When Mother Is There But Far Away - The Emotionally Absent Mother, Jasmin Lee Cori Interview

When your foundation is is not strong, you know, you're going to see it in in relationships. You're kind of desperately hunger for love and attention. You feel more alone. You feel more unsupported, [music] feel unseen, just feel like something is missing. Now, does that mean that you're forever limited? I would say no. But the foundation changes because you rebuild it. is not just a matter of in time that fades away. Jasmine, what was your motivation for writing the emotionally absent mother? Writing a book is a mammoth project. And so it's good if you have some personal fuel. So the let's say the motivation, the beginning, the origin of that was, you know, dipping into the pain I felt about my mother. So we did not have a highly conflictual relationship. We just had a emotionally more distant one. And especially for me, you know, I think for her, she might have said it's fine. Uh, nothing I do different, but for me, it

was missing a tremendous amount. So that's [snorts] we want to remember that's kind of where we're coming from in terms of for you know to the audience for you you know um did you feel your mother as emotionally present and as providing what you needed. So then part of it is learning what do children need because if you come from um you know a very neglectful family or or parenting situation you don't necessarily know that. Um, so that was the part about what was my relationship with my mother like and then yes I I went beyond my own experience certainly before I wrote the that book the first book um I uh I interviewed a bunch of people. I just found some volunteers and interviewed people about their experience with their mother. And then of course I had clients and I had more

clients after that book came out and then I had droves of people coming to me. Um so that gave me more and more experience and then in the second edition you know I added more content and then I added a second book called healing from an emotionally absent mother. And what about your father if you are comfortable sharing what was your relationship like with him in childhood? Well, um to my knowledge, you know, as I was a child, he was the person um I felt a little more connected with. Now, all of that changed when uh at age 40 I had my first incest memory.

So um you know after that memory and the dozens and dozens and dozens of memories that followed you know it was like I lost my father too you know because I you know this was totally kind of unforgivable for me it and the more I allowed up the more you know I saw how devastating that was. Yeah. You say on your website that you didn't uncover your childhood trauma until you were 40. What was that process like for you uncovering that? Uh, and how did you uh how were you able to do it? And what would you say to others only starting their healing journey at kind of a a later age?

>> Well, first of all, I'd say it's not uncommon a later age. You know, I think we're pretty busy in our [clears throat] 20s and 30s doing other things that are critically important. Of course, some people, you know, start their healing journey very early and their awareness, you know, early, but um [cough and clears throat] it started for me. I started doing some deep, you know, therapeutic work with somebody at age 38. And um, you know, first issues to come up were my mother. And um, you know, let that bubble up and worked with that. And and then, you know, this uh, incest came up when I right before I was 40.

And uh that really turned my life upside down. Um [clears throat] and then for many many years after that, you know, each of those would take center stage at a different times. I think that things come up generally, and I won't say always, uh generally when we're ready for them. And the critical thing is that uh we have a [clears throat] little bit of space in our lives and we have a little bit of support. If you don't have support or space, you know, I think your system will do everything possible to keep whatever is away, whatever is overwhelming off your plate. Yeah. I uh I've heard before that when people have these kind of experiences and memories that start to come up later in life, there's a lot of uh self-doubt like they're not sure if it's real, if they're creating it, if it was, you

know, because of therapy, which sometimes emotionally mature parents will accuse uh that of being that way. Really, what's your thoughts on that? And and if I'm somebody who's starting to have these memories, but I'm unsure, what would you say to them? Well, I think that the memories are true to something. Now, the idea that, oh, you're making this up to have an excuse is kind of unfathomable to me. One, oh, why would you want to give yourself this kind of pain? And secondly, even though you could create, I mean, memory is not a perfect snapshot. You could create and you could combine elements and you could distort elements.

Um, the tracks of the memories, meaning the impacts in your life of whatever kind of trauma we're talking about, you're not making those up. you know, you you discover, you know, you have an impact. You're really reactive in a situation and you don't know why. For me, every time that happens, if I can identify the theme, it relates to generally either mom or dad and the dynamic there. Um, so we don't make up the the impacts. Uh it's not an easy excuse for us to not take responsibility. In fact, we're we're putting it on our shoulders, a huge huge backpack. Um and so what I would say to people who are having memories and questioning, um if you can just give yourself some space to hold that this is your

experience right now. this is what's coming up. And just try to be curious and have support around you that you need because it's very uh dishevelling, uh disruptive. Um [clears throat] and try not to put yourself on the witness stand. Oh, how do you know that? Where's the proof? And you know, all that kind of thing. just accept this was this is somehow part of your unconscious. Yeah. And speaking of that pain, you have a line in the book that says, "Many don't dare to uncover the painful truth of what was missing in their mothers because they are unprepared to deal with what this would mean." And so, what would you say was missing in them? And what does it mean?

