Willow, Venus Pirate 🏳️⚧️Reflections on my relationship with my mother, March 18, 2026
#ThingsYouCantUnsay #AttachmentWounds
So, last week I got confirmation of a bunch of stuff I suspected but didn’t know for certain about my mother. And later today I have therapy.
My mother is perky and helpful.
My mother is a traumatized and insecure mess, who has never confronted either of those things in therapy.
My mother wants everything to be… I’m honestly not sure. But whatever it is, it doesn’t feel like a deeply considered vision. If I had to bet, it would be “comfortable” and that concept would be rooted in the brittle propriety of a tenuous white upper-middle-class upbringing, with plentiful unspoken anxieties about slipping from that perch. I’m not really sure how to relate that to myself, to my own efforts to achieve financial security, to my own efforts to build an emotionally secure and stable nest for my children. I don’t condemn trying to do better by your children, or trying to build safety for yourself… but what does better look like? How do we understand safety? What is stability, in the face of growth? How does community fit into that picture?
1/4
Bernard Aybout
