I’ve been watching a lot of films related to motherhood- Pablo Larrain’s Ema, Almodovar’s Parallel Mothers, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter. Also, the last film I mentioned on my blog is also about the actions of a mother which makes sense why I thought of it recently.

All of these films show a range of motherhood- the sincerity, the struggle, the failure. Most of these, especially Ema, The Lost Daughter, Nobody Knows also discuss abandonment. In our social narrative, mothers rarely abandon their children. Mothers also don’t necessarily get a wide range of permission to show or discuss what they truly feel regarding their children.

A book I read a few years ago called Mean Mothers which I’d highly recommend to women who are healing through their relationship with their mother that spoke about the taboo of mothers being represented as anything but kind, giving, nurturing. There’s a potential jealous side to a mom/daughter relationship, a destructive side, a cruel side. To not have much exposure to these sides makes it so that abuse within the mother/daughter dynamic is harder to see and therefore the impact is harder to heal.

As children, our moms are like deities. We accept everything they do without a second thought, until we later come to find how imperfect they were because they too are human. We come to realize that they have their own traumas, and that some of them were emotionally immature. As we heal our wounds, we realize that our scars are also their scars.

I used to be very scared of women in particular. Well men, too, for other more overt reasons due to parenting, but I never fully understood why I recoiled around some women and especially older women, I felt unsafe. I felt judged, criticized, surveilled, and I knew to always put myself down and minimize attention lest I seem “threatening” in the least. I didn’t understand why I attracted, and naturally let in women who were very jealous of me, tried to control me in overt and covert ways and tried to destroy me. I didn’t understand why I felt like I was my mother’s mother at times, how she seemed like she was my baby. It made no sense. And so as I peel back layers of this and start to see the true complexity of motherhood, it helps me to understand more of this narrative that has been silenced. But, what could be more dynamic than a mother/baby bond? It is our very first one, all of us have had one, and it is not an easy one.

I think about what my mother must’ve felt or thought when she abandoned me when I was very, very little. In my infancy. I’m lucky in that she did come back for me years later, but those years she wasn’t there for me when I truly needed her the most had a very big impact on my psyche. It had a big impact on my health as well, as babies do better when they get to nurse and also get to attune to their mothers emotionally and physically. When all your can encode in your consciousness when you have no pre-existing memories or thought processes as a baby except that your mom didn’t want you, that becomes the foundation. When the very next one you have with her is that she lost you in the international airport the first time she travelled with you to America when you were three, it raises some questions.

Obviously this is a much bigger topic, and much more complex one, but here are some of my thoughts and hopefully they can conjure up some of your own. It is absolutely essential to see our mothers as who they were, as human, instead of defaulting to the comforting narrative that they were perfect and did nothing wrong. The more we can accept their humanness, the more we can accept our own, and the more we can uncover the repressed emotions that we may have about their actions, their inactions, their mistakes and their effects. If we only accept that they were perfect, we cannot access those emotions and heal.

We’ve all at one point in time chased unavailable partners. Especially if you lean towards the anxious attachment style, the avoidant type may seem very appealing. Part of the development of the anxious attachment style has to do with having needs met inconsistently, which the avoidant type does so well. Sometimes the avoidant type is there, other times, well most times, he/she/they are not.

It’s likely a pattern, but there are different ways unavailability shows up.

They can be:

emotionally unavailable (distant, cold, emotionally cut off, secretive)

married, or in a “committed” relationship

workaholic

drug user

physically distant (always traveling, or live in a different place)

All of the above reveal something: that the unavailable partner is investing the majority of his/her/their time already in a relationship with something else, whether that be substances, work, or another person. They’re physically, emotionally, mentally not engaged with you and most likely, this is an offshoot of them being unavailable to themselves, deep down, too.

The thing is, when we choose unavailable partners, most of the time subconsciously there’s a need we’re chasing after to fulfill. This need can be deeply unconscious, and be something that we’re seeking to resolve from a childhood attachment wound. For example, my father was largely unavailable my entire life. He was physically always traveling, emotionally, didn’t have the capacity to be vulnerable or present, not to mention I didn’t meet him until I was 3. What this created was an unconscious need and desire for a certain type of male validation, attention and love. I found myself in repeated cycles with the same type of man: unavailable, secretive, self-absorbed and in pain— but.. high achieving, successful and very similar to my dad in temperament (aka domineering and angry)

The interesting thing is, all of the men were in the position to offer me what it was I wanted. I think that when we seek out these unavailable partners, they all have an inkling of potential to satisfy that/those specific needs we have. All times, I left these situations disappointed because most of these relationships function on the basis of your projection of unfulfilled desires and desire for unconscious resolution. There were times when I was offered what I had been seeking the whole time. Some of these men fell in love with me. And you know what I did, after spending so much of my time and energy trying to "convince” these men I was worthy of their love and attention? I suddenly came to the realization I never wanted it in the first place! That’s right. When it’s presented to you, you most likely will come to the realization you do not want the relationship. It was never about them even though it seemed it was so much about them. You may have devoted everything to them. No, it’s about you.

The reason being is, the thing that we crave, the thing that almost feels like we can’t live without.. well the truth is, we never had it. So, we never needed it.

That stark truth sets in when we’re presented with it. That’s why some people who want unavailable partners actually avoid available partners. We all do this in some ways. We want the people who don’t want us and shy away from the people who are way too obvious about their affections— that’s why hard to get is such a widespread tactic, after all. The underbelly of the anxious attachment style IS unavailability. The reason why people seek unavailable partners repetitively is because it’s safe. There’s no risk of real vulnerability and attachment, because it can never form into a real healthy relationship.

Once you start feeling more emotionally ready and start doing the hard work around intimacy, love, attachment style and need, these patterns dissipate. You’ll find yourself more secure in your attachment, more ready and willing for real partnership, and therefore will attract matches who are much more available. Just be careful when you do find that familiar feeling of uncertainty and “thrill” and find yourself wondering how the other person feels, because more likely than not, if you have a lot of questions and doubt about how someone feels about you, they’re likely unavailable and unhealthy for you.