DREAM TITLE: I Am My Mother’s Mother
It was a factory setting. My mother and her husband were there, although her husband was faceless. We were consulting a doctor concerning different medical tests, in which a pregnancy test was the most prominent. She had taken a home pregnancy test that turn out positive and I was insisting she take one with the doctor to confirm that it wasn't just hormonal. I was very insistent because she had no reproductive organs both in real life and in the dream. I remember I repeated a few times that she had no organs to give birth with anymore, but it didn't seem odd until I woke up.
The husband was more in the background, trying to be supportive but that was all. After a lot of arguing (she had always been very stubborn) she finally mentioned that she already had taken a pregnancy test from another doctor. I remember being very angry that she couldn't have just been straight forward with that information instead of giving me a hard time. I collapsed onto a couch very upset, saying something along the lines of proving something because I loved her so much.
I don't remember what I said, but I remember the emotions I was feeling, anger, love, frustration. So strong were those emotions that it woke me up.
My mother passed away in September 2009. She isolated herself so much from everyone that it was two weeks before anyone found her. She had been mentally ill most of her life and I was the 'mother' for most of mine, taking care of her and my brother. I’m trying to keep our family together. I am now almost 30 years old. For 3 years I had stayed away from her in hopes to have my own life. In the dream, I felt concern, frustration, love, anger. I am on sick leave for depression
WHAT THIS DREAM MEANS – A TIME TO HEAL
It's a story of how someone's self analysis tells them something new is emerging, which another disputes because a mechanism for what is new no longer exists, and wants experts to confirm that is so. After a struggle the person insists the expert is not needed because one was already consulted which leaves the other angry and frustrated that information had been withheld unnecessarily but then acknowledging that their efforts, though seemingly wasted, had been done out of love.
The dream sounds like the story of your life with your mother, in an intense nutshell. You spent your life trying to take care of her, and yet, because she was mentally ill, that was an impossible task (as in the seemingly wasted efforts in the dream).
The dream is an effort by your own psyche to help you heal. It starts by "summarizing" the nature of your interactions with her. Though it may have been a relief at some level when she died, because it had been such a difficult burden for you (as it would be for any child to be in that position, to take care of their own unstable parent), you may not have grieved. The dream is pointing out another deep truth, that you need to accept and "own" in order to heal and to move on. It points out that no matter how frustrating that role was for you, and how difficult (no doubt often leaving you feeling angry and frustrated and alone and unloved, for good reason - you were a child needing a parent yourself), nevertheless, the truth is that she was your mother and at a deep gut level, you loved her.
Likely, though you did have to separate yourself for those few years before she died, in order to find yourself and build a healthy life (and that WAS a good thing to do), when she died alone, it's very possible that those buried feelings of love also kicked in a good share of emotional guilt.
It sounds to me like you acted wonderfully from start to finish. Yet feelings are feelings. She was your mother and you loved her. The healing, the true healing, in yourself, for your own sake, will come when you see that and simply accept it. You were not to blame for how she died, and the fact that she died alone. In her mental illness, that was the lifestyle she wanted and needed. So she had the life she wanted.
Let it all be. Acknowledge that no one was to blame, not her, nor you. It was just the way things were. You did the best you could, it was right for you to move along. She died, she died alone, but it was fine. It was the right circumstance for her.
You need to concentrate on letting the ghosts of the difficult childhood heal. Take the time to find a talented therapist who can walk the walk with you. It's easier shared with someone who knows how to light the path home.
Dreamer’s Response: Thank you for this. It is truly appreciated.
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