This is a story about my relationship with my mother, the problems she was experiencing, how I thought to resolve those problems, and what happened in the end. I should start by explaining that although I loved my Mother very much, she was not an easy person to live with. She exhibited all kinds of strange behaviours I didn't understand at the time, and it was only much later I came to realise those behaviours could be characterised as
Neurotic
.
I'm not a psychiatrist so that's not a formal clinical diagnosis, but it was certainly the impression I was left with after living with her for many years. When I (later) looked up the term, I found
Neurosis
is defined as "a relatively mild mental illness that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress (depression, anxiety, obsessive behaviour, hypochondria) but not a radical loss of touch with reality" (as distinct from 'Psychosis' whereby the sufferer looses the ability to distinguish between what is real and what is not).
My mother certainly displayed many of the characteristics of Neurosis listed above. For example, she always seemed to be ill and suffering from a variety of things that could never quite be pinned down, or ever got significantly worse (hypochondria). Likewise much of her behaviour was about controlling her world and ensuring she was always the perceived victim (obsessive behaviour). She was adept at manipulating me and others around by re-interpreting (and even reconstructing) events in a manner that suited her preferred vision. She always managed to cast herself as the poor, weak, (and usually unloved) old woman. She was never happy (depression) and continually complained about how people were inconsiderate of her needs, and even sometimes how they were deliberately 'out to get' her (anxiety).
She frequently exhibited a classic symptom described in psychology as the 'Double Bind' (as I later learned). This is where two opposing communications are provided at the same time making the recipient confused and uncertain. A simple example of a 'double bind' would be when I would ask mother how she was feeling, she would reply, 'I am fine dear', but this was said in a feeble and faltering voice indicating she was anything but fine. The double-bind tends to be used as a tacit strategy for keeping others off balance and maintaining control of situations. Many times my mother would say something (verbally) whilst clearly indicating (in a non-verbal manner) she didn't believe what she was saying (another example was her frequent suggestion after dinner that 'I'll do the washing-up today dear', whilst making it visibly clear she was struggling to lift herself up from her seat). This strategy would make her appear 'brave and noble', whilst at the same time making it obvious she was ill and suffering, and I should feel sorry for her.
To be frank my bloody Mother used to drive me up the wall! I spent years of my life trying to help and support her but nothing I did seemed to make any difference. She seemed 'stuck' in a time and place in her life, and my role was exclusively to listen to her troubles and take the blame. Don't get me wrong, as I said I loved my mother very dearly, and all I ever wanted to do was help her and make her life easier, but I couldn't seem to no matter how hard I tried. If was as if her neurotic behaviour served some purpose and she didn't want to or didn't know how to let it go.
However, despite the fact I was never able to provide any apparent solutions to my mother's problems, she made it clear having me around helped in some way. I would listen to her whinging about the world without complaint, provide a sympathetic shoulder for her to cry on when she was miserable, and if she was really down I was the 'dog' she could kick. I was always there for her and it was clear she needed me in some way, so I could never abandon her, even if at times she was like an emotional vampire sucking me dry.
We lived in a small house in a rather old-world town in Lincolnshire in the North East of England. My Father had passed away when I was 12 years old, and my mother was never the same after he went. I was 19 when the events to be described here occurred. I had few (if any friends), I was a virgin, and I spent most of my time looking after my poor (apparently) sick Mother. She was 57 years old, no longer working, and surviving on the meagre amount my father left, plus a disability pension she was awarded because she was suffering from 'stress'.
Despite her 'illness' mother was quite able to occasionally pop round to see her friends and go out shopping when she wanted. Indeed it was mostly when she was home that her apparent infirmities seemed to become manifest. She did the cooking, but everything else round the house was down to me. I was at college at the local Tech three days a week (studying Art and Design), but when I was home my days were filled with cleaning, washing, and caring for mother. That said she never appeared to acknowledge my efforts around the house. If she said anything it was usually a critical comment about something that was not 'up to scratch'.
She was moderately short in stature (about 5.1) and relatively thin (possibly the result of her nervous condition) but not unsightly, and indeed there were photos around the house which showed she had once been quite attractive. She had a nice figure, brown hair (often in curlers), brown eyes, and full (even sensuous) lips. She had, however, let herself go, and when at home she spent most of the time wandering about in an old dressing gown. Her face was weary and worn and starting to show lines, but she always seemed to me like a potentially good looking woman, who, with a little extra work, could still be quite fetching. She didn't really look her age apart from wrinkles on the back of her hands, which curiously enough now always remind me of her.
