This is going to hurt. But it has to be done.

Today was a therapy day. During my session, some thoughts about my mother spilled out, thoughts I didn’t even know I had in me till I said them, and I immediately knew I had hit paydirt in the strictly therapeutic sense of the word.

Thing is, I love my mother. She is the best person in the world to me. Everything about me that I like comes from her. Of all four of us kids, I feel like she and I are the most alike.

She is sweet, and kind, and gentle, and shy. She taught me to love animals and nature and books. I think part of the reason I turned out to be such a bright kid is her gentle encouragement of my intellect. When I was a kid, if I asked her a question and she didn’t know the answer, she would say “let’s find out!” and we’d look it up together in our big fat encyclopedia/dictionary.

She read Huckleberry Finn, both Alice books, and all of the Chronicles of Narnia to me when I was a wee sprog She filled the house with cats (well OK, that was mostly the cats’ idea) and taught me to never hold them against their will and never trap them (except for trips to the vet) and to care for them like the wonderful fuzzy little individuals that they were.

She was a wonderful mother to me… at least until she went back to work and left me with a babysitter.

But looking back now, I feel like there was something… missing. Something I am struggling to define. It was never that she lacked warmth, exactly. She’s a very warm person, in fact.

And yet there is a distance to that warmth, a subtle separation, and above all, a powerfully intellectual core to it. There is light and delight and affection in it, but not a deep emotional connection in the full sense of the word. There is just something missing.

And as I type about it, I keep thinking about how we were never that close a family. Not the way other families are close. In our family, it was always just assumed that we would show up for meals but otherwise we would just do our own thing, whatever that may be.

We did the occasional thing as a family, but the older I got, the less often we did anything like that.

The meals tapered off too.

OF course, that all seemed normal at the time. All families are normal from the inside.

But I never felt like my parents were there for me. I was an ignored and neglected kid, and a big part of that was having nobody to protect me and guide me. I was looked after with the detachment of a pet who has outlived its cuteness.

Sure, they made sure I had water and food and a bed. And of course, I wagged my tail like crazy every time they paid attention to me. So I must be fine, right?

I even told them I was fine, because I knew that was what they wanted to hear. They didn’t want to hear about the terror and boredom at school and how at times I wanted to die just so I wouldn’t have to go back.

I was supposed to just tell them everything was fine so they could go back to taking me for granted and I would fade into the woodwork again.

And my mother was as much a part of that as my father. I spent my whole life in a polarized home, where Mom was Good and Dad was Bad, and so it’s far more natural for me to blame my father for everything.

It is much harder for me to acknowledge my mother’s shortcomings, but she bears responsibility too. She could have saved me from my loneliness and despair, but by the time I started school (sans kindergarten), she was teaching again and I was just… still around.

My siblings were there before me and already excelled at dividing my parents’ attention between them, leaving nothing behind for little old me. My parents were already older than most young parents when I, the Accidental Child, showed up, and they already had three kids who had worn them out. I wasn’t part of anyone’s plans and frankly, they didn’t know what to do with me.

Three kids plus a career is enough for anyone, right?

Me and my Dad were never close. I was always too scared of him for that. So I can’t really say that he neglected me. If anyone neglected me, it was here.

There, I’ve said it. My mother neglected me. My mother. Mary Elizabeth Bertrand, neglected me.

Even just typing that feels like a profound betrayal, even though she’ll never read it. When you grow up in a household with a Good Parent and a Bad Parent, a Princess and an Ogre, you have to put all your faith in the Good Parent. You believe in them with all your heart because they are all you have, and children will believe in absolutely any parent rather than believe in their own abandonment.

The truth is, though, that she could have done a lot better.

I grew up feeling very small and alone and unimportant. I felt like I had to apologize just for existing and that everyone would have been happier if I went away and wasn’t their problem any more.

Then they could go back to how everything was before I rudely showed up, unannounced and uninvited, and screwed up everything just be being alive.

It was bad enough that I was there at all. I certainly could not expect any warmth or attention. That would just remind them I was there, and I wasn’t supposed to be there.

And there was one competent adult in my life who could have saved me, but she was too wrapped up in her job and the other three kids to even notice me.

My mother left me out in the cold.