I am searching for answers. Where was God when my mother abused me over and over? Where was He and why did He not intervene?
Only one blog have I found helpful so far: Blooming Lotus, a blog about childhood abuse. The writer shares her journey through abuse and her conclusion that God entrusted free will to those who misused it. Far from being absent during the abuse, He wept that such things were happening and wept at the harm done to an innocent victim.
I don't really care that I need a new identity and all that. What I want to know is, how can I reconcile the church's assertion that God is good when He allowed me to be so hurt by my primary caretaker?
Oh that I would be able to love God with abandon, forgive my mother, and move on. Oh that I could stop the pain and mental lacerations learned from years of abuse.
I wonder what I'll do if I ever get beyond this.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Help
Anxiety stabs me in the chest. It bears down on me like a heavy object, choking the life out of me. I feel worthless and ugly, like a mistake that keeps perpetuating mistakes. I can't do anything right. Everything I do is wrong, ugly just like me.
I hate myself when I'm anxious. I hate everything about life; I can hardly function.
Help! I think. But no help comes. Just like no help ever came when my crazy-maker mother made me feel so anxious about life. A misspoken word. A word at all. A look. A sigh. Anything that smacked of me - myself, not her or her ideas, but my own free will - was punished with tears, pouting, and silence, with her look of death, with tirades of abuse that I just had to stand there and take. Then, after she'd spouted her fury, I'd retreat to my room and pray to a God whose help never came. He never stopped her from beating me up. He never did anything to comfort me.
The one time I thought God visited me, I felt a black presence come over me, a feeling of being horribly wrong to wonder if He existed. I was 13, anorexic, praying to a God who gave me a witch for a mother.
I cry out to Him now - help me, oh God. Help me with this terrible anxiety, this feeling of dread. The tightness in my chest. The worry that I'm ugly and messing up my life and incompetent. Give me faith to see that the way my job is working out is your way of providing for me. Please, God. Please answer my prayer and help me to know what to do with all the times you never sent help, all the times I wondered how you could make such a worthless, sinful person.
Where were you when I needed you? Where are you when I need you now? Please touch my heart and soften the anxiety. Please give me peace.
I hate myself when I'm anxious. I hate everything about life; I can hardly function.
Help! I think. But no help comes. Just like no help ever came when my crazy-maker mother made me feel so anxious about life. A misspoken word. A word at all. A look. A sigh. Anything that smacked of me - myself, not her or her ideas, but my own free will - was punished with tears, pouting, and silence, with her look of death, with tirades of abuse that I just had to stand there and take. Then, after she'd spouted her fury, I'd retreat to my room and pray to a God whose help never came. He never stopped her from beating me up. He never did anything to comfort me.
The one time I thought God visited me, I felt a black presence come over me, a feeling of being horribly wrong to wonder if He existed. I was 13, anorexic, praying to a God who gave me a witch for a mother.
I cry out to Him now - help me, oh God. Help me with this terrible anxiety, this feeling of dread. The tightness in my chest. The worry that I'm ugly and messing up my life and incompetent. Give me faith to see that the way my job is working out is your way of providing for me. Please, God. Please answer my prayer and help me to know what to do with all the times you never sent help, all the times I wondered how you could make such a worthless, sinful person.
Where were you when I needed you? Where are you when I need you now? Please touch my heart and soften the anxiety. Please give me peace.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Acceptance
I'm going to be starting work again, and I am terrified of succumbing to depression, binge eating, or worse. I don't want to lose myself in a job. I want to be me.
I want to have energy to work out, do my laundry, keep my place clean. I am afraid I won't once I start having to leave my apartment every day before 8.
I wish I could get my sleep sorted out. I wish I could get everything sorted out. Why did God let me have so many problems? Some people seem to have very few. I seem to have enough for two or three people.
I get angry when I think about it for too long. Why me? The classic line of self-pity.
But let me pity myself for a moment, if you will, whoever you are. My mother messed me up. I have spent thousands of dollars on therapy, and there's no end in sight. Add to that my physical problems, financial woes including medical bills from a car accident that I can't pay for, and the mounting anxiety regarding work, and I'm not sure how much more I can take.
Usually when I write on my blog I can feel a release of tension, but tonight I feel only angst. I wish I could cry. Instead, I hate myself for being so weak, for somehow creating all these health problems as a way to get attention.
They're real problems, just like the ones I had as a child. I must have figured out that the only sure-fire way to receive tenderness from my mother was to have a physical ailment. Like the first time she said she felt love for me when I was two.
I had been chasing my brother on my tricycle. As I careened around a corner, I fell, cracking a tooth and splitting my chin open. I remember lying on the ground, seeing someone run up the steps into the building where my mother was in a meeting.
At the doctor's office that day, she gave me a doll. Red Riding Hood on one end, and underneath her skirt, the wolf in Granny's sleeping bonnet, one of my favorite dolls growing up. For years I wore a spacer in my mouth, waiting for my adult tooth to come in, and I still have the scar on my chin to prove that important event in my history.
"You caused me pain when you were born," my mother told me one summer during my college years," and it wasn't until I saw your pain that day that I felt I loved you. I took care of you before your accident, but that day something in me changed."
She, the one person in the world on whose nurture my life depended - my life, my sense of self. As I grew, I had many other health problems - infections leading to a tonsillectomy, mono when I was 10, chronic fatigue syndrome in high school.
I see now that they all pointed to a desire for the kindness I could only be certain of when I was sick or in physical need.
I wish I could undo the adaptive part of me that figured out how to get the love I needed. I wish I could be free from all the physical troubles I have, that I could live my life and not have to worry about endless doctor appointments.
How can I break the cycle? Some people say I should just take it to Jesus. But what does that even mean?
I'm reading a book about self-compassion that has been helpful so far. "Soften, soothe, allow," the author writes. In the face of anxiety, when a workout and a hot shower have done nothing to take the edge off, I turn to scholars who know more than I do.
So I allow myself to feel the tightness in my chest and the burning in my throat. I accept the unknowns of the next few months, and I choose to show myself compassion for all that I have been through. No one will ever know how difficult it was to grow up with my mother, or how painful it has been to try to separate from her.
No one has lived my experience with me. I choose, then, to honor my experience and recognize my challenges as casualties in a great battle - a battle for a self, for an identity, for a life.
It doesn't matter that other people might think my mother is sweet. I know who she is, her brokenness, her rage, her narcissism, and I know what it was like to ache for her empathy and kindness.
As best I can, I am going to show myself the consistent kindness she never gave me.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Enough
You wrote me an apology today that was kind, sincere, and heartfelt, I believe. I wrote you back explaining the hurtful details of what happened when we were together, since you seemed not to remember what had taken place. I tried to be kind, but I also tried to be firm, saying I deserve to be treated with respect as a human being.
After crying my way through the email, I turned to YouTube to numb my pain. Jane Eyre and clips from a few other period dramas were my drug of choice this time. Instead of going to bed, I sat in an anxious trance, watching romances onscreen that I can only dream of.
I wish I wouldn't stay up so late after such an emotional encounter with you. I wish i could go to bed. But I guess it's what I've always done: I used to stay up late after you'd gone to bed, experiencing what I now name as anxiety. In middle school and high school picking at my acne became my way to pass hours at a time. A year ago I was in the throes of an addiction to junk food, binge eating my way to 140 pounds - too much for my small frame.
Now, in the restricting phase of my eating disorder, I sit and watch movies in silence, sometimes crying, other times transfixed with little notice of my heavy heart. I am glad of the escape while it lasts. When it is over, I start crying again.
What will she think, I wonder. Will she be able to understand what I've said? Was I harsh in any way? Was I unkind? I don't want to be unkind to you as you have been to me. I want to be clear about what I need from you as one human needs love from another. I want to be seen as worthy of your compassion at all times, even when you disagree with me.
I know you care about me, but you are so mistaken in how you treat me when I am with you. I love you so much; I can't help it. The tears flow so freely as I write about you.
I never let you see me cry anymore. It's too personal. But I do cry, I weep when I think of you. You, my mother, the one who has hurt me more than anyone else.
Why did you have to be so backward in your approach to me, your daughter? Why did God let this happen to me, to you? Why did He let you be so wounded as a child that you could not give love to me, an innocent recipient of your unpredictable bouts of tenderness and rage? I grieve what you must have experienced at the hands of your parents, and I grieve what I experience from you.
I have said, "Enough!" to you in so many words. I wonder if you will hear it. I wonder if you can change. If we are to have a relationship, you will need to change because I can't go on as before.
I wish I could write in more complete thoughts tonight. I have always cared about you, always wanted to see you happy. I realize now, though, that I can't make you happy. You will have to work on that yourself.
Goodnight, Mom. I wish I loved you less.
After crying my way through the email, I turned to YouTube to numb my pain. Jane Eyre and clips from a few other period dramas were my drug of choice this time. Instead of going to bed, I sat in an anxious trance, watching romances onscreen that I can only dream of.
