When the Trigger Is Your Mother
“We broke up,” I spout.
A tense silence. My eyes cling to the lettuce cups. Seconds take an eternity to pass. Anxious for her reply, I peek up. Her eyes twinkle with welling tears. She was my best friend growing up, and though we’ve had it rough since puberty, my aching loneliness craves her support, so I push on. “I, mom—I—I like…guys…I—I thought it was a phase, as Dad told me, or something, but it’s not going away and—and…yeah, we broke up.”
The window for a quick positive response closes. The approaching waiter retreats. Steps away before speaking. He knows a breakup when he sees one. “Do you have AIDS?” she says with a sudden urgency.
“What?” Not that question. “No.”
Her ignorance flings her so far from where I need her to be, yanking my hope away so fast that it leaves me breathless.
“What about grandkids?” she panics.
I claw at anger to stay afloat. “What? I don’t know. It can still happen, I guess.”
This was a terrible idea.
She scoops a lettuce wrap, tears falling down her face as she piles the chicken on top. “Well, of course, we love you and accept you…but just, you know, not the lifestyle,” she says, crunching into a bite.
“Lifestyle” is the Mormon codeword for sex with other men, even though if asked, they’d say “lifestyle” means all the partying “they” do.
I sink into the booth, disgusted with the families of mall shoppers around me shoveling mounds of fried rice into their mouths. We cut into our dynamite shrimp in silence.
It’s clear, my mother won’t turn on the Mormons. Should’ve kept my mouth shut.
My mother asks for the check. Escape.
*******
I was nineteen when I came out to my mother; forced to tell her after a failed suicide attempt. I hadn’t known it would be the beginning of my end.
My story was horrific: after being a closeted, gay Mormon in the 90s, I found relief as a tweaker. I drove a car under an eighteen-wheeler and walked away, was arrested for possession and distribution then pushed through the Washington D.C. judicial system, became an informant for the federal government, watched friends OD, and evaded threats to my life…basically, all the “that would never happen to me” consequences times ten.
But I walked away, alive, having never “ratted” and with my case dismissed. I don’t know how other than I was one lucky SOB. Thankfully, since then, recovery has stuck.
But it meant I had to deal with life on life’s terms.
In 2008, the journey with my mother took a significant hit after the Mormons funded the California vote in favor of Prop 8 to ban gay marriage. Even in sobriety, despite those early recovery years feeling closer to her than I ever had, I was still clinging to the hope that she would one day renounce her beliefs.
But that was a pipe dream.
The years that followed were met with more disappointments. And the more my esteem grew in recovery, the more painful the disappointments became.
I had to accept that she would never change.
I had to protect and save my little boy self.
I needed to let go of the mother I expected her to be and let her be the mother she was, which wasn’t enough.
So I made the impossible choice to never speak to her again.
To grieve her as if I lost her.
And I thought getting sober off methamphetamines would be the hardest thing I’d ever have to do...
But there is a happy ending.
When my now husband met my mother for the first time, it was one of the first few interactions I had with her after years apart. She was unavoidable at life-marking events in my siblings' lives, and gradually, the waters were tested until I felt confidently free from emotional reactions toward her (aka being triggered). But, I was very wrong. She made an innocent comment that set me off.
Later, in our hotel room, my fiancé casually remarked, “Why don’t you just forgive her?”
“Forgive her? Do you have any idea what she’s done to me?”
“Yeah, but, like you said, you’re not that person anymore.”
I scoffed - as if forgiveness were that easy.
“She should be asking for my forgiveness!”
He laughed. “Don’t laugh at me!” I snapped.
“Sorry, but you did all that work to stay away, yet you still hold resentment. What was the point?”
I scoffed again. My mouth dropped. I thought I had moved on. I thought I was healed. Was I still expecting her to change?
Damn.
I needed a new approach.
That’s when I realized forgiveness is an active verb.
Sean and his mother, years later, at his wedding.
I was going to experiment and see what would happen if, in my mind, I wholeheartedly repeated “I forgive you” toward my mother when in her presence for the rest of the trip. She would have no idea.
We’d share a meal.
“I forgive you.”
A walk.
“I forgive you.”
A drive.
“I forgive you.”
On and on I would experiment. Hoping to be free.
Until the last day, my mother asked to speak with me alone. That was unusual but good because I could use the opportunity to say “I forgive you” out loud. Perhaps-
“I don’t know why, but I had an idea for something I wanted to try, and I’m hoping you’ll let me,” She said.
I nodded, confused.
“M’kay,” she said, sitting me down on the love seat, “this may sound strange, but lie down and put your head on my lap.”
It’s too much intimacy that I am not prepared for, but still, I awkwardly scrunched my entire 6’4, 220-pound frame on the love seat, resting my head on her lap.
I flinched when I suddenly felt her hand stroking my hair. What is going on?
I can’t look up because I think she’s already crying. “I just wanted to speak to that child inside of you. To that four-year-old. I wanted him to know - I am so, so, so sorry. He is right to be upset. His childhood was not fair. And I wish it had gone better for him. I hope one day he can forgive me.”
She continued stroking my hair. I swallowed the most enormous lump in my throat. “I see him still in so much pain,” she said, “and I just want him to know he’s loved. And I love him. And I wish it were different. But it’s not. And I’m so, so sorry because of that.”
It’s as if I were the four-year-old who received that which he had sought after his entire life.
I was so moved that I vowed to forgive her entirely. But how? Internally, repeating “I forgive you” was giving space between her words/behavior and my reactions but that wasn’t enough. Within that interstice my growing awareness could see that I as the adult was fine; it was the child in me still emotional even after hearing this from my mother. But why? He wasn’t alone anymore. He wasn’t abandoned. He had love, and understanding. So, then why?
Could it be that my triggers were now only habit? The mechanics of the brain. After years and years of reacting to her, it made sense that I was trained to respond this way. So forgiveness was not only an active verb but a practice in breaking a habitual way of thinking!
If I simply observed the emotional trigger coursing through my body and repeated to myself - it’s nothing more than an emotional reaction based on my past and that is perfectly okay, nothing is wrong - I could separate enough from the emotion to give myself a chance to choose to act differently. And most of the time that looked like not responding at all. It would be like turning around the Titanic at first, but would become progressively easier, until over time, the habit would die. And replaced by something new - like love.
Which is exactly what happened.
Unbeknownst to me, my mother had her own evolution in our time apart. Despite still being Mormon, she internalized her relationship with her God into a more take-what-you-can-and-leave-the-rest brand, which left her less in a place of judgement and more in a place of acceptance and love.
She even cheekily told me, she loved my soon-to-be husband more than me and that I better not screw it up because he’s a good one - and she meant it!
And when I asked my mother to walk me down the aisle, she didn’t hesitate.
So, on the day, in her best dress, tears streamed down her face - as mine - for we now shared a love we knew not possible.
I know how hard forgiveness truly is because of my path with my mom…for people who are struggling, here’s a reminder that finding the space beyond the emotion is the best place to start.
Sean Hemeon is an award-winning actor (9-1-1, Criminal Minds, CW’s Husbands), screenwriter, and abstract expressionist painter. His debut memoir, The Good Little Druglord, chronicles his extraordinary journey from a former Mormon drug dealer to a federal informant, exploring themes of mental health, addiction, redemption, and identity. He resides in Los Angeles with his husband and their two Boston Terriers. Follow him on insta @sean_hemeon or www.seanhemeon.com for all updates.