So calling my mom a mind-fucking bitch in a blog appears to be crossing some sort of line that has never been crossed before - and will probably never be possible to uncross.
I have these moments where I think about my mom and get all anxious and then think about publically calling her that and take on a kind awe. Not of myself or anything, but of the concept of saying something so bold and crude and true about my mom. And saying it to the world.
It is so weird. Maintaining a relationship with her and getting her love and approval have been goals of mine that I didn't even realize were etched so deeply into my brain, probably at birth. I imagine this is a basic human thing, but a lot of mothers don't use their child's need for love and protection to manipulate them in very negative ways.
One of the things I get very angry about is remembering how it felt when I was back there, in that house, on that street, completely shut off from any external source of hope. I felt so devastatingly alone and sad. I remember thinking about how many years would be left before I could leave there.
When I was five, being big enough to leave there seemed like an entire lifetime away. When I was 14, it still seemed like an entire lifetime away.
Actually, now that I think about it, I started trying to leave that place before I was even in grade school. I started running away when I was four or five years old. It felt so powerful, just leaving like that. Then it felt scary not having a home. Then it felt like crushing grief because I didn't have a family anymore.
That really sucked. No matter how much I knew I had to get out of there, once I was gone I would fantasize about my bed and how the blanket smelled, and eating whatever my mom would make for dinner, and just being home.
The back porch, the hammock, my roof outside my window, my closet, my stuff, the fireplace, the stairs, the closet under the stairs, our dog, my brother and sister, my mom - even my dad.
I would get pictures in my head of the whole family just hanging out around Christmastime, playing Uno and laughing, feeling the comfort of having a fire going in the fireplace - love, safety, and acceptance. I would get terribly sick for the place and people I felt so desperate and relieved to get away from.
Then some adult would bring me back home, or my mom would find some way to contact me and tell me to come home, or I would go home because I didn't have any place else to go and was hungry and dirty and it was so cold or so hot outside.
The especially shitty part is knowing that our family did really have Norman Rockwell moments. There were times my dad was protective and friendly. There were a lot of times my mom was a comfort just to be around. There were times my sister and I would agree on something and resist tearing each other down any way possible. There were times my brother was not getting beaten up or teased or tortured by me, and he was just a cute little kid who was fun to be a big sister to.
Acknowledging all of the abuse and bad things is not the most difficult thing for me - acknowledging the sense of belonging and of being loved - even fleetingly - at all in my childhood is the most difficult thing for me.
There is no way to deny that my mom nurtured me and protected me and took care of me. There is no way to deny that resting my head against my dad's shoulder was one of the most wonderful feelings in the whole world. There is no way to deny that my sister and brother and I knew we had each other's' backs when things got scary.
All of these things definitely existed in my childhood. What do I do with all of that stuff? What do I do now that I know those things will never be enough to make up for or excuse the things my parents did to me?
And now I've gone and called my mom a mind-fucking bitch on my blog. There is no turning back from that. It was a horrendously painful cut to make, that one between my mom and I, and I know I would have to do it again and again and again if I didn't so definitively sever the tie.
I feel like I'm realizing for the first time that I've been trying to gnaw off my umbilical cord to get away because she never allowed there to simply be a clean cut. I guess I had to grow up and learn how to cut it myself - but as an adult, there is a lot of pain in turning my back on my mom. She's been my mom for thirty five years, and I miss her.
It was not very complicated to sort out that my dad was a really, really, really awful person and to see that the relationship I had with him had been so twisted and harmful. I was able to go ahead and let who he was go and to grieve the father I wished he'd been.
But I like my mom.
Although I see her now much more clearly than I have in the past, it is not so easy for me to just let go of who she is and to grieve the mother I wished she'd been. In a lot of ways, she WAS the mother I'd wished she'd been. She came to the school productions and soccer games and softball games, she made dinner for me and my brother and sister every night, she tucked me in and brought me a cup of water when I couldn't fall asleep (I'm not sure why the water was such a great salve for my anxiety-produced insomnia, but as a little girl it really did the trick).
