The Unloved Daughter

An excerpt from the story The Unloved Daughter on page 15 of my memoir "The Great Unlearning."

The Unloved Daughter

“I have no memories of being loved by my mother. No sweet recall of warm moments being cuddled on her lap as she stroked my hair and told me how much she loved me. I’ve always wondered what that would feel like.

I did feel special the day I ran through a sliding glass door, however, when I was ten. My older brother was pulling the wings off of a live monarch butterfly in the backyard, and as I attempted to run into the house to have my mother make him stop, instead ran face first into the sliding glass door. After shattering the glass, I collapsed on the threshold, halfway in, bloodied from cuts all over my face and body. The tip of my broken nose, nearly sliced off, was hanging by a thread of skin. When my mother ran in from the kitchen, she grabbed my shoulders, then dragged me over the broken glass just far enough in to avoid the rest of the door which quickly came crashing down like a guillotine. My butterfly torturing brother took off his boy scout belt, buckled it tight around my left arm to stop the blood from spurting from my left wrist, and my parents took me to the hospital where they doted on me in a way I’d never experienced before. I felt like it was worth all the stitches to my face, shoulder, and wrist as they hovered over me, even buying me ice cream on the way home. It was a weird kind of heaven...”

Author reflection

The Unloved Daughter was heartbreaking to write, but I have received so much positive feedback about it, apparently many women relate to this topic!

A daughter’s need for her mother’s love is primal and doesn’t diminish when it’s unavailable, even well into adulthood. Through writing this book, I’ve learned that there are some common wounds adult women share when raised by unloving or unavailable mothers to include: lack of confidence, lack of trust, trouble setting boundaries, being overly sensitive, and playing the maternal role in relationships. I identified so much with these traits and this awareness was a miraculous springboard to my healing and inspired me to keep exploring and writing.

To listen to me read The Unloved Daughter, and more stories from my book, head over to my Podcast on Spotify.