Perhaps that's where it all started. It was only her and I in the house, and although I was her 'punch-bag' I was also her only companion. She would hold me sometimes, when the mood was on her, and cuddle me and tell me I was the only man she loved. It didn't happen very often but there were those few times when she seemed to appreciate me being there. As I said she wore a dressing gown a lot of the time, and sometimes not a lot underneath. I confess it was hard for a pubescent and virginal boy not to look when the gown slipped and showed too much of her underwear. I never consciously thought about my mother in a sexual way, but some part of me was very much aware she was a woman and had 'attributes' that were both unfamiliar and interesting. In truth there were probably times when I was too close to her.
Looking back I think I was very confused by the situation. Mostly I felt trapped by a responsibility to look after mother (because in truth there was no one else), and I wanted to escape both that responsibility and her thankless behaviour, but there was another part of me who occasionally 'enjoyed' the intimacy of being near her. I was after all 19 years old and had normal sexual needs which I rarely even acknowledged let alone addressed. Although I'd not seen very much of her body, nor had any kind of inappropriate relations or even thoughts, there were moments when I looked more at my mother than I should, and I think I instinctively saw these opportunities as some kind of shadowy reward for all the anguish she put me through. As I said it wasn't conscious. I hated being around her during the day, but in the evenings I didn't seem to mind so much. Looking back I think it may have been something to with the fact she took sleeping pills for her nerves (and sometimes combined these with a small 'tipple' of sherry), making her unsteady in the evening, and less conscious of her attire. Her dressing gown wasn't held so tight and I could occasionally see the edge of her bra or the cleavage of her breasts. Sometimes she would lie on the sofa and show an expanse of nylon covered leg. As I said I never did anything, except maybe look when I should have turned away.
However things changed between mother and I after something occurred that made me question my understanding of her situation. It was a throw-away comment made by the man who came to repair our hot water boiler that changed things, and set me on a new (and controversial) path. The poor man was struggling to fix our very old and wonky system, which kept breaking down. He was trying to explain to mother how we desperately needed a new boiler, but she wouldn't listen, berating him instead for not fixing it properly, and lamenting how the cold water was making her various illnesses so much worse and how it was all his fault.
Eventually he got it working after a fashioned. He warned us it would not last much longer, hurriedly grabbed his tools, and rushed out to escape my mother's vicious tongue. I showed him to the door, and as he left he looked at me and raised his eyes to the heavens. "I don't know how you put up with her," he half-whispered. "What a neurotic old woman! What she needs is a damn good rogering!" And then he was gone.
I confess I didn't understand at first what he meant by the term 'rogering', and it wasn't until later I realised he was talking about sex. He was saying my mother was the way she was because she wasn't getting enough (or indeed any) sex. It had never occurred to me before that a lack of a physical relationship might be the cause of her problems, but I suddenly equated all her symptoms with the concept of being frustrated. Could it be, I wondered to myself, that sexual drives are a form of energy that need to be expressed, and if blocked the energy 'leaks' out in other (perhaps entirely inappropriate) ways?
As you probably guessed (with me still being a virgin at 19), the events I describe took place many years ago, and I was not very sexually informed (lets be honest I was naive). But in those days things were very different. I'd had a few girl-friends, but in the early 60's the female animal was still (mostly) the official guardian of moral values (not like today!). Sexual intercourse was a no-no, and even touching a girl's breast was a privilege a boy had to earn. That said, I don't suppose many of the young people today understand just how much joy a couple could experience just by kissing and cuddling all evening. There was a kind of innocent 'bonding' in those days entirely absent from many modern relationships. Back then full sex when it came was a 'rite of passage' (and the end of a very long road built of trust and belief).
Anyway my point is, I knew enough to understand what it meant to be frustrated. I was, after all, pretty frustrated myself! My sex life (whilst living with mother) consisted of snatched moments in the toilet, masturbating to smuggled pictures of women in exotic lingerie (usually stolen from mother's Home Catalogues or very rarely a smutty magazine I'd found somewhere). I confess there were even times (when mother was out) when I'd open her underwear draw and gently finger her bras or stockings or suspenders (in those days female under-garments were much more complex... and far more interesting). I should add, however, that in the beginning it was the lingerie itself that turned me on, and not the fact it was my mother's.