Well, it depends on age of the person. If you if you're, you know, as a child, the younger the child, the more you dependent you are, the more you can't afford to have a caretaker who is really missing an action. I I like the analogy of if you were on a plane airplane and you suddenly found out that the pilot was totally impaired, you know, you would got to be in freakout freeall. Well, that's what it's like to think that the person in charge of my safety and survival is not up to the job, you know, that's that's too much. So you know some of that so so that we need to kind of protect ourselves at times and then we need to protect mother and our image of mother you know if we see too much that's dark [laughter] um it then it interferes with bonding

with mother and interfering with bonding with mother you know at first affects survival. when we need the bonding to have some needs met and later FX certainly endangers the relationship. So you know whatever age you are if you have some kind of actual relationship with your mother we always have an internal one but if you have a personto person uh relationship you know it will be affected by certainly what has come up flushed into your system. So, I think there was another part of your question I'm trying to remember now to answer. Um, what was missing in them and what does it mean? Well, a whole lot of different things could be missing, right? So uh um in the emotionally absent mother uh um one way of talking

about that is to to talk about 10 different roles a mother plays and things could be missing in each of those. In the followup in in the workbook, I have some [clears throat] scales and and some kind of self tests to say, do you remember this or this or this or how would you feel about this? And so there are so many things that can be missing. But I think the most fundamental and important is a feeling of being held, cared for, known. Yeah. What about uh even when people just this morning I had a conversation with someone who was having an interaction with her mother and could clearly see um you know these fake apologies like I'm sorry that you misunderstood or I'm sorry that you saw it that way and the person could clearly see these emotionally immature and absent qualities. Um but she shared with me that after the fact uh she after the

call ended she had this sense of anxiety that she had to end up calling her mother to apologize to her. Yes. So so often you know with a mother who's [clears throat] let's say not mentally healthy in some way or shut down in some way. the child, a particularly sensitive child, kind of takes over and so they feel responsible for keeping mother even and okay and and feeling good about themselves. So we do a tremendous amount of changing ourselves to uh um to protect and caretake mother and is that something that goes away in time? Is that something that we have to work through in a specific way? How do we kind of keep those boundaries when we're having those conversations and we can see mother overstepping that that we have uh a low enough level of anxiety to

just deal with it? Well, let me say I think a first step is really kind of uh learning um [clears throat] you know protecting yourself and and having clear boundaries. You know, there's a number of skills involved in that. And so, you know, it it will take some practice catching catching what is it that you're responding to. Is it tone of voice? Is it the facial expression, certain words, certain unavailability? You know, find what are the triggers. Uh um [clears throat] there needs to be enough self-support that you know you haven't kind of scattered and you know can do something and you may not be able to do something in the moment but you know over time if you practice then you could do it sooner and sooner you know to say you know mom I I don't think that's that's not the way I

experience it. A lot of uh these children end up coming out feeling like it must be me. That's the big trap to to to learn how to sidestep. It must be me. And that's why it's critical to understand mother as a person and to understand the dynamics and the relationship the chemistry between you. Uh so you don't end up the default for a child is it must be me. So, so you know often the sensitive people in this situation will say I'm too much. I'm too much for other people. Well, really I'm was too much for mother who, you know, is uncomfortable with sensitivity, but we have to get around to I'm not too much. If I had an emotionally absent mother or I I I'm suspecting that I did, what would my childhood look like and how would it still be impacting me as an adult?

>> Okay, I'll ask you to hold the second part so I don't neglect it. But let's start with what what will it look like? There will be things it looks like in terms of behaviors, but actually even more telling is what it feels like or felt like. That's the biggest clue. Especially when we're talking about early early life things, we don't have very clear memories often. And if you had a tra, you know, more the more traumatic your childhood, the fewer memories you probably have. Um so but it will look like mother is is kind of not all here and not engaged with every part. She might have some parts that she might you know maybe schooling is important to her. Your schooling or your appearance but other things that she's totally uninvolved with. Doesn't even know your friends you

know doesn't know what you like and what you don't like. Um, and in the workbook, the healing from an emotionally absent mother, you know, I have some scales, you know, to help you kind of measure, you know, what was it like. Um, so measuring behaviors and then what it felt like that gets into the impacts, you know, um, [clears throat] you feel more alone, you feel more unsupported, feel unseen, uh, feel lonely, feel a deep grief, don't know that you're loved. Yeah. Um, wonder what's wrong with you. Yeah. Um [clears throat] it it's you know a and it can just feel like something is missing. Something is missing. It's important to remember that we're

starting you know we're talking about the foundation the foundation of our psyche especially early life. So injuries in early life um [clears throat] you know if you if you build a house on sand or some you know metaphorically yeah um there going to be some some wobbles some troubles and when your foundation is not strong, you know, you're going to see it in in relationships often it might be you either kind of avoid people because you don't think there's anything good that's going to come to you or you're kind of desperately hunger for love and attention, you know, or relationships. It may be in in communicating and showing yourself.