I wish I wouldn't stay up so late after such an emotional encounter with you. I wish i could go to bed. But I guess it's what I've always done: I used to stay up late after you'd gone to bed, experiencing what I now name as anxiety. In middle school and high school picking at my acne became my way to pass hours at a time. A year ago I was in the throes of an addiction to junk food, binge eating my way to 140 pounds - too much for my small frame.
Now, in the restricting phase of my eating disorder, I sit and watch movies in silence, sometimes crying, other times transfixed with little notice of my heavy heart. I am glad of the escape while it lasts. When it is over, I start crying again.
What will she think, I wonder. Will she be able to understand what I've said? Was I harsh in any way? Was I unkind? I don't want to be unkind to you as you have been to me. I want to be clear about what I need from you as one human needs love from another. I want to be seen as worthy of your compassion at all times, even when you disagree with me.
I know you care about me, but you are so mistaken in how you treat me when I am with you. I love you so much; I can't help it. The tears flow so freely as I write about you.
I never let you see me cry anymore. It's too personal. But I do cry, I weep when I think of you. You, my mother, the one who has hurt me more than anyone else.
Why did you have to be so backward in your approach to me, your daughter? Why did God let this happen to me, to you? Why did He let you be so wounded as a child that you could not give love to me, an innocent recipient of your unpredictable bouts of tenderness and rage? I grieve what you must have experienced at the hands of your parents, and I grieve what I experience from you.
I have said, "Enough!" to you in so many words. I wonder if you will hear it. I wonder if you can change. If we are to have a relationship, you will need to change because I can't go on as before.
I wish I could write in more complete thoughts tonight. I have always cared about you, always wanted to see you happy. I realize now, though, that I can't make you happy. You will have to work on that yourself.
Goodnight, Mom. I wish I loved you less.
Monday, July 27, 2015
To myself
It's OK to be nervous. It's OK to feel anxious.
It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of you. It matters how you treat yourself, how you talk to yourself.
It's going to be all right. Things will work out. You are loved and cared for, you are not a hard person to love at all; in fact, you are easy to love.
When you make a mistake, it's because you are human. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone says or does the wrong thing at some point, and you are no exception.
It's OK to feel sad about a mistake, but when you make one, remember that you are human. You are not required to be perfect, even though you interpret the Bible as saying you have to be.
It's also OK to feel shy and insecure. Some situations just aren't that fun, and feeling uncomfortable is understandable. You can be kind and courteous anyway. You don't have to feel ashamed for wanting to be by yourself and sit in a quiet room to read or write. That's a part of who you are.
You can honor your introverted nature by listening when your inner voice tells you that you need to be alone.
When you feel anxious around a certain person, pay attention and don't discount your feelings. Recognize that you don't feel safe and protect your heart. You can still be thoughtful and engaging without divulging too much of yourself. You can let trusted friends hear your deepest thoughts; you don't have let everyone see your private world. You don't have to like everyone, and you don't need everyone's approval.
Showing yourself kindness is the best way to motivate yourself.
Your life is yours to live. You get to choose how you spend your time and your money. You get to choose where you live, what clothes you wear, what books you read, and what you eat.
When making a decision, what's most important is that it feels right, that your inner self concurs. It's important to nurture your inner thoughts and feelings. Don't try to run away from your feelings by eating or watching hours of TV. Instead, take a deep breath. Write if you need to. Have the courage to face reality.
You wish your mother would have taught you these things, but she couldn't. Accept your grief, honor your loss. And remember, you don't have to take care of her. She is not your responsibility. You were her responsibility, and she mothered you wrongly. She wanted to keep you close instead of letting you go free. She wanted to hang onto you because she was afraid of feeling alone.
Now you have the responsibility of mothering yourself, of giving yourself comfort, of telling yourself that you don't need to be afraid. You can do it. You can take deep breaths and make good decisions. You can surround yourself with people who show you kindness, who give you support and care.
But most of all, you can take care of yourself. If you want to move to a different city, save up your money and move. If you want to write, take the time and space to make it happen.
Listen to who you are. Listen when your inner voice needs rest.
Let yourself be yourself. You matter.
It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of you. It matters how you treat yourself, how you talk to yourself.
It's going to be all right. Things will work out. You are loved and cared for, you are not a hard person to love at all; in fact, you are easy to love.
When you make a mistake, it's because you are human. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone says or does the wrong thing at some point, and you are no exception.
It's OK to feel sad about a mistake, but when you make one, remember that you are human. You are not required to be perfect, even though you interpret the Bible as saying you have to be.
It's also OK to feel shy and insecure. Some situations just aren't that fun, and feeling uncomfortable is understandable. You can be kind and courteous anyway. You don't have to feel ashamed for wanting to be by yourself and sit in a quiet room to read or write. That's a part of who you are.
You can honor your introverted nature by listening when your inner voice tells you that you need to be alone.
When you feel anxious around a certain person, pay attention and don't discount your feelings. Recognize that you don't feel safe and protect your heart. You can still be thoughtful and engaging without divulging too much of yourself. You can let trusted friends hear your deepest thoughts; you don't have let everyone see your private world. You don't have to like everyone, and you don't need everyone's approval.
Showing yourself kindness is the best way to motivate yourself.
Your life is yours to live. You get to choose how you spend your time and your money. You get to choose where you live, what clothes you wear, what books you read, and what you eat.
When making a decision, what's most important is that it feels right, that your inner self concurs. It's important to nurture your inner thoughts and feelings. Don't try to run away from your feelings by eating or watching hours of TV. Instead, take a deep breath. Write if you need to. Have the courage to face reality.
You wish your mother would have taught you these things, but she couldn't. Accept your grief, honor your loss. And remember, you don't have to take care of her. She is not your responsibility. You were her responsibility, and she mothered you wrongly. She wanted to keep you close instead of letting you go free. She wanted to hang onto you because she was afraid of feeling alone.
Now you have the responsibility of mothering yourself, of giving yourself comfort, of telling yourself that you don't need to be afraid. You can do it. You can take deep breaths and make good decisions. You can surround yourself with people who show you kindness, who give you support and care.
But most of all, you can take care of yourself. If you want to move to a different city, save up your money and move. If you want to write, take the time and space to make it happen.
Listen to who you are. Listen when your inner voice needs rest.
Let yourself be yourself. You matter.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Reality
I would like to write you a letter that you can understand, an explanation of why I can't see you this week.
I don't know how to write in terms that you will comprehend. I don't know how to describe your behavior in language specific enough for you to remember instances of offense and general enough for you to put into practice the next time you feel like lashing out.
I'd like to describe to you what I don't want, but I think more important is a narrative of how I do want you to treat me.
Part of facing reality, I suppose, is acknowledging the fact that I have to spell out for you what is kind and acceptable behavior and what is rude and intolerable. Even though, as my mother, you hold a position which would normally imply that you grasp concepts of respect and individuation, I have to recognize your stunted emotional state.
I have to accept that you don't see your behavior as abuse. If you did see it as abuse, I want to think that you would stop humiliating me, shaming me for having boundaries. I want to think that you would treat me with dignity.
But as I face reality, I am at a loss for words when it comes to explaining how I'd like you to show me respect. How can I write in unmistakable verbiage and then guard against your oft-repeated statement, "I just can't do anything right with you"? Or, your other passive aggressive remarks such as, "You don't want me to say anything about ____" and "I can't ask you about anything."
I keep checking my email to see if you've written me an apology for your most recent abusive actions, but I don't know if an apology is going suffice.
Instead of saying you're sorry for a specific offense, I would like you to change the way you view me. I am not an extension of you, I am not someone whose inner thoughts and feelings you are entitled to know.
But I can't change you or your perspective, anymore than you can change me or mine. I can wish that you would let me be myself, and I can dream about a day when you would honor my individuality; but the way I see it, I can only do two things with regard to you: I can set boundaries with you that feel appropriate for self-care and self-protection, and I can also try to describe to you how I'd like to be treated.
I can't control your tearfulness, your expressions of hurt and anger, or your humiliating gestures and impersonations of me. I can, however, remove myself from your presence, and I can continue to work toward a position of inner strength so that unavoidable interactions with you in the future will not affect me as my last encounter with you did.
I'm almost wondering if I should wait for you to reach out to me with an apology, rather than rushing to write you a letter of assurance that I love you and want to work things out with you. I do want to work things out, but I can't continue to take responsibility for your emotions. I can't continue to be your mother.
Maybe at some point I will explain how I'd like you to show me respect, but in the meantime, I'm going to go about my life and try not to worry about you. I have to keep choosing separation from you because I don't see any other way to climb out of my depression.
I wish I didn't feel so exhausted thinking about all this.
I don't know how to write in terms that you will comprehend. I don't know how to describe your behavior in language specific enough for you to remember instances of offense and general enough for you to put into practice the next time you feel like lashing out.
I'd like to describe to you what I don't want, but I think more important is a narrative of how I do want you to treat me.
Part of facing reality, I suppose, is acknowledging the fact that I have to spell out for you what is kind and acceptable behavior and what is rude and intolerable. Even though, as my mother, you hold a position which would normally imply that you grasp concepts of respect and individuation, I have to recognize your stunted emotional state.
