breaking the cycle of Mother Wounds
2017 began my entré into professional storytelling. I self-published a memoir on race-based workplace trauma and referenced my biracial identity to give context. Then in 2018, I had the honor of performing two TEDx Talks, one of which is a 15-minute story on the racial trauma family lineages of my Black mother and White father. Through what I can only describe as Divine intervention, seven years later, I asked my dad for a paternity test in 2021 and the result was “misattributed paternity”. In other words and as the character Celie said in the 1985 film adaptation of The Color Purple, “Paw not Paw.” Within 30 days - before I could catch my breath, Ancestry DNA delivered their results of my ancestral heritage breakdown: 85% African. The numbers rendered it impossible for me to be biracial. You might imagine my embarrassment, having woven so much of my personal cultural story into my professional career and then finding out my origin story wasn’t what I thought it was. The math was quite literally not mathing. So, what then to do about the unassumingly inaccurate TEDx Talk and the asterisk-filled published memoir? In this post-Rachel Dolezal era, I knew I had some ‘splainin’ to do.
After the tears, I began deep, persistent inquiry with my mother for the real story. Those talks didn’t go well and resulted in my mother and I going “no-contact” for over a year. Family matters led us to reestablish communication but with heavily restricted boundaries on my part. Then the 2024 election happened and political fallouts had local implications. My mother had a huge reduction in income and was forced to move back into my home in spring 2025. We went from no-contact to low-contact to roommates. But I don’t believe in coincidences or accidents; this felt painful but purposeful. The week before she arrived, I felt the presence of her deceased father and mother asking me to take care of their daughter. I knew at that moment our reunion was connected to an assignment above my pay grade.
In full transparency, my mother and I have always had a tumultuous relationship. I am the middle child of her eldest son and youngest daughter. All three of us have different fathers. My mother is both brilliant and lives with multiple mental health and mood disorders. Borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder and complex PTSD are key characters in our nuclear family story. Her debilitating diagnoses necessitated me to step up and assume position as pseudo-matriarch of the family by age 14. I spent many decades being angry with my mother. But over the last few years, prayer, meditation, therapy, careful conversation, and some key books have aided me in understanding that our situation requires modification of expectations and boundaries.
Deeper genealogy research cemented the pattern. Records and accompanying stories revealed many more long-in-the-tooth disruptions and dysfunction in the family, particularly with the women. These challenging discoveries resulted in an unlikely series of epiphanies which further pivoted my lineage healing journey approach.
Aha moment #1: My mother, Patricia, told me in an argument one evening that I reminded her of her mother, Louise, who she feared. Her insult landed on me as a compliment. My grandma Lou (oldest daughter of seven siblings) was my hero and my mother’s villain.
Aha moment #2: My mother sympathized with and felt close to her grandmother, Irene, who struggled with mental illness especially after the eerie death of her husband. For a spell, Irene was impacted by selective mutism and was institutionalized. In her illness and absence, I imagine the weight of the family fell to Louise. Irene was my mother’s light and possibly Lou’s shadow.
Aha moment #3: One of the oldest ancestral matriarchs I can successfully trace and corroborate on the maternal line is my grandmother’s grandmother, Anna, was a pistol of a woman. She was described as a mouthy, beautiful, nearly white-passing woman who was rumored to have left her children home alone for extramarital affairs. In all likelihood, Anna was her daughter Irene’s foe.
Just when instinct would call us to point fingers and cast aspersions on character flaws of the matriarchal family line, compassion, and ancestral wisdom nudges me to ask:
Am I hard because my mother felt meek?
Is my mom passive because Louise was aggressive?
Was Louise tough because Irene was fragile?
Did Irene stop talking and shut down because Anna said and did too much?
Could fair-skinned Anna have been rebellious because of how she was conceived (in 1876)?
What happens to families who inherit parental wounds as easily as they inherit smiles with diastemas and feet with Morton’s toes? According to what’s written in our family lineage, maternal tension transcends from generation to generation in some capacity. And wouldn’t you know it? I am the mother of two daughters. Science calls it epigenetic trauma. Common folks call it generational trauma. Spiritual folks call them generational curses. I’m certain my soul contract is to call this assignment of family fractures “mended” and the kin curse “broken”.
I can’t go back and erase the hurts caused by the women in my maternal lineage. And I’m not yet ready to go to the other side for any root work because I’ve got two awesome flowers in my garden to cultivate right now. What I also have in this moment is a mother on this side of the daisies. The honest-to-God truth is she may not have the capacity to repair my wounds. My healing work is mine and mine alone to do; and I accept that responsibility. However, she can share her story about her own mother wounds, and perhaps that release can give clarity and insight about what’s been going wrong in our collective lineage so I can begin the course correction and make things right.
Anna’s wounds beget Irene’s wounds beget Louise’s wounds beget Patricia’s wounds beget my wounds. My daughters have acquired some energetic bumps and bruises from mishaps caused by my mothering mistakes. However, I’m working hard to get more right in parenting than I’ve gotten wrong.
I’m going to break the curse.