[snorts] uh it uh I think will even be in in overall I'm I'm taking a little bit of a leap but I you know overall health and and there's even some indication you know cognitive functioning and your attentional style you know um it it it just is going to affect every part of you now does that mean that you're forever limited I would say no Uh but the foundation changes because you rebuild it. It's not just a matter of in time that fades away. Yeah. We often talk on the channel about uh big tea trauma versus little tea trauma. Uh meaning that most people think, well, I wasn't traumatized because I had a roof over my head. My parents fed me. Maybe they they never hit me or anything like that. I'm curious how subtle can that absence between us and mother or primary

caregiver uh be for us to still be impacted by it? Are there a lot of people living in denial of the type of parent that they had? Well, it could be subtle in the sense that a lot of people might not notice of people on the outside. uh um you know and it's not extreme in the sense of you know you don't have a mother who's screaming at the top of her lungs at you or something like that. Uh it can be the more sensitive the person the more subtle it could be and affect them deeply. I would say often in some of the most painful situations the denial is strongest. So then in that denial there's an idealization you know it was like I had a great mother but if all the pictures you know like all the cards were seen mother was not great at all.

>> What would you say to that line specifically? It's her first time living too. Well, I'd say it's an attempt perhaps to be compassionate. Um, but it's missing compassion for self, right? Um, it's kind of saying, well, let her off the hook. She's just learning. Well, it's true. often. She's just learning and she is not well prepared for the mammoth job of being a mother. But let's not erase all responsibility. You know, you don't hear that in the business world. You don't hear that. You don't people don't say that of a CEO. Well, he's just learning, too. You know, we expect them, you know, to to step up to learn to do what they need to do.

Mothers can and I had a lot of clients who were undermouthered but became mothers and were actually very good mothers because they learned they leaned into it. They they read books you know you get mentored um [clears throat] do your work you know your your personal work. Uh so let's not dismiss the situation uh by saying oh you know her first life too. Yeah that that brought up a a question that I think about often. I'd love to hear your take on it. Do we have to forgive in order to heal? Is it a requisite for healing? I don't know that it is. And you'll find people on both sides of the argument there. Uh um Susan Forward who wrote Toxic Parents and uh um another very pointed book about you know divorcing

your mom or you know um would say no I don't find that's true. Uh often forgiveness is premature before you've done the uncovering and the pro working through and the processing. Um so I would say don't make it a an absolute. You must forgive. In fact, it's kind of a quick exit often. Um and to say that forgiveness also can be helpful but I think it has to arise organically you know as you work through things and particularly as you understand the mother more you may feel more forgiving. Can you explain what you mean by having a parent who delights in you which is something you write in the book that in

speaking to people I hear like I don't even know what that would look like. Well, and you may not know what it looks like in a parent, but you might know what it looks like somewhere else. You know, if you've had a partner, if you've had a teacher, you know, if you've had anybody in your life that communicates, "Oh, I love being with you." You know, um their face lights up, they smile, they have warmth. Um that's what we're talking about. And what does it do to a child, whether in childhood or as an adult, to have not had that experience and to not to to feel like they don't even know what that looks like?

>> Well, it's a very sad realization. I don't know what that looks like. Um, but I would say if you can bear the pain of that or the pain of opening that up a little bit more I then uh um wouldn't you like to know what that looks like and what moreover what that feels like? And uh um if so, you know, it means, you know, you've got to got to give yourself to that healing process. And that will involve vulnerability, you know, and risks. I I'm not saying that you're going to get it from mother, you know. Um most likely not. I mean, only very occasionally do I hear of a mother really changing, you know. uh um kind of personalitywise, but you may get it from others.

Yeah, that's uh one of my uh favorite kind of questions to ponder there that you touched on. Uh so it's great to get your perspective of can parents actually change? Well, that would go to the question, can anybody really change? You know, and you know, there's kind of a way that it seems not because people have this consistency. We call it personality. It's their conditioning. And for myself, I have felt tremendous change, transformation we call it. Um, but it takes a hell of a lot of work. What uh signals do we have that uh the kind of healing fantasy as Dr. Gibson calls it is really just a fantasy.