I have to accept that you don't see your behavior as abuse. If you did see it as abuse, I want to think that you would stop humiliating me, shaming me for having boundaries. I want to think that you would treat me with dignity.
But as I face reality, I am at a loss for words when it comes to explaining how I'd like you to show me respect. How can I write in unmistakable verbiage and then guard against your oft-repeated statement, "I just can't do anything right with you"? Or, your other passive aggressive remarks such as, "You don't want me to say anything about ____" and "I can't ask you about anything."
I keep checking my email to see if you've written me an apology for your most recent abusive actions, but I don't know if an apology is going suffice.
Instead of saying you're sorry for a specific offense, I would like you to change the way you view me. I am not an extension of you, I am not someone whose inner thoughts and feelings you are entitled to know.
But I can't change you or your perspective, anymore than you can change me or mine. I can wish that you would let me be myself, and I can dream about a day when you would honor my individuality; but the way I see it, I can only do two things with regard to you: I can set boundaries with you that feel appropriate for self-care and self-protection, and I can also try to describe to you how I'd like to be treated.
I can't control your tearfulness, your expressions of hurt and anger, or your humiliating gestures and impersonations of me. I can, however, remove myself from your presence, and I can continue to work toward a position of inner strength so that unavoidable interactions with you in the future will not affect me as my last encounter with you did.
I'm almost wondering if I should wait for you to reach out to me with an apology, rather than rushing to write you a letter of assurance that I love you and want to work things out with you. I do want to work things out, but I can't continue to take responsibility for your emotions. I can't continue to be your mother.
Maybe at some point I will explain how I'd like you to show me respect, but in the meantime, I'm going to go about my life and try not to worry about you. I have to keep choosing separation from you because I don't see any other way to climb out of my depression.
I wish I didn't feel so exhausted thinking about all this.
Friday, July 24, 2015
Boundaries
"Your email kind of took the wind out of my sails," you said. "I guess you're not coming next week."
I could hear the sadness in your voice.
"No," I said. "I am trying to become a stronger person and move on from what you did to me, so I can't come."
"Did you feel overpowered?" you asked.
"I don't know how to respond to that," I replied. "I don't want to talk about how I feel with you."
"Oh, I see," you said softly.
I sat in my car as we talked and felt almost sick. I hate disappointing you. I hate hurting you. I know I'm hurting you, I know I'm excluding myself from the family, and I hate the thought of not being with my precious niece and nephews next week.
But I can't repeat the cycle. You apologize, saying you're sorry, but then the next time we interact you cry or act completely miffed when I say I don't want to talk about something.
Then I feel horrible about myself because I'm disappointing you, and I get anxious that I'm doing the wrong thing by protecting myself emotionally. You take the opportunity to make a few more jabs about how you can't do anything right with me, etc., and I feel even worse.
I end up feeling like the "selfish, self-centered person" you said I was, when really I'm just drawing boundaries you don't like.
Feeling selfish makes me feel worthless because I'm caught between trying to please you and listening to my own inner voice. If I can't trust myself, and if acting in a way that is authentic to whom I am is utterly selfish and wrong, I reason, I might as well not be here on earth. I'm just taking up space. I'm a blight on humanity.
I know it's irrational, but I can't seem to get it through my head that you are the unreasonable one. It is perfectly natural for a daughter to have boundaries with an abusive parent.
So I can't come because it's too costly for me. It took a week for me to feel able to care for myself after our last in-person interaction, and I can't afford that. I need to be moving forward, getting on with my life, working through all this junk so that I can function again.
I need to be preparing myself for the work force, not stuck in my bed because I'm feeling so bad about myself.
I'd like to be able to interact with you and maintain some semblance of normalcy, of inner equilibrium. Before I can do that, though, I have to arrive at a certain level of self-compassion for the way I feel about you, about myself, and about life. I have to do whatever work is necessary in order to stop caring what you think of me.
I don't know how I can do that. I only know that reading books, going to therapy, and spending time with friends who build me up are ways of replenishing my inner resources of hope and creativity.
I hope you'll understand. I wish I could tell you how hard this is for me. I wish you could know how much I want to take care of you, how much I worry that you will commit suicide if I pull away from you. You once told me that I needed you, but I think reality is, you need me.
Somehow I have to stop the enmeshment, the co-dependence, the whatever it is we have going on. Somehow I have to stop worrying about you and accept that I'm not responsible for you or your actions.
As an adult I am responsible for my own self-care. You are responsible for yours. Even though I don't understand who God is, I have to let Him handle your problems.
I have to protect my own heart, despite your manipulation. I do acknowledge that I don't think you mean to harm me; in fact, it's quite the opposite: You so want a close relationship with me that you will use any means necessary to control me.
As hard as you are trying to keep me close, I cannot let you control me anymore. I have to take care of myself before I can see you again.
I have to win the battle of the boundaries.
I could hear the sadness in your voice.
"No," I said. "I am trying to become a stronger person and move on from what you did to me, so I can't come."
"Did you feel overpowered?" you asked.
"I don't know how to respond to that," I replied. "I don't want to talk about how I feel with you."
"Oh, I see," you said softly.
I sat in my car as we talked and felt almost sick. I hate disappointing you. I hate hurting you. I know I'm hurting you, I know I'm excluding myself from the family, and I hate the thought of not being with my precious niece and nephews next week.
But I can't repeat the cycle. You apologize, saying you're sorry, but then the next time we interact you cry or act completely miffed when I say I don't want to talk about something.
Then I feel horrible about myself because I'm disappointing you, and I get anxious that I'm doing the wrong thing by protecting myself emotionally. You take the opportunity to make a few more jabs about how you can't do anything right with me, etc., and I feel even worse.
I end up feeling like the "selfish, self-centered person" you said I was, when really I'm just drawing boundaries you don't like.
Feeling selfish makes me feel worthless because I'm caught between trying to please you and listening to my own inner voice. If I can't trust myself, and if acting in a way that is authentic to whom I am is utterly selfish and wrong, I reason, I might as well not be here on earth. I'm just taking up space. I'm a blight on humanity.
I know it's irrational, but I can't seem to get it through my head that you are the unreasonable one. It is perfectly natural for a daughter to have boundaries with an abusive parent.
So I can't come because it's too costly for me. It took a week for me to feel able to care for myself after our last in-person interaction, and I can't afford that. I need to be moving forward, getting on with my life, working through all this junk so that I can function again.
I need to be preparing myself for the work force, not stuck in my bed because I'm feeling so bad about myself.
I'd like to be able to interact with you and maintain some semblance of normalcy, of inner equilibrium. Before I can do that, though, I have to arrive at a certain level of self-compassion for the way I feel about you, about myself, and about life. I have to do whatever work is necessary in order to stop caring what you think of me.
I don't know how I can do that. I only know that reading books, going to therapy, and spending time with friends who build me up are ways of replenishing my inner resources of hope and creativity.
I hope you'll understand. I wish I could tell you how hard this is for me. I wish you could know how much I want to take care of you, how much I worry that you will commit suicide if I pull away from you. You once told me that I needed you, but I think reality is, you need me.
Somehow I have to stop the enmeshment, the co-dependence, the whatever it is we have going on. Somehow I have to stop worrying about you and accept that I'm not responsible for you or your actions.
As an adult I am responsible for my own self-care. You are responsible for yours. Even though I don't understand who God is, I have to let Him handle your problems.
I have to protect my own heart, despite your manipulation. I do acknowledge that I don't think you mean to harm me; in fact, it's quite the opposite: You so want a close relationship with me that you will use any means necessary to control me.
As hard as you are trying to keep me close, I cannot let you control me anymore. I have to take care of myself before I can see you again.
I have to win the battle of the boundaries.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
If only
"You are a selfish, self-centered person," you told me.
I think it was during the few months I lived with you after college, probably around the time Grandma died. You went off your meds then, and life with you became even harder.
After taking another diagnostic test in another book about emotional abuse, I remembered what you'd said. I learned from the test that feeling selfish for having needs, struggling to say no, and running away from success are all signs that I have emotional abuse in my past.
In my past and also in the present. I anxiously await your response to my email, in which I told you I can't take your ridicule of me anymore. I keep telling myself it shouldn't matter so much to me what you think of me. I keep trying to stuff the almost overwhelming anxiety, to no avail.
It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter that you don't think you abused me, that you think my current feelings of being hurt are unwarranted.
So I repeat my therapist's words over and over: It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It matters how I felt, how I feel. I want to believe her and not you, I want to know that I can trust myself, that I'm not fabricating awful stories about you just for my own pleasure.
I assert to you and to the world that I am not making up how horrible you make me feel.
I have not concocted tales of your manipulation and abuse just so I can say bad things about you. I've always wanted to love you and to be loved by you, and I never meant to cause you trouble.
I never mean to cause anyone trouble - although, today at a store I tried to return the shoes you bought me, and I was kind of rude to the cashier, who said I could only get store credit with a gift receipt. I didn't mean to be rude; I was just so anxious about having to tell you that I couldn't return the shoes, having to acknowledge that you'd bought me something, having to ask you for the real receipt.
