Earliest Memory  − June, 1968

I was sitting on the floor of my room.  My mother stood above me.  I looked up at my dresser and lamp.  I asked my mother, “Am I nice?”  I don’ remember her answer.  But later, I found it disturbing that I had to ask.

When I was much older, I learned from my father and stepmother that my mother was mentally ill.  They told me that my mother had abused me.  They thought the abuse was probably psychological rather than physical.

Later, I learned that my mother had had a volatile temper.  She would rage at my father and smash plates on the floor.  She made numerous suicide attempts.  One day, my father sensed something ominous in her voice when she called him at work.  He rushed home to find her locked in the bathroom threatening suicide.  Realizing the danger of leaving her alone with a toddler, he called the authorities, who forcibly carried her away.

She was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward.  She was diagnosed as manic-depressive, more commonly referred to as “bipolar” today.  My father fought desperately to get sole custody of me.  It was not easy.  He had to convince the court that she was incapable of being a parent. In the end, my mother gave up all parental rights to me.

When I re-connected with her as an adult, I had the privilege of reading her diary.  I learned that she had not wanted me. When I was born, she did not want to take me home from the hospital.  Because of me she wouldn’t be able to have a career.  She would have to stay at home to take care of me instead.

I also learned from her diary that the time when she had been institutionalized was very painful for her.  She wrote vividly enough for me to feel empathy for her terrible pain, despite the damage she had done to me. 

My mother’s diary told of the horrors she endured as a child.  Her father was a raging alcoholic who beat his children and wife.  I could not imagine what that would be like, but I knew that it must have scarred her for life.

It was during our relationship as adults that I began to forgive her.  There are many possible reactions to being hurt.  One of them is to deeply empathize with people who have been hurt.  Somehow, through the deep hurts I had endured, I had learned compassion, and was able offer it to the one who had hurt me.