This is a personal essay written by the author, sharing their individual journey and experiences. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this piece belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MyndStories. This essay has not been professionally vetted or reviewed for clinical accuracy.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” — Carl Gustav Jung

Whenever I am entirely with myself, I feel like I am searching for ‘thee.’ Today, during one of my morning walks, as I was internalizing the heavenly blue sky with patches of light gray clouds, I again caught myself searching for ‘you.’ I wondered about this ‘you.’ Is this ‘you’ really ‘you,’ or am I looking for something else—my mother’s love and warmth, my father’s smile, or my brother’s companionship?

I have led a very unconventional life, and coming from a conventional family, I never felt I fit in that world. As a child, I used to ask questions that my parents and other family members either dismissed as silly or were uncomfortable answering. I dared to challenge different beliefs and rituals. Unlike the adults around me, I was not afraid of death. Rather, I was drawn towards it. Among my peers, too, I figured out I was different. Because of that, I started loving being alone rather than spending energy on things that felt mindless or insignificant.

I don’t know at what age I stopped being a child who was carefree and untainted by adult-like worries.

The longing for love

Moreover, I cannot remember a moment when I felt ‘loved’ by my mother. Though she took care of my material needs very diligently, my brother and I felt as if we had a governess around. She showered all her motherly love upon my brother. Still, he kept leaning on me for love and warmth. As far as I was concerned, I am unable to recall any instance when she caressed me or even put her hand on my head in blessing or appreciation.

There seemed to be a disconnection in how she touched me, in the way she looked at me, in the tone of her voice when she spoke to me. She used to have constant issues with my father if she found him favoring me—even in small ways.

Finding mirrors in cinema

Years passed, and I entered university. I had left home by then, as the conflicts with my mother had reached another high. I felt suffocated in that home, and even with my father, I had started feeling a disconnection since becoming an adolescent and being firm in my decisions.

I was watching Ingmar Bergman’s seminal movie Autumn Sonata many years later. The conflict between Eva, the daughter, and Charlotte, the mother, made me think again about my relationship with my mother. I searched for the mother-daughter relationship from a psychoanalytical perspective and came across the ‘Mother Complex,’ an interesting concept by Carl Jung.

It increased my curiosity, eventually leading to my writing a research article titled “Transmitting emotional insecurities and dissatisfaction through uncut umbilical cord in Autumn Sonata.” In Charlotte and Eva, I saw the reflections of my mother and myself. It was as if I were watching scenes from my own life being replayed.

The uncut cord

The fears, insecurities, and dissatisfaction of Charlotte percolating to Eva were exactly similar to what passed from my mother to me. I came closer to understanding my mother as an individual. It was, in many ways, a cathartic movie for me, and I thought I had finally closed the gap with my mother.

But though I understood the dynamics of the ‘Mother Complex’ and its effects on my mother and me, I could not comprehend its effect on my other relationships throughout my adulthood. I could not delve deeper into my psyche objectively.

I could not imagine that the collective crippling effects of my mother’s reactions had turned me into someone else. While trying to disconnect and reconnect with her, I couldn’t realize that I had lost touch with the real ‘me.’ The umbilical cord was still uncut, nourishing me not with life, but with self-destruction.

Transgenerational echoes

Until then, I had not fully understood the effects of transgenerational trauma. I started deliberating more on it, studying more, and focusing inwardly. Gradually, I could see a tiny ray of light at the end of the tunnel. My myopic vision started to extend beyond the darkness.

I could see that my story was interwoven with my mother’s—and hers with her mother, and so on. I had inherited my mother’s inherited fears, feelings, and behaviors (though subtly altered). I had always thought it was only my father who influenced me. But this opened up something I had not seen.

A pattern passed down

Psychoanalyst John Bowlby and developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth concluded that the bond developed between a child and a mother or primary caregiver affects the child’s relationships with others later in life. The more secure the bond is, the more attuned the individual becomes in relationships.

My mother never talked about her mother. But from what I’d heard, I figured out that the bond between them was not very strong. My grandmother had died of cancer, and my mother had an extreme fear of death—unlike me.

She had always been insecure about my father’s, my brother’s, or even sometimes my emotional attachment to others. It was as if she were clinging to them. Her attachment style seemed to be both anxious and avoidant. She couldn’t tolerate criticism or rejection. She could never admit that she needed help. She had an extremely positive view of herself, and a negative view of others.

The cycle, broken

My relationships had, time and again, proven to be extremely isolating and painful. It was a recurring cycle, where I promised myself each time that I wouldn’t repeat it—only to fall into the same pattern again.

The intense yearning for safety blinded me to a fundamental truth: safety resided within me all along. I was on a relentless quest for something external—as if I were searching for ‘thee’—when in reality, the source of safety was always “I.”

After coming to terms with my search and its roots, I had to erase the epigenetic signature of fear and insecurity. The fear that I wouldn’t be loved had to be stopped from echoing further down the generation. As I didn’t have the option to resolve the conflict with my mother, I accepted her fears and insecurities.

How could she give me what she never received? I saw clearly that I had been carrying fears that didn’t belong to me. I had shared an unconscious obligation to heal her pain.

Letting go

This unconscious attempt to heal my mother had affected the way I knew myself. It had affected the choices I made. It had affected how my mind and body responded to the world around me.

In rejecting my mother, I had unconsciously distanced myself from all the elements associated with mothering—safety, security, nurturance, and care. These were always what I felt missing in my life.

The cycle broke the moment I recognized that not everything I carried was mine. It helped me become more mindful of my behavioral patterns. I visualized a world where I could leave those feelings with my mother and receive her love and blessings. I could not change her—but I could change the way I held her inside me.

I had finally succeeded in creating a new narrative—and embarked on a journey to my own healing.

“Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you and becoming who you are.”— Rachel Naomi Remen