I don't like asking you for things, and I don't like receiving your gifts - even though I benefit from them. Every time I hear myself thanking you, I hear you mocking me for thanking you. I also feel guilty when you are generous to me with things and money, and I think it's because of a deep-seated wish that you would be emotionally generous to me instead.
If only.
If only you didn't have a personality disorder or whatever it is that you have. If only I could reason with you. If only every interaction with you didn't leave me depressed and on the brink of serious suicidal ideation. If only I could get you out of my head.
If only I could move on.
The trouble is, you're not all bad. You are the most well-meaning person I know - completely mistaken at the most important times, but still earnest in your endeavors to show you care. Except when your emotions get the better of you, except when you feel that I am shutting you out.
Why won't you just let me shut you out and get on with your life? Why can't you accept civil interactions? Why do you demand emotional closeness with me?
If only I didn't care about you.
I think it was during the few months I lived with you after college, probably around the time Grandma died. You went off your meds then, and life with you became even harder.
After taking another diagnostic test in another book about emotional abuse, I remembered what you'd said. I learned from the test that feeling selfish for having needs, struggling to say no, and running away from success are all signs that I have emotional abuse in my past.
In my past and also in the present. I anxiously await your response to my email, in which I told you I can't take your ridicule of me anymore. I keep telling myself it shouldn't matter so much to me what you think of me. I keep trying to stuff the almost overwhelming anxiety, to no avail.
It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter that you don't think you abused me, that you think my current feelings of being hurt are unwarranted.
So I repeat my therapist's words over and over: It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It matters how I felt, how I feel. I want to believe her and not you, I want to know that I can trust myself, that I'm not fabricating awful stories about you just for my own pleasure.
I assert to you and to the world that I am not making up how horrible you make me feel.
I have not concocted tales of your manipulation and abuse just so I can say bad things about you. I've always wanted to love you and to be loved by you, and I never meant to cause you trouble.
I never mean to cause anyone trouble - although, today at a store I tried to return the shoes you bought me, and I was kind of rude to the cashier, who said I could only get store credit with a gift receipt. I didn't mean to be rude; I was just so anxious about having to tell you that I couldn't return the shoes, having to acknowledge that you'd bought me something, having to ask you for the real receipt.
I don't like asking you for things, and I don't like receiving your gifts - even though I benefit from them. Every time I hear myself thanking you, I hear you mocking me for thanking you. I also feel guilty when you are generous to me with things and money, and I think it's because of a deep-seated wish that you would be emotionally generous to me instead.
If only.
If only you didn't have a personality disorder or whatever it is that you have. If only I could reason with you. If only every interaction with you didn't leave me depressed and on the brink of serious suicidal ideation. If only I could get you out of my head.
If only I could move on.
The trouble is, you're not all bad. You are the most well-meaning person I know - completely mistaken at the most important times, but still earnest in your endeavors to show you care. Except when your emotions get the better of you, except when you feel that I am shutting you out.
Why won't you just let me shut you out and get on with your life? Why can't you accept civil interactions? Why do you demand emotional closeness with me?
If only I didn't care about you.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Abused
Tonight you sent me an email with the subject line "Anxiety." You wanted to know if anxiety was the reason I didn't want to talk about something with you today. You said that you sometimes experience anxiety too, and that you've noticed I often talk about being anxious.
Yes, it's true, I told you in my reply. I did feel anxious today when you called. What I didn't say is that I always feel anxious around you, except when I let my guard down. On the rare occasion I do that, I get devastated the next time we interact.
So now I choose to be anxious and on edge, rather than say too much from my heart.
I choose to face the reality that the mother I got was not the one I needed. I choose to acknowledge your illness and protect myself. I choose to have boundaries with you, even as I grieve the absence of emotional safety with the one person in the world who should have offered me the most comfort.
I wish you would accept the reality of our relationship too. I wish you would see that because of the way you have treated me, I can't fulfill your idea of a close mother-daughter bond. You can't fulfill mine either.
I wish you would come to terms with the fact that every time you ridicule me, you drive me away. You in essence tell me that the way I am is not ok, that I have to keep being perfect for you, that I have to keep reading your mind and catering to your every demand.
It hurts me to say this, but you are an abuser. You have mocked me, ignored me, put me down, and then expected me to love you perfectly. You have given me gifts with strings attached, jeering at me when I didn't show my gratefulness the way you wanted. You have treated me with contempt but then insisted I trust you. Just like a borderline. Just like an abuser.
I've read books now about emotional abuse, and your actions qualify, according to the diagnostic tests in the each of the volumes I've picked up from the library.
I've had a hard time conceding that what you've done - what you do - is abuse, but I think I'm getting closer to letting go of my denial. I've wanted to protect you, and I've tried to compare my experience with the seemingly harsher experiences of others. I've put myself down, saying I was weak or too sensitive.
But today my therapist told me something freeing. "It doesn't matter what other people think," she said. "It matters how you felt."
It matters how I felt, how I feel. My feelings matter. All the times when you told me otherwise, either explicitly or implicitly, you were wrong. I was right to feel hurt. It wasn't my fault that I felt so sad as a child. I felt sad because something was amiss, because you, the mother, abused your position of power.
Tonight in my response to your email, I told you that I can't take it anymore. I can't withstand more of the mocking and ridicule. "It's too hard for me to bounce back from it," I wrote.
I wonder what you'll do with my honest expression of how your actions affect me. In the past, you seemed to gloss over my pain, making excuses and halfhearted apologies. I wonder if this time will be different.
Even if you do apologize with appropriate sincerity, I hope you'll understand that I can't trust you. I have to learn to trust myself first, and that's going to take a while. I have to learn to validate my feelings with compassion; I have to unlearn the self-ridicule I internalized from your abuse.
I wonder if you'll be able to comprehend any of this. I almost hope you don't so that I won't have to keep trying to explain how your vituperation sends me reeling.
It doesn't matter what you think, though. It matters how I feel.
Yes, it's true, I told you in my reply. I did feel anxious today when you called. What I didn't say is that I always feel anxious around you, except when I let my guard down. On the rare occasion I do that, I get devastated the next time we interact.
So now I choose to be anxious and on edge, rather than say too much from my heart.
I choose to face the reality that the mother I got was not the one I needed. I choose to acknowledge your illness and protect myself. I choose to have boundaries with you, even as I grieve the absence of emotional safety with the one person in the world who should have offered me the most comfort.
I wish you would accept the reality of our relationship too. I wish you would see that because of the way you have treated me, I can't fulfill your idea of a close mother-daughter bond. You can't fulfill mine either.
I wish you would come to terms with the fact that every time you ridicule me, you drive me away. You in essence tell me that the way I am is not ok, that I have to keep being perfect for you, that I have to keep reading your mind and catering to your every demand.
It hurts me to say this, but you are an abuser. You have mocked me, ignored me, put me down, and then expected me to love you perfectly. You have given me gifts with strings attached, jeering at me when I didn't show my gratefulness the way you wanted. You have treated me with contempt but then insisted I trust you. Just like a borderline. Just like an abuser.
I've read books now about emotional abuse, and your actions qualify, according to the diagnostic tests in the each of the volumes I've picked up from the library.
I've had a hard time conceding that what you've done - what you do - is abuse, but I think I'm getting closer to letting go of my denial. I've wanted to protect you, and I've tried to compare my experience with the seemingly harsher experiences of others. I've put myself down, saying I was weak or too sensitive.
But today my therapist told me something freeing. "It doesn't matter what other people think," she said. "It matters how you felt."
It matters how I felt, how I feel. My feelings matter. All the times when you told me otherwise, either explicitly or implicitly, you were wrong. I was right to feel hurt. It wasn't my fault that I felt so sad as a child. I felt sad because something was amiss, because you, the mother, abused your position of power.
Tonight in my response to your email, I told you that I can't take it anymore. I can't withstand more of the mocking and ridicule. "It's too hard for me to bounce back from it," I wrote.
I wonder what you'll do with my honest expression of how your actions affect me. In the past, you seemed to gloss over my pain, making excuses and halfhearted apologies. I wonder if this time will be different.
Even if you do apologize with appropriate sincerity, I hope you'll understand that I can't trust you. I have to learn to trust myself first, and that's going to take a while. I have to learn to validate my feelings with compassion; I have to unlearn the self-ridicule I internalized from your abuse.
I wonder if you'll be able to comprehend any of this. I almost hope you don't so that I won't have to keep trying to explain how your vituperation sends me reeling.
It doesn't matter what you think, though. It matters how I feel.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Caught
I felt profoundly lonely today. It took all my energy to take a shower, and afterwards I felt so tired. I woke up at 2:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. I started reading a book around 6:30, got up at 8 or so, and then about 1:00 this afternoon, something changed when I got a text from a former co-worker.
She said her husband had been hired as my new boss and would like to meet with me before I come back to work.
I thought I had said no thanks to the job, but apparently it is still open for me.
All of a sudden my financial troubles were solved. So I called the HR manager and found out that yes, I still have a job if I want it. I got excited - for a moment.
