My Overbearing Mother and I (Robert Don) – Was It All The Right Love

I was raised with overbearing affection by my mother, so that I felt growing up no one could have loved me more.  She was always there for me, coming to my ballgames, walking me to school, when I was bullied for being a fat little kid, often with kids in my class, and even came with her to adult social functions in synagogues or events with organizations for Holocaust survivors.  I even slept in her bed, often afraid to sleep alone until I was 11 or 12.  But was it really what I had needed –smothering affection that forced me to question for years, and even today, I am often not convinced that I have been able to stand on my own.

My mother

The overbearing affection of my mother, I felt later in life, only left me far more enabled than was healthy.  Growing up, I always considered myself very lazy, both physically and mentally.  I never exercised much, didn’t study hard, and worked part-time for my father delivering cars for his auto wholesale business – dropping

cars off from one used car lot or car dealership to another.  It was just a mindless, cush job.   I blamed my mother for how I perceived myself as being incredibly lethargic.  She never encouraged me to study, or work hard, or aspire to my own independence, really not have to think with my own mind.  It was just growing up being raised that dependent upon her, so I would never leave her.  That was in exchange for my lens of her darkness for my stepmother and father being hers.

I left home when I was eighteen, but I didn’t have another choice.  It was for my own survival, realizing that I couldn’t live with my mother anymore, because of what traumatized her spiraling after the Holocaust, and the overbearing affection that I felt if it still continued, that I’d never be able to take care of myself. I was leaving home to save for my life, knowing that it might take with her.  But,

My German Stepmother on the left

Unrelenting guilt followed me for leaving my mother in her condition, and sometimes, feeling how much she protected me growing up, instead of really seeing that what she was doing was more for her than for me. 

I also was certain that I betrayed my mother when I left, when I began to develop a relationship with her bitter enemy of a lifetime– my German stepmother.  The guilt never left me until something happened, standing next to my stepmother, visiting my mother lying in bed, five weeks before she died.  When my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, my stepmother put aside over two decades of hatred between them and became her primary caretaker.  The childhood trauma that never left me growing up, finally changed after something my mother did, which let me finally absolve the guilt that I couldn’t move past when I left home.   

It's pretty well known for Holocaust survivors that overprotection of their children is common, hearing the stories of how the Nazi’s separated families, murdered children, and any others who couldn’t work before everyone else. But I would never forget that her overprotection was also that she didn’t want me to leave her. How could she be alone after the loss of a large family in the Holocaust, and later in life, a husband whom she probably loved too much? What that must have done to her, probably knowing not long after they were married, that he never loved her.

From Left to right:

I wish that I had never blamed my mother as much as I did for how often, as I grew up, I felt that her affection ruined me, unquestionably more than saved me.  After everything she went through, I’m not certain anyone would have been able to act any differently.    

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