So I heard about a theory called Refrigerator Moms a couple of weeks ago. The moment I heard the term and the context, I immediately applied it to myself in regards to my son.
My son is eight years old, in third grade, and emotionally disturbed. I personally hate the term "emotionally disturbed" because it implies that he has been through this great trauma that has left him a ball of crazy. But this is the only thing we have to go on until we get a more thorough diagnosis.
He has been displaying symptoms of Aspergers Syndrome along with Sensory Perception Disorder and OCD. He has always been this way but as he gets older, he fails to mature emotionally. Right now, he has the intelligence of a middle-schooler and the maturity of a toddler.
In researching Aspergers symptoms, I came across several articles about "refrigerator mothers". Basically, in the 1940's and 1950's, doctors blamed Aspergers (and Autism) on the fact that the children's mothers tended to be cold, distant, and unattentive to the children. This maternal behavior caused the child to fail to develop emotionally. The theory was thrown away in the late seventies with the discovery of genetic markers that indicated a more hereditary link to Aspergers. However, in a lot of Europe, the theory still stands as the cause of most Autism-related disorders.
So, after researching this theory, I started to break down my relationship with my son from birth until now...
When he was born, I was basically alone. I was also alone through my pregnancy. I lived away from my immediate family, friends and the father of my child. The father and I called it quits when I was still in my first trimester. I was unmarried and in still in my tour of duty in the military, which put a huge strain of my parents and my already unsteady relationship. But mostly I dealt with my pregnancy by myself.
When he was born, I did not feel that immediate connection that so many mothers feel towards their babies. I felt like we were two strangers. Right away, I felt that there was something wrong. I had always wanted to be a mother, always. And now, here I was and there were no feelings of wanting to protect, love and nurture my baby at all.
Over the next few months, I was a zombie. My son was a very difficult baby, never sleeping, not breastfeeding, not wanting touch or swaddling. I fell deeper into a place of numbness. I wanted to feel outright love for this child but felt nothing at all. I was finally diagnosed with post-pardum depression and put on medication. I came out a little when my baby started to develop a personality, but I still hadn't had that moment that defines a mother and her baby. That maternal instinct. I took care of him and taught him and even played with him but I never felt that undying love for him. I felt possession of him like you'd feel possession of your favorite shirt. You love it, but if it wasn't there anymore, you wouldn't cry about it. I also developed a crippling feeling of guilt over the whole situation. My feelings for my son, my parents having to fill in for me while I cried all the time, my relationship with his father, all of it made me feel so very guilty that it was really the only emotion I could feel most days.
So my life went this way for a while until I could get into the right headspace to really figure out what was going on with us. It wasn't until my son was about three years old before I could get myself healthy enough psychologically to see what needed to be fixed. In that time I had left the military, moved down south, got a job, started college and met my future husband. I was finally in the right place to start building a stable relationship with my son. The only problem was...I had no idea where to start...
Please stay tuned for Refrigerator Mom Part 2
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