Then the memory of the stresses of work came flooding back. Now I am starting to realize with dread what I have done. I have to make a choice, and this time it will be for good.
Am I going to continue to be depressed, or am I going to rejoin the workforce?
At the beginning of the day I wondered when or if my depression would lift. I could try working, I thought, but what would be the point? I'd be right back to feeling miserable in only a few weeks, exhausted in body and spirit and unable to interact with people.
Is miserable not having enough money, or is miserable being stuck in the wrong job but pushing through because of the almighty dollar?
The other day, even before this decision, I asked God what I should do. Sitting at the top of Angel's Rest in the Columbia River Gorge, looking at the beautifully chiseled mountains, I thought I heard, "Love yourself."
Love myself. That is the very hardest thing anyone could ask me to do, yet strangely I want to try. I want to do it because it's exactly what my mother taught me not to do.
Does it mean going back to work, or does it mean trying something I've never tried before? Does it mean getting a paycheck, or could it mean another way of living I haven't yet discovered?
Today I felt so pointless. I've so longed for this time of quiet and reflection, and now that it's here I'm overwhelmed. I don't know how to face who I am, I don't know who I am, I only know who I don't want to be anymore.
Or do I? The thought of donning work attire and showing up to the job each day is at the same time terrifying and attractive - attractive because of that paycheck. And most attractive because I wouldn't have to ask my parents for money. Attractive because I could be separate from them again.
Even if I go back to work, which - how could I entertain such an idea? It's for the money. I want that money. I want to be free from my parents, but I don't want to crash and burn again.
Oh God, if ever I needed your help, I could really use it right now. I'm caught between money and facing the reality of my depression. Or is my depression real at all? Have I been making this up, or have I really been at my wits' end?
Please show me what to do unequivocally.
If I could go back to work with a different job, stay in an office and hide from people, I think I'd be happy. I'd like to learn grant-writing and the mechanics of direct-mail fundraising.
My co-worker told me in her text that her husband would like me to do something different than what my former supervisor had me doing. I think if I could be honest with the new supervisor about what I'm looking for in a position, it might be a good idea to at least take the meeting and see what the new boss wants.
I know what I don't want: I don't want schmooze again with fake people, and I don't want to do event planning. I want to be myself, wherever I go, and not forced to talk about my work when I'm not working.
Can I do it? Can I withstand the pressures of people asking me do much more than my job description?
I'm not sure if I can, but I want to. I miss wearing work clothes, I miss getting dressed up and going someplace. I miss feeling useful.
I don't think my closest advisers are going to vote for my going back to my old job, especially because seeing my mom just a week ago left me unhinged, suicidal, in fact.
I'm obviously not stable, but I could really use the money.
Maybe there is a way to have a job and still be anonymous around town. Maybe going back to my job isn't the best idea.
But I know the guy I'd be working for - a kind man, a go-getter. Do I have what it takes to be a good employee? Do I have what it takes to move to a new apartment, keep chipping away at all my health concerns, and also be working full-time?
Can I be making meals for myself, taking care of myself, and getting good rest, while at the same working 40+ hours a week?
I'm not sure. I'm not sure about anything - except the fact that I'm caught in a decision I don't want to make. And also the fact that making a good income won't solve my depression. It definitely would help my money problem, though.
She said her husband had been hired as my new boss and would like to meet with me before I come back to work.
I thought I had said no thanks to the job, but apparently it is still open for me.
All of a sudden my financial troubles were solved. So I called the HR manager and found out that yes, I still have a job if I want it. I got excited - for a moment.
Then the memory of the stresses of work came flooding back. Now I am starting to realize with dread what I have done. I have to make a choice, and this time it will be for good.
Am I going to continue to be depressed, or am I going to rejoin the workforce?
At the beginning of the day I wondered when or if my depression would lift. I could try working, I thought, but what would be the point? I'd be right back to feeling miserable in only a few weeks, exhausted in body and spirit and unable to interact with people.
Is miserable not having enough money, or is miserable being stuck in the wrong job but pushing through because of the almighty dollar?
The other day, even before this decision, I asked God what I should do. Sitting at the top of Angel's Rest in the Columbia River Gorge, looking at the beautifully chiseled mountains, I thought I heard, "Love yourself."
Love myself. That is the very hardest thing anyone could ask me to do, yet strangely I want to try. I want to do it because it's exactly what my mother taught me not to do.
Does it mean going back to work, or does it mean trying something I've never tried before? Does it mean getting a paycheck, or could it mean another way of living I haven't yet discovered?
Today I felt so pointless. I've so longed for this time of quiet and reflection, and now that it's here I'm overwhelmed. I don't know how to face who I am, I don't know who I am, I only know who I don't want to be anymore.
Or do I? The thought of donning work attire and showing up to the job each day is at the same time terrifying and attractive - attractive because of that paycheck. And most attractive because I wouldn't have to ask my parents for money. Attractive because I could be separate from them again.
Even if I go back to work, which - how could I entertain such an idea? It's for the money. I want that money. I want to be free from my parents, but I don't want to crash and burn again.
Oh God, if ever I needed your help, I could really use it right now. I'm caught between money and facing the reality of my depression. Or is my depression real at all? Have I been making this up, or have I really been at my wits' end?
Please show me what to do unequivocally.
If I could go back to work with a different job, stay in an office and hide from people, I think I'd be happy. I'd like to learn grant-writing and the mechanics of direct-mail fundraising.
My co-worker told me in her text that her husband would like me to do something different than what my former supervisor had me doing. I think if I could be honest with the new supervisor about what I'm looking for in a position, it might be a good idea to at least take the meeting and see what the new boss wants.
I know what I don't want: I don't want schmooze again with fake people, and I don't want to do event planning. I want to be myself, wherever I go, and not forced to talk about my work when I'm not working.
Can I do it? Can I withstand the pressures of people asking me do much more than my job description?
I'm not sure if I can, but I want to. I miss wearing work clothes, I miss getting dressed up and going someplace. I miss feeling useful.
I don't think my closest advisers are going to vote for my going back to my old job, especially because seeing my mom just a week ago left me unhinged, suicidal, in fact.
I'm obviously not stable, but I could really use the money.
Maybe there is a way to have a job and still be anonymous around town. Maybe going back to my job isn't the best idea.
But I know the guy I'd be working for - a kind man, a go-getter. Do I have what it takes to be a good employee? Do I have what it takes to move to a new apartment, keep chipping away at all my health concerns, and also be working full-time?
Can I be making meals for myself, taking care of myself, and getting good rest, while at the same working 40+ hours a week?
I'm not sure. I'm not sure about anything - except the fact that I'm caught in a decision I don't want to make. And also the fact that making a good income won't solve my depression. It definitely would help my money problem, though.
Shut up
You are like a child. You do not control your emotions. You cry when you don't get your way.
You are not like a mother. You never reassure me, saying, "It's going to be ok." Instead, you prey upon my anxiety and use the opportunity to gain a false sense of emotional closeness with me.
"I'm emotionally exhausted," I told you, hoping to help my case for why I need a little financial help from you and Dad.
"What does it feel like in your body?" you asked, pointing to your stomach. You wanted to know more than I was willing to share. You kept your cool because Dad was in the room, but the next day you let me have it.
I can't remember a time when you actually did tell me that it was going to be ok, that it would work out, that something would be better soon.
I also can't remember your telling me that God loves me. Not a single time from my childhood do I recall that you expressed to me how great and how wide and how long is God's love for me. I do recall your quoting Scripture to me, but the verses you used always made me feel afraid or somehow motivated to work harder.
Except that now I'm exhausted and can't work at all. No wonder I rolled my eyes when you raised your right hand in a moment of anger and said, "As God is my witness..."
Shut up and leave God out of it. That's what I wanted to say but knew it wouldn't help me get the financial support I need.
So now I now say it to you where you can't hear it. Shut up. God is different than you make Him out to be, and I reject your view of Him. I reject the lies you taught me about Him.
I reject you and your immaturity. I reject your puerile attempts to lash out at me, and I won't let you hurt me again. I don't know how I won't let you hurt me, since you always do, but somehow I am going to cut you out of my life.
Outwardly I may still claim to be your daughter, but inwardly you've lost me. I am no longer your little girl. I am no longer someone you can berate or manipulate.
As God is my witness, I am my own person. I am coming to see that He does love me, despite what you taught me, and that He is more a mother to me than you will ever be.
I know it's wrong to hate you, but I can't help it. You have robbed me of so many years of knowing what it feels like to be loved, and I hate you for taking advantage of me.
So I say it again, shut up and leave me alone.
You are not like a mother. You never reassure me, saying, "It's going to be ok." Instead, you prey upon my anxiety and use the opportunity to gain a false sense of emotional closeness with me.
"I'm emotionally exhausted," I told you, hoping to help my case for why I need a little financial help from you and Dad.
"What does it feel like in your body?" you asked, pointing to your stomach. You wanted to know more than I was willing to share. You kept your cool because Dad was in the room, but the next day you let me have it.
