I would not suggest that the entire Cherokee nation has a problem with speaking harsh words, both to others and internally. And yet that has been my experience. Growing up with my mother I did not have learn how to reprimand myself. Experience as my mother’s daughter bequeathed me a well-developed inner critic.
I have internalized all her sayings, those spoken to me and for my benefit, along with others generalizing life and others.
My bouts with depression and my predisposition to blame myself for everything that goes wrong, the anxiety I feel when experiencing success or receiving a compliment–these all result from the routine of pessimism and doubt that pervaded, shaped and undergirded all she said.
I realize now she doubted herself. She doubted me. She was pessimistic about life, fearful of it. And she was fearful for me.
Some part of me also says that she was most likely afraid of me also.
I did not openly fight my mother. I instead attempted to please her, but on some level I know she sensed my need to escape.
I met the person who would become my husband my very first day at college.
By fall break I was talking of him non-stop.
Looking back, I now realize my mother was bothered by this.
She was losing me.
I was planning my escape.
Fortunately I landed into the arms of a wonderful man who loves me.
It was sad, as daughter to feel the need to free myself of my mother.
Some part of me always felt I had abandoned her to the very misery she had caused in my life and inside me.
_______________________________