Maya had the dream life. She had a career she loved. She married when she was mature enough to pick a partner for the right reasons. She had a partner, a son, a daughter and a lovely puppy. Add the picket fence and you could say she had it all. On the surface of course…

Beneath the surface she was struggling with the demise of a marriage due to the malicious interactions of a verbally and emotionally abusive mother in law who was going unstopped in the family. This women had such control over the men in her family, that she could say and do as she pleased, and no one would stop her from viscious behavior. Maya became the victim of emotional and verbal abuse, first from her mother in law, then her extended family members, and then ultimately from her husband. She was a highly educated women, so how could anything so serious be happening in her life?

The walls came crashing down upon Maya, when her mother in law crossed the line to not only verbally and emotionally abuse her, she repeatedly hurt her infant son too. The saddest thing about this situation, is that her mother in law “did not intentionally” verbally and emotionally abuse anyone. Even though she was the former manager of a pre-school, she did not consider that flying into a mad rage directed at Maya in front of her 2 month old son, would ultimately harm the baby.

When Maya tried to rationalize with her mother in law not to shout in front of the baby and even set a limit with her mad rages that were in hearing distance of her two month old son, she exploded into an enormous shouting attack of unbelievable proportions. Maya’s then 2 month old son, was quivering in her arms with fear. Maya had one gift as a mother, in that she had enormous mother’s intuition- and she knew my mother in law’s shouting verbally abusive comments at her had resulted in sheer terror and fear for her son- from his perspective, he had done something to cause such anger. An infant of this age does not have the capacity to handle hearing an abusive adult. As adults- parents or grandparents- we owe it to our children not to expose them to such emotional abuse.

Maya’s son suffered from the most intense “colic” at that time. He was crying in pain throughout the day, and no one else had the patience to sit with hours of screaming agony from him. Maya knew that her son was a very empathic, emotionally gifted child that was picking up the emotionally abusive nature of her mother in law, and it was manifesting itself physically as “colic”. Colic is an interesting term for “we don’t know what is going on, there are no physical problems, good luck, we could over medicate the baby with addictive drugs to make us all feel better.”

During this time, Maya’s husband refused to see the connection between Maya’s mother in law’s abusive behavior and the grandchild’s sickness. Maya had one advantage in that she was highly educated and could read like a demon when need be. So Maya read everything about the brain gut axis in the infant, and the link between exposure to emotional abuse and infant physical problems. Maya fortunately had the strength to walk away from the situation, with a two month old infant and two puppies, and take back her life even when her family was not being protected by her husband.

Interestingly, after Maya’s son was removed from Maya’s mother in law’s house, all the extreme physical symptoms Maya’s son had disappeared. And yet to this day, although Maya’s husband and Maya have worked on staying married and communicating through the struggle, as a victim of infant abuse himself, the husband is very unwilling to ever see his mother with the lense of reality. It’s a sick situation.

However, it’s important for women with abusive mother in laws to know you are not alone. You sometimes have to be the strong one to protect your family. In Maya’s case, Maya’s mother in law had a pattern of abusively force feeding babies. She force fed Maya’s husband as an infant with a spoon, by holding her thighs over his torso as he screamed and cried in protest. This lady actually tried to force feed Maya’s son in her home while Maya was on a business call. Fortunately, Maya was present and able to intervene. The lady never took responsibility for her abusive behavior with Maya’s son. And interestingly, the entire family, Maya’s father-in-law and husband tried to emotionally and verbally attack Maya in defense of this sick behavior. However, over time with compassion, I understand a family with a narcissistic and abusive mother without self awareness, learns to cover up what really happens. They try to make the person who stands up against abuse as the crazy one.

After experiencing from Maya how bad abuse can get from an intimate family member, I have committed my life’s work to spiritually healing abuse survivors, so you become the mothers, lovers, and the professionals you deserve to be. I will be publishing a series of articles called, “You’re the First”, that will be about how women and men have turned around difficult situations, and become highly successful in their own right. Believe in yourself, you can get anything you dream of…

By: Neera Puri