I can't remember a time when you actually did tell me that it was going to be ok, that it would work out, that something would be better soon.
I also can't remember your telling me that God loves me. Not a single time from my childhood do I recall that you expressed to me how great and how wide and how long is God's love for me. I do recall your quoting Scripture to me, but the verses you used always made me feel afraid or somehow motivated to work harder.
Except that now I'm exhausted and can't work at all. No wonder I rolled my eyes when you raised your right hand in a moment of anger and said, "As God is my witness..."
Shut up and leave God out of it. That's what I wanted to say but knew it wouldn't help me get the financial support I need.
So now I now say it to you where you can't hear it. Shut up. God is different than you make Him out to be, and I reject your view of Him. I reject the lies you taught me about Him.
I reject you and your immaturity. I reject your puerile attempts to lash out at me, and I won't let you hurt me again. I don't know how I won't let you hurt me, since you always do, but somehow I am going to cut you out of my life.
Outwardly I may still claim to be your daughter, but inwardly you've lost me. I am no longer your little girl. I am no longer someone you can berate or manipulate.
As God is my witness, I am my own person. I am coming to see that He does love me, despite what you taught me, and that He is more a mother to me than you will ever be.
I know it's wrong to hate you, but I can't help it. You have robbed me of so many years of knowing what it feels like to be loved, and I hate you for taking advantage of me.
So I say it again, shut up and leave me alone.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Stuck
I don't actually hate you. I want to hate you, but instead I hate myself.
I wish I could figure out why being around you sends me into a tailspin of depression. It's been almost a week since I saw you, and I'm still struggling.
Did my impending financial crisis finally sink in, or did seeing you reignite the smouldering sense of self-loathing that lurks behind every negative interaction with you?
Before I left to see you, I felt almost normal. I felt able to take on the challenges of my situation.
Now, even writing seems too great a task. I pick apart my sentences and criticize them for their choppiness and unvaried structure. And today I couldn't even go out of my apartment.
Every time you are mean to me, I relive the traumatic moments like a hamster stuck in its wheel. Round and round I go, unable to stop the memories of your vitriol.
I wish I could figure out why being around you sends me into a tailspin of depression. It's been almost a week since I saw you, and I'm still struggling.
Did my impending financial crisis finally sink in, or did seeing you reignite the smouldering sense of self-loathing that lurks behind every negative interaction with you?
Before I left to see you, I felt almost normal. I felt able to take on the challenges of my situation.
Now, even writing seems too great a task. I pick apart my sentences and criticize them for their choppiness and unvaried structure. And today I couldn't even go out of my apartment.
Every time you are mean to me, I relive the traumatic moments like a hamster stuck in its wheel. Round and round I go, unable to stop the memories of your vitriol.
Friday, July 17, 2015
Tired
I am tired of being your daughter.
Today you sent me a text suggesting that I ask my brother and sister-in-law's opinion about the apartment I'm thinking of renting. You recommended I check with them about the location, parking, and cleanliness.
I'm 30 years old, but I think your added comment that I have a good head on my shoulders was your attempt to acknowledge the fact that I'm an adult. In fact, I'm almost the age you were when you become a mother.
But you didn't stop with the vote of confidence. "I don't want to say too much," you wrote, "so I won't say anymore."
You ended the text with what felt like a jab - a reminder that our relationship is not what it could be. A reminder that you think you annoy me. A reminder that you think that I'm hypercritical of you, that whatever you say is the wrong thing.
Let me confirm your fears. You say the wrong thing. You don't show compassion to me; you are so insecure that you cannot interact with me without thinking of yourself. You are so insecure that I have to coach you to use your words when you talk to me, rather than shutting down like a child in tantrum mode.
You are "weird," as you yourself said in a moment of anger just a couple days ago. Yes. You are weird. You are not in your right mind. You never have been.
I reject you as a mother.
I wish I could reject you. I wish I could be done with you, I wish I could get you out of my head. When I think of you, I think how I've disappointed you by not being the daughter you always wanted. I think if I could just try next time I see you to be more patient with you, more loving, more forgiving - if only I could be perfect for you, you wouldn't be upset.
It's classic abuse, really. I am still trying to protect you, trying to care for you and make you happy. You've never been happy, or if you have it's not been for long. It's been wild happiness, weird happiness, somehow fake and somehow very dangerous.
I can't even call it abuse. I don't know what to call it. You are sick. You are sick, and I am tired of trying to make you better.
I'm tired of trying to love you when I actually hate you.
I wish I didn't hate you, but I do. You disgust me. I wish I'd never been born to you. I wish you and Dad had never gotten married. I wish Dad had married someone else so that he could be happy, so that he could retire earlier instead of supporting you and your neurotic illness, whatever it is.
Are you bipolar? Do you have a personality disorder? What is wrong with you? I wish I had a name for whatever you have.
I read a book 4 years ago about living with a borderline, and it rang so true I gave it to Dad. He hid it somewhere in the office at your house.
"Stop Walking on Eggshells" - that was the title. I am tired of walking on eggshells with you. I give up. If I could get over the guilt of cutting you out of my life, I would. If only.
I feel sorry for you so I keep coming back to you. I envision you alone without your children around you, and I pity you. I think of how ungrateful we are not to make a big deal of your birthday or Mother's Day, but the fact is, I hate Mother's Day. The last two years I've gotten so depressed I couldn't get out of bed. Every year, it comes too soon.
I wish I could stop feeling sorry for you so that I could move on with my life. I am exhausted from trying to understand you.
I hate you.
Today you sent me a text suggesting that I ask my brother and sister-in-law's opinion about the apartment I'm thinking of renting. You recommended I check with them about the location, parking, and cleanliness.
I'm 30 years old, but I think your added comment that I have a good head on my shoulders was your attempt to acknowledge the fact that I'm an adult. In fact, I'm almost the age you were when you become a mother.
But you didn't stop with the vote of confidence. "I don't want to say too much," you wrote, "so I won't say anymore."
You ended the text with what felt like a jab - a reminder that our relationship is not what it could be. A reminder that you think you annoy me. A reminder that you think that I'm hypercritical of you, that whatever you say is the wrong thing.
Let me confirm your fears. You say the wrong thing. You don't show compassion to me; you are so insecure that you cannot interact with me without thinking of yourself. You are so insecure that I have to coach you to use your words when you talk to me, rather than shutting down like a child in tantrum mode.
You are "weird," as you yourself said in a moment of anger just a couple days ago. Yes. You are weird. You are not in your right mind. You never have been.
I reject you as a mother.
I wish I could reject you. I wish I could be done with you, I wish I could get you out of my head. When I think of you, I think how I've disappointed you by not being the daughter you always wanted. I think if I could just try next time I see you to be more patient with you, more loving, more forgiving - if only I could be perfect for you, you wouldn't be upset.
It's classic abuse, really. I am still trying to protect you, trying to care for you and make you happy. You've never been happy, or if you have it's not been for long. It's been wild happiness, weird happiness, somehow fake and somehow very dangerous.
I can't even call it abuse. I don't know what to call it. You are sick. You are sick, and I am tired of trying to make you better.
I'm tired of trying to love you when I actually hate you.
I wish I didn't hate you, but I do. You disgust me. I wish I'd never been born to you. I wish you and Dad had never gotten married. I wish Dad had married someone else so that he could be happy, so that he could retire earlier instead of supporting you and your neurotic illness, whatever it is.
Are you bipolar? Do you have a personality disorder? What is wrong with you? I wish I had a name for whatever you have.
I read a book 4 years ago about living with a borderline, and it rang so true I gave it to Dad. He hid it somewhere in the office at your house.
"Stop Walking on Eggshells" - that was the title. I am tired of walking on eggshells with you. I give up. If I could get over the guilt of cutting you out of my life, I would. If only.
I feel sorry for you so I keep coming back to you. I envision you alone without your children around you, and I pity you. I think of how ungrateful we are not to make a big deal of your birthday or Mother's Day, but the fact is, I hate Mother's Day. The last two years I've gotten so depressed I couldn't get out of bed. Every year, it comes too soon.
I wish I could stop feeling sorry for you so that I could move on with my life. I am exhausted from trying to understand you.
I hate you.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
I can't
I am tired of letting you ruin my life. I am tired of being tired. I wish I could move on, start over, press a button and have a new mind. I am tired of trying so hard to be different from you.
I can't do it. I must, but I can't. I can't.
I can't do it. I must, but I can't. I can't.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Not like you
You mocked me again. You mocked me and showed me in your angry way how "evil" I am to you.
You said that when I say "I don't want to talk about that," I give you a look, and then you demonstrated, throwing your head back and rolling your eyes like a dead cat in rigor mortis.
I stood up for myself, knowing I was completely right to maintain boundaries with you. I told you that I would not let you talk to me that way, that I would leave the table if you didn't stop.
You wanted to talk about PTSD with me. You wrote a question about it on a note before you left for church, and when I read it, I could hardly believe you'd have the nerve to talk about that with me - you, the perpetrator of my trauma.
