Mommy Issues, Revisited

On this day two years ago, I published a personal essay detailing my fraught relationship with my mother and history of maternal abuse. At the time that essay was written, my relationship with my mother had been slowly and meticulously repaired over a period of time and effort and no small amount of graciousness on my part. Ultimately, I had decided that I wanted a mom more than I wanted reparations. And it helped that I did have good memories with her, moments where she was affectionate and supportive in a way that convinced me that she was a Matryoshka doll, with the gentle-handed mother I’d always dreamed of hidden beneath the layers of vitriol and rage. I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder–the same disease which ruled her throughout my adolescence. It is never an easy thing to be told that you are not always at the steering wheel of your own mind, and I had seen the damage my mother’s careless driving caused. I had felt the damage, again and again. I will probably be feeling the damage for the rest of my life.

Last Mother’s Day, my mother and I watched Steel Magnolias, a 1989 film about a close group of women in small-town Louisiana. Two of the women are a mother-daughter duo, played by Sally Field and Julia Roberts. The film follows the group for a little over a year, beginning with Shelby’s (Julia Roberts) wedding. Some months later, she announces that she is pregnant, to her mother…