>> In the workbook you have a scale to to try to rate mother's ability, you know, to really do some work on the relationship, you know, and is that supported by evidence? Can you can you see that in any other relationship in her life? You know, uh and her capacities in general and to look at your own in the same way. And if you know you, it maybe one of you or neither both of you don't have the uh resources, the time, the energy, the willingness to do that. So then it's it's kind of a um foolish mission. It was a turning point for me when I realized, oh, it's that she couldn't. It's not that she wouldn't. She didn't have the capacity to do certain things.

So um my relationship with my mother changed, you know, from very awkward. I wouldn't want to stand next to her for a photograph to be taken of us. It would, you know, it' be uncomfortable and, you know, I remember once, you know, [snorts] and um my years before my 70s probably hearing my mother say, "I love you." And I was uncomfortable with that to uh because of circumstances, you know, she lived into her 90s. I mean, I remember just a weekend or something before she died. Um, [clears throat] going and and curling up next to her in bed and holding her and asking before she before I went in there, she said, and she had gotten into this habit of, "I'm going to go lay down." I said, "Do you want to be alone?" She said, "No." you know, so there was a warming up and that happened

without any of this. Well, why didn't you do this and why was it this way and you know um uh and kind of archaeological expedition and even without talking about you know the the kind of other um what do we call it elephant in the room which was you know what happened between my father and I and her lack of protection. So it could happen what Laura Davis was saying too in in a way that's right for that particular relationship. Let's not have a a too too fixed of a template about how someone would get to a more reconciled relationship and not let's not hold that as some kind of criteria.

uh you don't have to and and in fact when people start doing this work they think oh well it's all about the relationship I got to how am I going to work this out with mom no it's work you work it out in yourself [snorts] and uh then you consider what's possible what's practical what do I want with mom but if you start early involving her in it it's going to get very messy what can you say to any parent out there who struggles to feel loved love or joy or connection with their child. Well, it is to say, I recognize that's painful, too. And if you do your work, you may be able to make that connection.

So, it's going to be, and I'm speaking to that parent right now, it's going to be the inner child in you often, most of practically always I would say, who is getting in the way. So, so it it's hard to give what you haven't received, especially if you haven't grieved it and you can't give it to yourself. So, you can do your own work. Uh there is one exercise in the workbook about giving what you didn't receive because that that's painful. Uh so you know step up to the extent that you can is what I would say. You write about a pretty wild statistic on attachment that every time I I stream and I talk about this it blows people away. Can you talk about the idea of a a good enough mother and speak to what it means for us both as adult children trying to heal and as parents worried

that we're not doing enough? Well, I I think for parents, it's good news. The statistic was something like if if you are responding to the needs and 30% of the time that is good enough. That's what Winnott, a pediatrician and psych psychoanalyst said. Um, [clears throat] so you don't have to be perfect as adult children trying to heal. I'm not sure that's very useful because, you know, there could be a tendency to say, "Well, God, she was good enough. [laughter] What's my problem?" Yeah. Um, she was not good enough for what you needed for you to have a foundation. No, she was good enough for some things.

You're alive, you know. But, um, let's worry less about measuring her and more about what inside needs attending to. Yeah, you write in the emotionally absent mother. The good news is that the deficits of inadequate mothering can be made up for later. Maybe not completely, but more significantly than we usually dare to hope, which is one of my favorite lines in the book. Uh I'm curious, why do you say not completely? And what does significant healing look like for you? Yeah. Um, you significant healing can be boy I I'm not the person I grew up being. I'm a totally I'm much more whatever it is for me. It's more open heart continual kind of heart more open

more vulnerable more expressive. um to to know that significant change is possible and this comes back to um [clears throat] what I said much earlier about do we change or can we really change or not we can but I would say most people do not it doesn't mean we can't change uh when I say that not necessarily completely ly it's like you don't erase the past you know there's a tradition in Japanese pottery wabishabi or something where you know there are these cracks you know in a vase or something and rather try than try to hide them [clears throat] they accentuate them and they make them beautiful so to accept you know I've been through it you know I have some scars,

you know, can I not necessarily accentuate those, but can I lovingly accept those and not make them cause for any kind of self-rejection or judgment about, oh, I I haven't really healed, you know, it's like saying, you know, have it gone through some process and come out perfect. There isn't a a perfect or or also to say perfect. It looks different on everybody. Who who you are and your biggest self looks different for everybody. So, you know, you got to give yourself a lot of room and not get into, well, you know, I have this idelic model and I if I'm not 100% that, then I'm not healed.

