The Fog Lifts – Understanding My Mother’s Need for Control
June 17, 2025
Realizing that Google Maps wasn’t the problem — it was a symbol of my mother losing control, and of me finally beginning to see through the illusion she built.
I realized recently why my mother got so upset when I used Google Maps instead of listening to her.
It wasn’t about directions. It was about control — and the fear of losing it.
Google Maps represented something deeper: that her sense of being “the one who knows” was no longer needed. That she was becoming irrelevant. And that’s terrifying when your identity has been built on certainty, on always being right, on leading without ever questioning yourself.
She wasn’t just angry at a piece of technology — she was scared.
Because I didn’t need her to guide me anymore.
And if I didn’t need her knowledge, maybe I didn’t need her at all.
What I used to interpret as confidence or wisdom…
I now see for what it really was: arrogance dressed up as authority, driven by a fear of being left behind.
The fog lifts with space.
And with it comes grief — not just for the childhood I didn’t have, but for the connection that was never safe enough to trust.
But it also brings freedom.
Because now I see clearly.
And I can choose a different path.