The Death Mother and Me
I wrote a paper for my Depth Psychology class, and I was really proud of it, especially when I received my grade from my professor, and his comments back to me. I wanted to share it here with you. It is deeply personal, so please receive this with care.
The Death Mother Archetype and Me
The Death Mother Archetype has recently floated onto my radar of awareness and has completely enraptured me, affording me the felt experience of psychopomp – when an image captivates the mind. I believe my psyche has been intimately intertwined with this archetype since childhood, and as I bring conscious awareness to it, my physical body is responding in quite interesting ways. From the moment I decided to sit down and write this paper, I became intensely sick with a terrible chest cold. My chest and lungs becoming so incredibly painful, reminding me of the times in childhood where I could not breathe due to asthma. The more I learn about the Death Mother Archetype, the more I feel it is a part of the fabric of my being. Not only do I see how it intertwines within my own life, but I notice how it intertwines within our culture’s identity and shadow. As an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I see the world through a different lens then those who have not lived through a prolonged traumatic experience. Understanding the Death Mother Archetype brings a level of understanding, articulation, and compassion to the thoughts and ideas that have been running through my mind for years.
Archetypes are a concept explored by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology (Jung, 1989). Jung used archetypes to describe innate behavior patterns that he believed all people are born with and that ultimately shape human behavior (Jung, 1989). These innate behavior patterns are similar to the intelligence within the acorn that supplies the foundation of how to become an oak tree. The acorn does not have to think about how to become an oak tree, the coding is imbedded as an innate drive, a born-in intelligence. Jung developed the idea of archetypes to articulate this unconscious force that is found within us all. “Archetypes manifest both on a personal level, through complexes, and collectively, as characteristics of whole cultures.” (Sharp, 1991). The distinguishable images, ideas, and symbols that result from an unconscious arranging mechanism, or psyche, are called archetypal images. Jung described archetypal images as universal patterns or themes that generate in the collective unconscious and are seen in the basic content of religions, mythologies, legends, and fairy tales (Sharp, 1991). Jung came to this idea though his repeated observations of myths and fairy tales in world literature that contain concrete themes which can be observed in human behavior in every corner of the world (Jung, 1989). Archetypes are both negative and positive, they hold both a positive persona, “the “I” or ideal aspects of ourselves that we present to the outside world” (Stein, 1998), and a shadow aspect, “the unseen or unconscious aspects of ourselves, both good and bad, that ego has either repressed or never claimed” (Stein, 1998). The dualism within archetypes can be compared to the symbolism of the yin-yang principle; though Yin and Yang are parts of the same whole, the T’ai chi, they have separate and opposite meanings: birth and death, light and dark, above and below, night and day, good and bad, and so on (Iyengar, 1979).
The Death Mother is an archetypal image that has been composed by the Jungian analyst and teacher, Marion Woodman. Born through her observations of her own personal experiences, and developed after many years of encountering this archetype within her clients, she has been able to articulate this archetype and describe its inner workings on the individual and within the culture at large. Woodman describes the Death Mother as wielding a “cold, fierce, violent and corrosive power” (Sieff, 2009, p. 178). The way she describes the Death Mother can be seen within the myth of Medusa, stating, “When Death Mother’s gaze is directed at us, it penetrates both psyche and body, turning us into stone. It kills hope. It cuts us dead. We collapse. Our life-energy drains from us and we sink into chthonic darkness” (Sieff, 2009, p. 178). The Death Mother is the shadow side of the Great Mother Archetype, or the Archetype of the Feminine. To grasp a concept of the Great Mother Archetype, think of images such as Jesus’s mother Mary, or Sophia, or Pachamama. These images represent good nurturing, bountifulness, spiritual wisdom, and unconditional love. The archetypal element of the feminine is far from containing only positive characteristics, it is the complete cycle in which decay and dissolution must precede rebirth (Ford, 2004). In yoga, we chant “sa, ta, na, ma,” Sa representing birth, the beginning, and the totality of the cosmos. Ta representing life, existence, and creativity in physical manifestation. Na representing death and transformation. And Ma, representing rebirth, regeneration, and the experience of the infinite (Iyengar, 1979). The Death Mother is a natural part of the Great Mother or Archetype of the Feminine because she holds the totality of what does not want to be seen, but is a necessary and natural essence of the whole.
Daniela Sieff holds a PhD in anthropology and is a scholar and speaker who explores the dynamics that underlie emotional trauma. She interviewed Marion Woodman about the Death Mother archetype in the spring of 2009, and published it with The Psychology of Violence, a journal of archetype and culture in New Orleans, Louisiana. In this interview, Daniela asks Marion about what happens when we experience the Death Mother during childhood. Marion mentions that this energy is the most destructive when it comes from a trusted caregiver in childhood. She states in the interview:
It is what happened in the original trauma; we trusted our beloved caregiver and suddenly we were hit with the realization that we were not acceptable. We realized that our caregiver wished that we, or some part of us, was dead (p. 178).
Daniela said that this exposure leads us to internalize the archetype and it eventually becomes written into our physical bodies, the Death Mother becomes incorporated into the fabric of our cells (Sieff, 2009). Daniela asks Marion to expand around experiencing the Death Mother while growing up. Marion states:
If while growing up we sensed that we were unacceptable to our parents, or if we were not wanted, then our nervous system will have become hyper-vigilant. Our cells will have been imprinted with a profound fear of abandonment; as a consequence, our body will numb-out the moment that we feel threatened. As soon as we realize that we are no longer pleasing somebody we freeze; we are thrown back into our belief that we are unlovable, which then activates our ever-present, but unconscious, terror of annihilation. (p. 179).