She took me to the dentist the doctor and the dermatologist and even a shrink. She took me shopping for clothes and she came and got me when I threw up or had a panic attack at school. She waited on me when I had chicken pox and strep throat. She was right there by my side the whole time I was in the hospital when my ovary was removed. She was there when both of my babies were born. She was at both of my weddings, and really supported me during my one divorce.
Umbilical cords don't heal and grow back. After they have been cut, they shrivel up and die and fall off and are discarded and forgotten. I don't know why or how I have been part of this purgatorial relationship with her. All I've ever known is that I have been absolutely terrified to do anything that would make me shrivel up and die and fall off and be discarded and forgotten.
Calling my mom a mind-fucking bitch is a line I've crossed. It's the line that held me in her life, and now I'm on the other side of it. I mean, purgatory sucks. Breaking off my relationship with my mom and realizing and liking the person I am now sucks less than purgatory.
But is still miss my mom, mind-fucking bitch or not.
2 comments:
lol i understand you- but dont get me wrong, you have it easy, compared to some.
my mum is exactly like that-with all the Rockwell moments and support and good bits left out. she has never in her life supported me, used to beat me, physically verbally and mentally abuse me, (I am a sixteen year old girl by the way), lied to me sooo much that even now i am trying to get over the giant knot of webs of deceit she spun, and she emotionally still blackmails me by crying and calling me a hardhearted girl when i tell her i only want to see here once a month, and my little sisters too. she abandoned me when i was fourteen , and i was left to take care of two little sisters, i was in the middle of my gcse EXAMS, then four weeks later she came back, arranged a meeting with me and my sisters, and beat me to almost death when i asked her that i wanted answers and why she lied to me. after that, she went to court of course, claimed not guilty, and was found guilty, but the judge let her off because she was crying and she has such an innocent face that she can emotionally blackmail hitler, so she got no punishment.
obviously, the real punishment was her losing everything, her husband, who i can safely say tried sooo dam hard to keep her happy, i feel sorry for my dad because hes been so much and even though me and him sometimes have arguments about teenage things, like staying out etc, he lost 18 years of his life in a marriage he tried soooo hard to keep, and the result of it was that his wife left him, had an affair with someone else before that, but he even forgave her for THAT and said they could start over, but she left by listening to her parents who believe it or not, have two other daughters, one of them whose marriage lasted a WEEK and the other whose first marriage ended after six years, and second marriage just ended recently after six months, and whose mother is divorced once too-so it goes to show their mindset doesnt it? I'm ashamed to call them my family, and ashamed to have their blood running in my veins- and she soooo mind fucks me, two years on from then, when we have meetings with her once a month, calling me hardhearted just because im finally not bullied by her, and then i dont know what to do when she starts crying, just to emotioanlly blackmail my sisters, and me, to the extent that although i now use my head and a level voice, i get soo confused and mindfucked and feel sorry for her even though she wont admit she did anything wrong, and she wont say sorry to me, or my father, or my little sisters, who I have been as a mother when she wasnt. because there are mums out there who sacrifice EVERYTHING for their children, in terrible marriages, whereas my mother just needed to take her anti depressant pills and was with a man who really loved her and took care of her and even broke off contact from his own family when she said she was uncomfortable with them and said theyd done things, all were lies of course as was found out by evidence, and she JUST LEFT and comes back like--a mind fuking biatch. and how am i EVER supposed to love anyone in my life, have a relationship, when my mind and my heart has been stamped upon so bad??
So i see where your coming from, sorry for the giant message. and i know, how hard it is to say it, but we neeeed a clean cut, a clean break-we have our own lives. i just thank god i have a dad who listens and goes to work at the same time and provides for us and cooks the dinner all at the same time, and sisters even when we dont get on- its brought us all closer together, and i wish you the very best in your life and all that you do. xxx
@ anonymous:
thank you so much for sharing part of your story! i am very impressed at your state of mind at only 16 years old!
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