What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences?

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Mother's Day is not happy for everyone.

Mother's Day assumes that all mothers are loving, sacrificial, and safe.

Some mothers may be physically alive but emotionally unavailable or harmful, creating ambiguous grief.

Mother's Day does not have to be a performance. Authenticity matters.

For some of us, Mother’s Day is complicated.

The holiday arrives wrapped in flowers, brunch reservations, pastel cards, and public declarations of gratitude. For many people, it is joyful. For others, it is sensitive because their mother has died. And for some of us who were abused, it brings something harder to explain: dread.

“Thank you for always being there.” “You are my safe place.” “Your love made me who I am.”

“Thank you for always being there.”

“You are my safe place.”

“Your love made me who I am.”

But what if none of that is true?

What do you do when the mother you are expected to honor was physically abusive, emotionally unsafe, neglectful, or absent? What do you do........

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