Marion goes on to explain that this experience trains the autonomic nervous system to respond with a “NO” when it experiences this feeling, and the ego then withdraws. She said that this is like having a “possum mentality” (p.179) that becomes embedded in our body-psyche. Life then is experienced as a minefield in which we are knocked down by obstacles that are invisible to others. She also mentions that we may develop unconscious “defense mechanisms that can manifest as an armor of fat, oedema, vomiting, or anything to keep from passing out” (p. 179). All of this speaks to my personal experience so loudly. I struggle with being passive and shy. I have also always struggled with my weight, as I turned to food for comfort as I experienced my trauma in childhood. When my abuser was sent to jail, I was 220 pounds at 15 years old. I have struggled with an eating disorder, specifically binge eating, and at its worst purging, also known as bulimia. Reading that these are all effects of embodying the Death Mother Archetype gave me a sense of compassion for myself and my inner child.
For a long time, I ran away from the reality of what my life was like growing up. I did not want to face that it was my truth because it hurt my heart so badly. I had a childhood of extreme polarities, and I was lost adrift in the middle. I depended on others to tell me what the truth of my reality was, only to later discover what I had known all along was the real truth. I am a child of divorce, my father left us when I was just shy of two years old. This separation was really hard for my mom. She was a devoted and incredibly loving mother, who wanted nothing more than to build a loving family of her own. Having my brother and me was the greatest gift she could ever have received, and to have her family broken due to my father’s infidelity and unwillingness to work it out truly shattered her heart. I am so incredibly grateful for the foundation of unconditional love that she bestowed upon my earliest years.
My mother moved us in with my grandmother and her newly married husband Romeo. Trauma entered into my life when Romeo began sexually abusing me at the age of 3, which became a regular occurrence until the age of 13 when my trauma came out into the light. My mom was busy working multiple jobs and putting herself through university to give us a better life, and depended on the care of my grandma and Romeo to help raise us kids. I later found out that my grandmother knew of my abuse, but did nothing to stop it. After her passing, I came to discover the story of her own childhood and early adult life, and the generational trauma or Death Mother that had been present inside of her, and inside of her mother, my great grandmother, who secretly gave up a child born out of wedlock. The Death Mother has definitely infused within every cell of my being, and I had a hard time reconciling the shadow aspects in my early adult life. There was a time I truly felt I suffered from multiple-personality disorder because I could not control the shadow aspects of myself that would come out to sabotage any good I was creating in my life. Daniela mentions:
It seems to me that having internalized Death Mother while growing up, when we find ourselves doing something that we deem to be unacceptable, we silently direct our own Death Mother back on ourselves. At such times we aren’t aware of what is happening; all we know is that we have fallen into a self-created and private hell (Sieff, 2009, p.179).
This quote made me feel so seen and understood because this has been exactly my experience. I have done a lot of work to bring awareness to my shadow, and to cultivate love and compassion for myself, but even so, when stress becomes overwhelming or I fall out of balance, the Death Mother is there waiting to embrace me in her suffocating arms.
One of my biggest struggles in life is the intense suicidal ideations I have experienced at certain periods of my life. I see this now as the Death Mother unconsciously expressing within the fabric of my being. Marion Woodman spoke to this:
Relief at the prospect of death comes straight out of trauma. Trauma and fear open the door of the psyche to Death Mother, and once Death Mother has walked through that door we are swamped by unconscious lethargy and paralysis. We are overcome with a desire to sink into comfortable, unconscious womb-like darkness, to give up and end the struggle (Sieff, 2009, p. 181).
The first time the idea of killing myself entered my mind, I was 12 years old. I even performed a mock-ceremony for myself one night in my bedroom. Dressed in all white, wildflowers spread around me, and repeating the song “Adam’s Song” from Blink 182 on my stereo. The last time I experienced this strong desire to end my life was in 2018, before my 33rd birthday. It was my most significant rock-bottom moment, when I thought I was going to complete the task this time. This was my first conscious confrontation with psyche and my true Self. Psyche is an energy that speaks in images and is undoubtably real. Psyche is more than just me as an individual, it is everything that encompasses both myself, and the entire world, the conscious and unconscious, the inner and the outer world. Psyche is not the self, it is bigger, it is infinite. Psyche wants to be known and seeks transformation, its entire goal is to seek balance and return to wholeness (Stein, 1998). My true Self knew better than to physically end my life. The Self is the totality of the personality, it embraces not only the conscious but also the unconscious psyche (Jung, 1989). On my rock-bottom day, Psyche was telling me that it was time to change. It was time for the old part of me to die, to let go, to transform. Psyche was calling me forward to continue my process of individuation. Individuation is a process that involves integrating the shadow and becoming your true Self in relationship to Psyche. The call became loud because I was trapped in the Death Mother’s grip of fear of change.
This experience has propelled me forward in the individuation process, which Jung describes as a process in which a person becomes a psychological ‘in-dividual,’ who is a separate, indivisible unity or whole (Jung, 1989). It was the catalyst to my awakening. It gave me the motivation and courage to seek out others who could help me understand how to confront my shadow and integrate back to wholeness. I embarked on a journey to Colorado to partake in a legal psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to help me process and release the stored-up trauma that was being held within my nervous system. Unburdening my system opened my soul to the wonders of the world and gifted me a new sense of optimism and hope for the future. I enrolled in school, completed my undergrad with honors, and am now attending my dream graduate school program, focusing on learning about depth psychology which has impacted me so profoundly. Even though I can feel the Death Mother residing within my body, I am no longer completely unconscious to her insidious influence.
References
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