My Mother’s Bullying Story (A Personal Story)

Writing an autobiography is very difficult, because not only do you need to know about yourself, but it forces you to confront the people in your life that know you best. A few months ago, I shared my father’s story, which was difficult. This week, I share my mother’s story, which is equally as difficult to read for me, but important about home abuse and early childhood trauma. My mother is a strong woman with great confidence. Asking her to recall her own situation was one of the harder things I had to do for my autobiography. The book, “A Ladder In The Dark: My Journey from Bullying to Self-acceptance”, should be released in the summer and I am looking for help. If you can help, even a little, go to my link at my new business website at: http://bullyingrecovery.org/fundraising/. I am in need of any help you can offer and I hope you get some lessons from my mother’s story below. I love you, Mom. ~Alan Eisenberg

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My mother as a young girl in days long gone by

Lately I have been thinking about bullying.  It does not have to come from other peers.  I was bullied by my mother.  Don’t get me wrong I loved my mother, but I had the feeling that she didn’t love me.  Nothing I ever did was good enough for her.  I will give you the following example:

First some background, when I was 7 years old my father died at the young age of 35 from cancer.  This was very traumatic for both my mother and for me.  She had to go to work to support my brother (who was 3 at the time) and me.  I was forced to grow up quicker than the peers around me.  I developed a shield of confidence and carefreeness while inside I was insecure and angry.  OK, now the story.  I decided to help my mother by dusting the house for her so she would be able to enjoy her weekend.  I worked as hard as I knew how to clean and polish the tables that we had.  When she came home from work I proudly announced that I had dusted the house so that she wouldn’t have to.  She looked around and pointed to a “cobweb” in the upper corner of the room and said “You missed that”.

I never dusted for her again.

It hurt badly.

I swore that I would never do that to my children and worked hard not to.

I was also bullied by my father’s mother (my paternal grandmother).  She would wait for me after school and whisper to me (at age 7) that my mother killed my father by giving him cancer.  I, of course, would go home and accuse my mother.  This resulted in my having to go to a child psychiatrist for a time.  We eventually moved away and the problem resolved itself.

I guess I have been carrying this baggage around with me for quite some time and have just recently come to terms with it thanks to my son asking me to write some of my thoughts down.

A quick story about ESP and Alan or that family psyche connection we all have.

When I went back to work in Lexington, Alan and Robyn would call me when they got home so I knew that they were safe.  One day I had this overwhelming feeling that I had to go home, something was wrong!  I told my boss that I had to leave.  When I got home I found Alan outside the house crying.  He had lost his key.  No one called me, I just knew. (Yes, this really did happen and to this day I believe that we have a much greater energy connection due to these stories. For example, have you ever picked up the phone before it rang to call someone and they are on the other end, because they called you at the exact same moment. I’m sure statistically, that is very unlikely, but it happens all the time. ~Alan).

~Carol Eisenberg