But you brought it up when you got home from church, and when I said no in a kind but firm way, you shut down. You wouldn't talk with me about anything. I tried to start conversations with you about your friends, about what you enjoy, about your upcoming vacation. One word answers were my reward.
So I confronted you. "I'm trying pretty hard here," I said, "but you're not meeting me halfway." I was matter of fact, not accusatory, just trying to show you I cared. I felt so anxious to please you.
"I know," you said. And then you got upset and started your angular impression of me. I can still see it in my mind, etched irrevocably in that moment of anxiety. You were wrong to do that to me.
You were wrong to show me how ugly I am to you, how I disgusting I appear in your eyes.
"You used to mock me like that, Mom," I said, almost shaking, "and I'd ask you to stop, but you'd yell, 'I'M THE MOTHER!' and keep doing it. I will not let you do that to me again."
You apologized later, and I thanked you for that. I didn't really forgive you, though.
I don't know what forgiveness means, but I wish I could move on from this pain of being hurt by you one more time. I wish you would treat me kindly.
I wish you would, but I know you won't, not if I spend more than a day with you. This time, even the first day was stressful. You started to cry when I changed my clothes to go for a walk.
"Oh," you said with a pouting face and shrugged shoulders, "I so wanted to take you to Costco and get you what you need."
Before I could say anything to let you know I'd be happy to go with you, you choked back tears and said, "I feel like I can never ask you for anything." Then you let out a sob and fled to your room to collect yourself.
And that was your good behavior. I can't take it anymore.
I'm almost inclined to put a moratorium on spending more than 24 hours with you. I did that with phone conversations, you know - well, hopefully you don't know. I decided to keep our phone calls under half an hour so that I don't open myself up to you too much.
I think it would be wise to do the same with in-person visits. Therefore, I will not spend more than one night at your house, unless I absolutely can't avoid it.
Since I need your financial help, I'll continue to communicate with you, but here on out, your home is nothing more to me than a hotbed of emotional turmoil.
I slept till noon today because I couldn't get out of bed. Being with you sapped me of energy and left me fearing again that I will be like you.
I fear you, I despise how you treat me, and I hate that I remember everything you say when you're angry at me.
If I could avoid seeing you again, I would.
Of course, I can't avoid it, so I assert that I am not evil, that I am not ungrateful, and that I am a kind person. I assert that I am not like you.
You said that when I say "I don't want to talk about that," I give you a look, and then you demonstrated, throwing your head back and rolling your eyes like a dead cat in rigor mortis.
I stood up for myself, knowing I was completely right to maintain boundaries with you. I told you that I would not let you talk to me that way, that I would leave the table if you didn't stop.
You wanted to talk about PTSD with me. You wrote a question about it on a note before you left for church, and when I read it, I could hardly believe you'd have the nerve to talk about that with me - you, the perpetrator of my trauma.
But you brought it up when you got home from church, and when I said no in a kind but firm way, you shut down. You wouldn't talk with me about anything. I tried to start conversations with you about your friends, about what you enjoy, about your upcoming vacation. One word answers were my reward.
So I confronted you. "I'm trying pretty hard here," I said, "but you're not meeting me halfway." I was matter of fact, not accusatory, just trying to show you I cared. I felt so anxious to please you.
"I know," you said. And then you got upset and started your angular impression of me. I can still see it in my mind, etched irrevocably in that moment of anxiety. You were wrong to do that to me.
You were wrong to show me how ugly I am to you, how I disgusting I appear in your eyes.
"You used to mock me like that, Mom," I said, almost shaking, "and I'd ask you to stop, but you'd yell, 'I'M THE MOTHER!' and keep doing it. I will not let you do that to me again."
You apologized later, and I thanked you for that. I didn't really forgive you, though.
I don't know what forgiveness means, but I wish I could move on from this pain of being hurt by you one more time. I wish you would treat me kindly.
I wish you would, but I know you won't, not if I spend more than a day with you. This time, even the first day was stressful. You started to cry when I changed my clothes to go for a walk.
"Oh," you said with a pouting face and shrugged shoulders, "I so wanted to take you to Costco and get you what you need."
Before I could say anything to let you know I'd be happy to go with you, you choked back tears and said, "I feel like I can never ask you for anything." Then you let out a sob and fled to your room to collect yourself.
And that was your good behavior. I can't take it anymore.
I'm almost inclined to put a moratorium on spending more than 24 hours with you. I did that with phone conversations, you know - well, hopefully you don't know. I decided to keep our phone calls under half an hour so that I don't open myself up to you too much.
I think it would be wise to do the same with in-person visits. Therefore, I will not spend more than one night at your house, unless I absolutely can't avoid it.
Since I need your financial help, I'll continue to communicate with you, but here on out, your home is nothing more to me than a hotbed of emotional turmoil.
I slept till noon today because I couldn't get out of bed. Being with you sapped me of energy and left me fearing again that I will be like you.
I fear you, I despise how you treat me, and I hate that I remember everything you say when you're angry at me.
If I could avoid seeing you again, I would.
Of course, I can't avoid it, so I assert that I am not evil, that I am not ungrateful, and that I am a kind person. I assert that I am not like you.
Monday, July 13, 2015
Three-letter word
I say everything I feel like saying to you. When something comes to mind, I tell you. When I'm angry, I let you know. When I'm disappointed, I pout, and when I'm sad, I cry.
I guess I'm pretty honest with you - at least, I think I am. I'm as honest with you as I am with myself, which sometimes isn't honest at all.
But with you, I even feel free to say bad things about you to other people. I tell them your name to me is just a three-letter word, that I don't understand how you can say you love me when you are letting my life fall apart.
It is falling apart, you know. I know you know. You say you're omniscient, and I want to believe you. I want to believe you're truly as wonderful as my friends say you are.
They say you're my provider. "The Lord your maker is your husband," I'm told.
Why, then, am I unable to work, paralyzed by anxiety, unable to move to another apartment, and unable to pay for all my medical expenses - expenses which I wouldn't have to have if I could somehow be healed by you, which my friends say is possible?
I hate having to try so hard to talk to you. If I could just see that you care, it would be different. If you would sit across from me and look at me, giving me some assurance that you are not going to let me face even more despair, perhaps the crippling depression would lift.
I hate that I think I'm honest with you but feel as speechless as I do on a first date. You're not really interested. You don't really want to make my life better. You don't give a damn that I'm floundering.
Life without you would be pointless, but spending my life trying to get through to you is unbearable.
I hate that I feel this way about you. I hate that being around her makes me feel less myself with you. I hate that you gave me her as a mother.
I hate that you are sovereign because it means you let me come into existence with her as my primary caretaker. She totally messed me up.
I'd like a do-over, please.
I guess I'm pretty honest with you - at least, I think I am. I'm as honest with you as I am with myself, which sometimes isn't honest at all.
But with you, I even feel free to say bad things about you to other people. I tell them your name to me is just a three-letter word, that I don't understand how you can say you love me when you are letting my life fall apart.
It is falling apart, you know. I know you know. You say you're omniscient, and I want to believe you. I want to believe you're truly as wonderful as my friends say you are.
They say you're my provider. "The Lord your maker is your husband," I'm told.
Why, then, am I unable to work, paralyzed by anxiety, unable to move to another apartment, and unable to pay for all my medical expenses - expenses which I wouldn't have to have if I could somehow be healed by you, which my friends say is possible?
I hate having to try so hard to talk to you. If I could just see that you care, it would be different. If you would sit across from me and look at me, giving me some assurance that you are not going to let me face even more despair, perhaps the crippling depression would lift.
I hate that I think I'm honest with you but feel as speechless as I do on a first date. You're not really interested. You don't really want to make my life better. You don't give a damn that I'm floundering.
Life without you would be pointless, but spending my life trying to get through to you is unbearable.
I hate that I feel this way about you. I hate that being around her makes me feel less myself with you. I hate that you gave me her as a mother.
I hate that you are sovereign because it means you let me come into existence with her as my primary caretaker. She totally messed me up.
I'd like a do-over, please.
Friday, July 10, 2015
Parentified
I don't want to see you this weekend. I'm afraid of opening myself up to you and then getting hurt again when I realize you aren't the mother I've always wished for but never had.
I don't want to have to coach myself through the pain of stuffing my feelings when you start crying or express extreme emotion.
I am tired of being your mom. I wish you'd be mine like you asserted so often you were. "I'm the MOTHER!" you'd yell.
You know what? I'm the daughter. Please tell your emotions to cool it so that I don't have to act like your caretaker.
I know it's not possible, but I thought I'd ask anyway.
I don't want to have to coach myself through the pain of stuffing my feelings when you start crying or express extreme emotion.
I am tired of being your mom. I wish you'd be mine like you asserted so often you were. "I'm the MOTHER!" you'd yell.
You know what? I'm the daughter. Please tell your emotions to cool it so that I don't have to act like your caretaker.
I know it's not possible, but I thought I'd ask anyway.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Separation
"Just a crumb, just a little crumb is all I ask," you said, choking back tears.
I hate the memory. I hate what you did to me that night. I hate that you said one more time, "I give, and I give, and I give, and you just don't give back."
