TW: loss, grief, death, depression
I feel like for most of my life I have felt the need to control because I have this intense fear of abandonment and not blow the same old horn of “my parents damaged me and this is why I am who I am” but in a way it was because of them. I want to lay the groundwork for me, and what led me to this point. I want to preface that I had the most attentive if not helicopter parents, who spoiled me to their best ability with love and material object, however despite all that, I do not think I was ever really a fun carefree child growing up.
Growing up my mom was Parent A, or the parent or the person who I could always rely on, who was my number 1. supporter. My dad and I did not have much of a relationship growing up not due to the lack of presence but just him being checked out and heavily relying on my mom to do the emotional work, but that's a story for another day.
My mom got diagnosed with a chronic illness when I was just 3.5 years old. It was years later that I found out the traces of her illness began when she was pregnant with me but the doctors ignored it as just another “pregnancy symptom” and by the time they caught it, too much damage was already done. Like many 3–4-year-olds, I did not have much comprehension of illness, loss, or death. I did not know why everyone in my family was upset at that time or crying or what a lifetime of chronic illness meant.
I was 7 years old when my mom got her first transplant, but even before then she had countless hospital visits and stays. She spent almost a month in the hospital and I was only allowed to visit on special approval from the doctors. I knew I did not have a normal mom and I even at that young age, felt jealous of other people’s mothers, and I do not think it was because I wanted to take it away from them but I wanted what they had.
I was 11 years old when she had her next major surgery, and I remember I was still young to visit her at the hospital, so I had to wear a disguise, given that it was Saudi Arabia, it was not that hard to just throw on an abaya and “look older”.
I was 19 years old when she got her second transplant, and what would be her 6th surgery. I decided to take a gap year and stayed behind with my family instead of starting college that year. During this time my mom got dialysis for 6 months until we could find a donor since my mother was adamantly against letting one of us donate. I do not know why people do not say this out loud enough, but the stress and worry of seeing someone you love go through some things in many ways breaks you more than being in pain yourself.
I did not know at that time, but every time she went away for a hospital stay, every operation, every procedure she had, I always subconsciously prepared for the worst. With every visit, my anxiety grew. Somewhere along the line, expecting the worst from people, outcomes, and every aspect of my life just became a thing. I began to develop this constant worrying, and a habit of things just not going well.
But as life goes on, she began to heal, I started college and like every college student, I became so occupied with my life that I started neglecting my relationship with my mother. I was more worried about friends, relationships, and living my life. I do not feel guilty for that, but I do often think about things I wish I could have done a little differently.
I do wish if I had known my mom was depressed and lonely, would I have done things differently? The one person who was always there to support me, did I let her down? These do haunt me every so often, these last four years.
Summer of 2017, my mother suffered from a stroke, from which she did bounce back and had started to recover. I went and spent the summer with my family, and very reluctantly went back that fall for my last semester of college.
On November 5, 2017, that nagging worrying, anxiety manifested into one of my worst nightmares, and my rock, my favorite person in the world, my mom, left me. On that day and every day since then, that nagging feeling and that anxiety have only grown. Losing my mom, the person who was quite possibly the root of me developing an even more intense fear of abandonment. It really f***s with your brain, emotions, really everything.
It changed who I was, and am today, and it's been a tough 4 years of rediscovering myself.
