The birth of two nephews recently caused me to remember how utterly the birth of my daughter affected my life.

Having a child affects every parent, but I think that for survivors of child abuse, the changes are especially profound.

I’ve talked with several women who are abuse survivors with children of varying ages.

We’ve talked about the ways we changed our lives in order to care for our children. However imperfectly we did things, we know that we did better than our parents, changed destructive behaviors and started or continued healing because it was of utmost importance for the health and safety of our children.

Whether or not our parents were capable of loving us or expressing that love, as parents ourselves we found our love propelling us to different behaviors.

When my daughter was born I had no idea that I had been abused and was still in an abusive relationship with my parents.

I had strange fears for her safety that made no sense given what I thought my life experience had been. Years later when my memories of abuse surfaced my recurrent fears finally made sense.

Because I had been abused and was still involved in abusive situations, I did put my daughter at risk and left her in situations that should not have happened. When I have thought of this in ensuing years it is perhaps the hardest thing in my life for which to forgive myself. Not being in control of my life, being in a position of utter powerlessness, seems like no excuse, seems like it can’t ever be resolved in my heart. I am still coming to terms with it.

By age 22 I was a single parent. I was in great emotional turmoil and pain and acted out a lot. I was aware at the time of putting the brakes on my crazy behavior because I knew I had to care for my child.

There were many times when I was extremely depressed and wanted to die; I couldn’t see how anything would ever get better.

What still amazes me is that however badly I felt about myself, I always had the sense that I was a better parent for my daughter than her father and that I had to stay alive to care for her.

I had to learn better ways of dealing with my daughter because of how she responded to what I did. When she was four, she knocked over the Christmas tree for the second time. When I said I’d kill her she responded by telling me that I couldn’t kill her because then she’d be dead. From then on I eliminated “I’m gonna kill you” from my vocabulary.

Joining Parents Anonymous, a support group for parents under stress, helped me learn new ways of coping with my daughter and treating her appropriately. Still, it took years for me to stop swearing at her and calling her names.

The biggest changes occurred when I started remembering my own abuse. I started confronting my hugely inappropriate behaviors with my daughter, looking at the causes of my rage that were so out of proportion with anything she had ever done, and began withdrawing from my family who were abusing both of us.

The advent of my memories began a terribly painful period of my life, that lasted for several years. One of the biggest impetuses I had to keep going with the healing process, when it just seemed more than I could humanly do, was that I wanted better for my daughter.
I wanted to be a better mother, I wanted her to know that there was hope and healing for whatever she might realize she had been through, I wanted to change for the generations to come. I wanted my daughter to have a sane, loving mother.

While I don’t know how sane I am even today I do know that I have the courage, and it takes a lot in the face of my fear of her possible rejection, to tell her how much I love her, how proud I am of her, how important my child is to me.

This column is dedicated to Loy and Pietra. April 2006