world. It fills the person’s totality, and he reduces all interactions and communications to either sadism towards the other person or masochism towards the self. For example, a woman has a relationship with someone who always negatively attacks her body.
3. an inexhaustible thirst for sexual acts and a constant build-up of ‘variety’, often enough to border on life-threatening sexual perversions.
4. An inner fear of a truly loving relationship, and a perfect calm and acceptance of any form of ignorant self-abuse.
5. Sacrifice and a deep ‘clinging’ to another who gives even a little bit of emotional attachment, care, and intimacy.

And, of course, in deep bewilderment, the question arises, who is this woman who gave birth to a child but never found motherhood?

You will recognize her:

– in the excessive, sometimes to the point of “gag reflex” care with a grin on her lips;

– in the stories and achievements of her children, which exclude the vitality and beingness of the story itself. Simply put, the story is a collection of her deeds, impressions, daydreams and dreams, but it is not at all about the child;

– in the absence of the child’s name in the address to the child. It’s the name as an extra burden, which is extremely difficult to spell out;

– in the lack of descriptions of her child’s most exciting features, her eyes (her colour, expression, brightness, etc.), her hands (what fingers, what palms), her most comfortable body postures and the whole range of her beauty. She has never noticed this, and when asked about her own child’s body, there are general words empty of both meaning and emotion;

– she has no emotional orientation of her needs towards her child because she has no emotions or needs towards her child.

Yes, we say about the man’s physical and social presence in the child’s life. But we will never talk about the psychic reflection and perception of the child by the man because such women have no reaction or perception with the mission of motherly affection, care and love towards the child they carried in their womb.

And to conclude. Not only do these women not change their “attitude” towards their adult children in old age, quite the opposite. They continue to abuse them, using verbs and comparisons from the past, trying to prove to them, their “emotional orphans”, that they have never achieved anything and never come to anything. And even standing in front of the front door to death, they are not afraid of their absent gaze on their outcast children.

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