I I I say in the workbook, healing doesn't mean that you'll never hurt again. you know, you won't be a little triggered by something again or don't have a little bit of holding back or limitation in some way. Um, but when you are triggered and when you are hurt, the more you've healed, the quicker you can move through that and then the less it drags down your life. Yeah. On a related note, can you talk a little bit about this idea that we can get the things we lacked from our parents from other sources as an adult? And then I I realize now that I'm always asking you two parters, but uh how do we avoid putting that responsibility on others? Because when usually that's like a negative thing like in a romantic relationship especially, we're trying to get something that we didn't get in childhood and that creates problems. So, how do we get the good stuff and avoid kind of that negative side?

>> Well, I'd say self-awareness one and negotiation the other. Um, [clears throat] so and self-awareness, you know, you can see what you're doing. Oh, oh, I'm really wanting that person to compliment what I just did or they, you know, I feel like they owe me something or, you know, whatever. So the self-awareness which comes through any kind of inner work and journaling would be one helpful tool and negotiation. Um different relationships meaning different individuals that you might be in relationship with have different capacities. So what's the capacity? What's what do you agree on? I mean, you might agree to to do a fair amount of that. And you could even do some reparing kind of consciously at times, but separate that off from, okay, now

we're we're we're us. It's not like I'm the big one and you're the little one and I'm taking care of you or but but now we're both us. So you could do some and you could invite the partner to well, you know, please um mirror back to me when you feel like I'm coming from a child place here and asking too much. Uh oh, set boundaries, say no, you know. Um, so it would take a lot of care and conversation to to be in a partnership and, you know, skillfully, fruitfully deal with, you know, yeah, um, the childhood feelings and patterns that might come up. But it's a great resource. So, you know, not to um make the the boundary too um

daunting, but you know, to allow yourself to feel, oh, it's wonderful being taken care of right now. What do you want to tell people who feel guilt or shame about the anger that they still hold towards their parents? Well, guilt and shame are often an internalization of somebody else's voice or beliefs. Um the anger is natural. Anger is um a a primary uh emotion that needs [clears throat] to get worked with in in this healing process. Anger provides information when you get angry gives you know clues about you know is is a boundary being trespassed is something being missed here neglected here. Anger is a clue. So,

uh, welcome your anger, but hold it. Too often we think, "Oh, that means I need to act it out and I need to either cathart it or I need to uh show it to the other person." And um, you know, both of those have a time and place and both of those have limits. And finally, Jasmine, I'm curious how your perspective has changed or evolved since writing the emotionally absent mother and meeting with so many people who have come to you uh because of the book. You know, I went further. I mean it was 20 23 when I started working on the workbook and it had been 2016 so many years different when I wrote the second edition of the emotionally absent mother and uh um of course in that time I change my perspective changes and um so you see it partly in the

difference in the dedication of the two books in the first book. I'm just concerned about the pain, the healing, the loneliness to let them know they're not, you know, feel with that injured child in the workbook. I'm a little more with the adult saying, "Fly, you know, uh, go for it. Be all of yourself, you So, so you know I went kind of steps further related to what does healing look like? What can you give to the world? Not just can you get from being um weighed down in your life or maybe even quite miserable to being, you know, higher functioning. But, you know, what's beyond that? What's what, you know, people call post-traumatic growth? you know, how does that open up new vistas for you? So, um that was big also more about nourishment. You know

what we we miss if we had emotionally absent parents um we miss being nurtured and n the nourishment of that. So, you know, we have to make up for what we missed. Either our work with ourselves, our work in therapy, our work with partners and friends, you know, maybe with uh parents or family members, you know, and there could be other family members. I mean, sometimes an aunt or, you know, another family member becomes very supportive. Uh so I would say in short I went a little further with the ideas about healing and um also on the other hand went a little deeper and darker in the sense if talked more about trauma and and self-rejection self-hatred all of that.

So it just a little different spectrum in the books. I realize I'm talking about the difference in the books, but the difference in me um it it echoes uh you know my attention to myself. Where am I still stuck? What am I able to do more of? Where do I want to work? you know, and a lot of that for me is more relational. So, it had, you know, my perspective is um a little more about our life and kind of in the world as opposed to our life in therapy. Thank you so much, Jasmine. This was such a pleasure getting to speak to you.

Your books are incredibly validating to all of us with emotionally absent parents and ones that I personally feel that anyone who even suspects that this was their experience should read and that they would get a lot out of it. So, thank you so much for writing it and for sharing it with us and for speaking with me today. I'm very grateful for it. Thank you. Yes, I'm happy to have done it. Thank you. Well, [music]