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Yes, it’s that time of year again, a day that fills many with dread. It’s been called the worst day of the year by some, while others rank it just below Christmas and Thanksgiving. On this second Sunday in May, the culture goes on treacle overdrive with cards loaded with sparkle and roses, declaring “World’s Best Mom” and “No greater love than a Mother’s.” Those of us who are still in contact with our unloving or downright toxic mothers often end up wandering the store aisles, looking for something that won’t betray our inner selves with little luck. As one reader put it: “I hate hate hate this holiday. Yes, I love the wobbly cards my two small kids give me, but the Queen demands a command performance, and it just zaps me every year.” Those who’ve gone no contact often resort to more furtive methods, dodging questions about their Sunday plans and hoping to distract themselves until the clock chimes midnight, and it’s thankfully Monday again.
Feeling like the only one . . . but you’re not
The reason Mother’s Day makes the unloved daughter feel as awful as she does is that terrible sense of being singled out, like the only girl on the planet whose mother didn’t love her. As I have written before, I’ve come to realize that this feeling of being different than everyone else in a very specific way is almost as damaging as the lack of maternal love itself. Beginning in childhood, the only defense against this profound sense of belonging to no one—after all, if your own mother doesn’t love you, who will?—is denial and hopefulness. The child reassures herself that her mother is no different from other mothers, or perhaps that she doesn’t mean the things she says; that denial can last for decades into adulthood. As to hopefulness, the child always believes that there’s a magic formula that will make her mother love her or will allow the child to fix her flaws so that her mother can love her; that hopefulness doesn’t seem to come with an expiration date for most.
Feeling that she doesn’t belong can stain almost all the emotional connections the unloved daughter forges as an adult; it can absolutely co-exist with the triumph of building her own loving family, which is everything that her own family of origin wasn’t.
The reality is that estrangement isn't nearly as rare or unusual as most people think; it's just a closely guarded secret. While there are certainly happy and genuinely connected families, dysfunction is way more common than the Mother's Day ads would have you believe.
4 ways to deal when you’re in contact or have gone low contact
It may be hard to keep an even emotional keel with the tsunami of cultural messages, so first and foremost, work on managing your emotions as well as your expectations. This is one Sunday in the whole year, and yes, you can get through it in one piece.
1. Don’t engage in magical thinking.
If you’re still hopeful that somehow there’s a way to repair or change your relationship with your mother, try not to go there on this specific Sunday. If you’re still in the mode of trying to please, have realistic expectations and please remember that the reunion scene in which Mom has the major epiphany usually only happens in the movies.
2. Set boundaries.
Remember that you are an adult, and no one can push your buttons unless you allow them to. Make plans keeping what you can best manage in mind; if there’s a family gathering at which the usual games and favoritism will be played, think about how you will react ahead of time. There’s no need to be confrontational, but do remember that you have a say in how other people treat you. Abusive behavior is never okay, not even on Mother’s Day.
3. Don’t do more than you think you can pull off.
With the world talking about how wonderful and loving mothers are, it’s really easy to feel guilty and ungrateful; when you start thinking about how she clothed, sheltered, and fed you (things she was obligated to do by law), you are losing the battle against guilt. If you feel you must celebrate her, keep it manageable; you don’t want to create more drama by overextending yourself.
4. Recognize your ambivalence.
Don’t get sucked into the hype and feel as though you are required to put on a show, because it’s Mother’s Day; think about what you want to do for your mother and what is shaping your thinking. If you’re curtailing contact to a phone call or a card without a call, remind yourself of the reasons you’ve chosen that particular route. You may still be in the process of resolving what I call “the core conflict” in my book, Daughter Detox: Recovering from an Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life; I define the core conflict as the tug of war between your growing recognition of your mother’s abusive or toxic treatment of you and your continuing need for her love and support. In this context, being ambivalent is normal and doesn’t carry either guilt or shame with it, despite what the culture says.
4 things to do if you’ve gone no contact
I vividly remember being in my 20s and estranged from my mother and struggling through that Sunday while all of my friends were out and about, celebrating their moms; I ached with loneliness, seeing those mother-daughter pairs, having brunch and laughing in the trendy restaurants on the then newly hip Upper West Side. I sometimes imagine my younger self watching my older self with my now adult daughter, feeling jealous as hell.
No contact doesn’t heal you; it only gives you room to think and breathe. That’s why, even though you’ve chosen to estrange yourself, Mother’s Day may still hurt. Following are some strategies to get through the day.
1. Don’t take on the shame, despite cultural pressure.
This isn’t yours to own, because you were powerless to change your mother’s treatment of you; it was always about her and never about you, especially when you were young and living under her roof. Your mother’s job was to love, support, and meet your emotional needs, and she didn’t do it. You were powerless to change the relationship in childhood and later, and going no contact is further proof that you’re still powerless. You can only change yourself, not someone else.
2. Use the day to grieve the mother you deserved.
Mourning is an active part of healing as I understand it, and Mother’s Day is the perfect time to summon up the mother you wanted, needed, and should have had. Visualize this mother, drawing on the qualities you associate with caring, kindness, and attunement, and then write about her if you like. You will experience a different sense of loss by doing this, one that puts your needs center-stage and underscores their legitimacy.
3. Focus on your healing and work on self-compassion.
Use this day to celebrate how far you’ve come, and to be kind and loving to yourself. One exercise from my book has been a favorite for many readers; choose a photograph of you at a younger age (it can be infancy, childhood, or anything else), and spend time looking at it as a stranger might. What do you see in that girl that your mother didn’t? Your sense of both your worthiness and your gifts will become clearer and clearer.
4. Fête yourself.
Yes, celebrate you in all of your complexity and imperfection by doing something you love or buying yourself a meaningful gift: If you have children, this won’t supersede any of their festivities; this is you for you. Show how much you value yourself, and mean it.
And in the worst case, remember that Sunday will turn into Monday. It always does.
