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Divorce Your (Bad) Mother: How to Love Her and Still Be Free Lisa Aronson Fontes, PhD talks to Magdalena Gomez Lisa Aronson Fontes, PhD, has a doctorate in counseling psychology and has worked in the areas of child abuse, violence against women, challenging family issues, and crosscultural research for over 25 years. A professor, researcher, and popular conference speaker, she teaches at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Fontes is the author of Invisible Chains: Overcoming Coercive Control in Your Intimate Relationship as well as the professional resources Child Abuse and Culture and Interviewing across Cultures More info: www.lisafontes.com. L isa Aronson Fontes talks to award winning poet and playwright, Magdalena Gómez and confronts the Mother Taboo. LF: One of the characters in your play Perfectamente Loca/Perfectly Insane describes her mother as "a monster." A lot of people would hesitate to call their mother a monster—even if she was cruel. MG: Too many people are held hostage by the coercive tenet of familial loyalty: “What happens in this house stays in this house.” I support my readers and audiences to interrupt the fear, shame and self-loathing they might feel in those moments when they secretly wish their abusive mothers would just drop dead. LF: Did you ever feel that way? MG: Yes, from a very young age. I was responding to her using the same weapons on me that had been used on her: beatings, blame, guilt and shaming. LF: Why was your mother cruel to you? MG: My mother was the victim of childhood sex traicking in the Caribbean. She sufered from a brutal colonialism and unquestioned traditions, poverty, bigotry, and the profound oppression of women, all of which rendered her incapable of love. Unwittingly, she perpetrated the cycle of her abuse on me. LF: How did you overcome the burden of your mother’s abuse? MG: Throughout the years I worked hard for us to have a loving relationship and she was simply incapable. The daily beatings stopped when I left home at nineteen, but the psychological abuse and manipulations were never-ending. When I turned forty I inally gave her an ultimatum: “You show me the same respect I have always shown you, or we won’t be seeing each other again.” Her response was to call me a “bad daughter” and to deny that she ever abused me. Cutting her out of my life was the most diicult and liberating thing I have ever done. For forty years she made me pay a debt that others owed her, and made my inner life a torment. When I inally accepted that her approval would never come, I chose to “divorce” her. 2018 is the Year For Making The Invisible Visible
LF: What was the efect of “divorcing” your mother? MG: The distance allowed me to see her more clearly and ind compassion and forgiveness. It was diicult to overcome the deeply embedded cultural and religious teachings that regarded “The Mother” as a saint to be revered and honored. At last I realized my attachment to her was keeping me in a state of low level depression and on-going anxiety. How could I follow The Golden Rule if I couldn’t fully love and protect myself? I had to accept that she would never be able receive my love. I chose to love her from a distance and heal myself. I ofered my love, it was refused. As in any relationship that is non-reciprocal, it was time to move on. My family and my mother’s church friends believe I remain a child in need of God’s forgiveness. That’s their issue, not mine. No regrets. article continues after advertisement LF: Did you ever see her again, after you turned forty? MG: No, that divorce was inal. When she died, a relative left me a voice mail. I took a deep breath and imagined my mother in peace at last. I had already grieved her loss for decades.There was nothing more to say or do. LF: I love your poems and plays. They are funny, heartbreaking, moving and they sing of liberation. How does this background with your mother igure into your plays and your poems? My play, Perfectamente Loca/Perfectly Insane, is an opportunity for people to see the truth about “bad mothers” spoken with righteous rage, compassion and humor. My poems ofer solace and depict a life of moving from victim to victorious, from shame to a joyful shamelessness. They are about every kind of war. From home to battleield, from the subjugated body to the tormented mind. I believe in the arts as our greatest tools of selfdefense. I write, teach, perform and give talks using my life and those of my divined characters as examples that liberation and a healthy life are possible despite all odds. To learn more about Gómez’s work, visit: www.magdalenagomez.com For more information about Coercive Control: Fontes, L. A. (2015). Invisible Chains: Overcoming Coercive Control in Your Intimate Relationship 2018 is the Year For Making The Invisible Visible
Page 1 and 2: CCChat AAFDA Conference details ins
Page 3 and 4: Contents The Wife who abused then A
Page 6: On the 12th June at the University
Page 15 and 16: CC Discussion Groups Launches 9th A
Page 17 and 18: This is a new addition to CCChat Ma
Page 19 and 20: CCChat talks to: "Michael" “ SHE
Page 22 and 23: AAFDA Annual Conference 2018 Illumi
Page 24 and 25: Conference on Coercive Control 2018
Page 26 and 27: The Homicide Research Group will be
Page 28: The Difference Between Good Abuse a
Page 31 and 32: I recently attended the Blurring Bo
Page 33 and 34: I was worried enough to make a Clai
Page 35 and 36: ABUSE CHAT Jennifer Gilmour S ince
Page 37 and 38: BOOK GIVEAWAY!!! Broken Pieces by R
Page 39 and 40: Confirmed speakers so far: Dr Karen

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