I hate it because you made me feel small. You made me feel like being different from you was a crime, like having my own ideas was a misdemeanor to be squashed.
I didn't want to look at a map of where we'd been that day. I felt like you were expecting me to take pleasure in sharing the experience with you, and I knew you wanted me to enjoy it. You knew I didn't want to, but you wouldn't let me say no without a fight.
You'd arranged a night for us at a bed and breakfast and then a matinee performance of Showboat. It was lovely. I'd competed against the soprano star of the show in the Met Opera Auditions, and her voice was one of those that allowed me to relax into her free and effortless sound.
Afterwards, we must have driven back a different way because when we got home, you wanted to look at that map. I still wish I'd said yes so I could have avoided your outburst.
I still wish I could say yes when I think of that memory, but I can't. I don't want to look at the map. I'm tired of being around you, and I feel unsafe. I need space. I need to breathe, but you won't let me.
You tell me I'm ungrateful. You mock me: "You say, 'Thanks, Mom,' when I buy you things or give you things, but then when we get home, you're nasty."
I don't mean to be nasty. I don't mean to be anything but grateful, but I can hardly take being with you another moment. You suck the life out of me, you expect me to read your mind. You smother me and then shut me out without telling me why. Your shrug and neck twitch still give me anxiety. How will she respond today, I wonder. How can I make myself invisible so that she won't see me?
If I put the dishes into the dishwasher too loudly, I get the evil eye. If I put the dishes in wrong, I get a lecture. If I'm happy, I'm annoying. I should be sad like you. I should irritable like you are with Dad. But I'm not allowed to be irritable - only you are.
I wonder if anorexia was my attempt not only to avoid becoming a woman by starving my period right out of me, but also my attempt to become invisible. Though I do remember wanting to be special, reasoning that if I couldn't pretty, I'd at least be smart and skinny, I also wanted to disappear. I was 13. What awkward, nerdy 13-year-old doesn't want to disappear at some point?
No, it was more than a desire to erase myself from the awareness of others. I wanted to win a small piece of emotional turf for myself. I chose food, or the lack thereof, as my battle ground, and I won. For a few solid months at least, I had no period. I could go back to being a child, not a woman. Not like you.
"You need me," you said in your emphatic way. It was the summer after I'd graduated college.
Something within me felt smothered again, but I gave in like a charmed victim about to be devoured by a witch. "Yes," I remember saying. "I do need you."
I wish I'd never said it. I wish I could have stood up for myself. I wish I could have told you no.
Instead, I gave in. I cut away the emotional boundaries I'd tried to have at college. I gave myself completely to you in that moment. I was afraid of something, though I don't remember what it was. I was afraid, and you took advantage of it.
Instead of encouraging my independence, you sought after it and crushed it. You needed me to need you. You didn't know what to do as an empty-nester. You floundered as a person without someone to call you Mom.
While I still call you Mom to your face, I don't think of you as Mom anymore. At least, I try not to. I try to think of you by your first name, and I even stored your number in my phone like everyone else's: last name, first name.
That's I want you to be to me. Just like everyone else. You've hurt me as no one else has, and you've probably shaped me as no one else has. But I now ask that you let me create emotional distance from you, that you let me be me.
I'm going to do my best not to worry that you'll commit suicide if I don't show you the emotional warmth you'd like. And I sure hope you don't ask me, as you always seem to do, if you've done anything to offend me.
I ask that you learn to take care of yourself and live with yourself not as a mother, but as a person.
I choose to view myself as a person separate from you. I don't need you in the way you said I did. I don't have to tell you yes when it makes me uncomfortable to capitulate.
I choose to respect you as an older woman and in the respect to show love to you, but I probably won't show love in the way you wish I would. I can't.
Despite my anxiety at the thought of disappointing you, I choose to ignore the lump in my throat and the tears in my eyes.
I choose separation.
I hate the memory. I hate what you did to me that night. I hate that you said one more time, "I give, and I give, and I give, and you just don't give back."
I hate it because you made me feel small. You made me feel like being different from you was a crime, like having my own ideas was a misdemeanor to be squashed.
I didn't want to look at a map of where we'd been that day. I felt like you were expecting me to take pleasure in sharing the experience with you, and I knew you wanted me to enjoy it. You knew I didn't want to, but you wouldn't let me say no without a fight.
You'd arranged a night for us at a bed and breakfast and then a matinee performance of Showboat. It was lovely. I'd competed against the soprano star of the show in the Met Opera Auditions, and her voice was one of those that allowed me to relax into her free and effortless sound.
Afterwards, we must have driven back a different way because when we got home, you wanted to look at that map. I still wish I'd said yes so I could have avoided your outburst.
I still wish I could say yes when I think of that memory, but I can't. I don't want to look at the map. I'm tired of being around you, and I feel unsafe. I need space. I need to breathe, but you won't let me.
You tell me I'm ungrateful. You mock me: "You say, 'Thanks, Mom,' when I buy you things or give you things, but then when we get home, you're nasty."
I don't mean to be nasty. I don't mean to be anything but grateful, but I can hardly take being with you another moment. You suck the life out of me, you expect me to read your mind. You smother me and then shut me out without telling me why. Your shrug and neck twitch still give me anxiety. How will she respond today, I wonder. How can I make myself invisible so that she won't see me?
If I put the dishes into the dishwasher too loudly, I get the evil eye. If I put the dishes in wrong, I get a lecture. If I'm happy, I'm annoying. I should be sad like you. I should irritable like you are with Dad. But I'm not allowed to be irritable - only you are.
I wonder if anorexia was my attempt not only to avoid becoming a woman by starving my period right out of me, but also my attempt to become invisible. Though I do remember wanting to be special, reasoning that if I couldn't pretty, I'd at least be smart and skinny, I also wanted to disappear. I was 13. What awkward, nerdy 13-year-old doesn't want to disappear at some point?
No, it was more than a desire to erase myself from the awareness of others. I wanted to win a small piece of emotional turf for myself. I chose food, or the lack thereof, as my battle ground, and I won. For a few solid months at least, I had no period. I could go back to being a child, not a woman. Not like you.
"You need me," you said in your emphatic way. It was the summer after I'd graduated college.
Something within me felt smothered again, but I gave in like a charmed victim about to be devoured by a witch. "Yes," I remember saying. "I do need you."
I wish I'd never said it. I wish I could have stood up for myself. I wish I could have told you no.
Instead, I gave in. I cut away the emotional boundaries I'd tried to have at college. I gave myself completely to you in that moment. I was afraid of something, though I don't remember what it was. I was afraid, and you took advantage of it.
Instead of encouraging my independence, you sought after it and crushed it. You needed me to need you. You didn't know what to do as an empty-nester. You floundered as a person without someone to call you Mom.
While I still call you Mom to your face, I don't think of you as Mom anymore. At least, I try not to. I try to think of you by your first name, and I even stored your number in my phone like everyone else's: last name, first name.
That's I want you to be to me. Just like everyone else. You've hurt me as no one else has, and you've probably shaped me as no one else has. But I now ask that you let me create emotional distance from you, that you let me be me.
I'm going to do my best not to worry that you'll commit suicide if I don't show you the emotional warmth you'd like. And I sure hope you don't ask me, as you always seem to do, if you've done anything to offend me.
I ask that you learn to take care of yourself and live with yourself not as a mother, but as a person.
I choose to view myself as a person separate from you. I don't need you in the way you said I did. I don't have to tell you yes when it makes me uncomfortable to capitulate.
I choose to respect you as an older woman and in the respect to show love to you, but I probably won't show love in the way you wish I would. I can't.
Despite my anxiety at the thought of disappointing you, I choose to ignore the lump in my throat and the tears in my eyes.
I choose separation.
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Words
"I've really grown to like my dark hair," I said, enjoying a brief moment of peace about my appearance.
"Just wait till it turns gray," you replied.
When I told Dad what you'd said, he came back with an appropriately parental response: "Your hair will be beautiful no matter color it is," he said.
The difference between you two is striking. He imparts confidence; you plague with fear. He shows fatherly partiality; you speak out of your own insecurities.
You speak with hints of jealousy, as you always have.
I don't know how I knew. I guess I felt it even as a young child. I couldn't have been more than 4 years old when I walked down the steps that day in my frilly dress. You were at the window, watching us leave. Somehow I felt your jealousy then, I felt your eyes follow me through the window, taking the sunshine out of that happy moment as a young princess with her doting father.
I have no idea if the memory is merely a projected vision of perceived reality, or if it really happened. I will have no way of knowing because I wouldn't dream of bringing this up with you.
I wouldn't dream of it because I already tried to talk to you about other things.
I tried to process with you the origin of my eating disorder. "You were so insecure," you told me, "I didn't know what to say to you."
You said that everyone talks about bodies.
But not everyone talks like you do. "She has big hands and big feet," you said, describing one of your piano students. "She is going to be a big girl."
You say "big girl" so emphatically that I feel the shame you are heaping upon your poor piano student. You talk about someone's being "big-boned" as if it were a disease.
"Do I look fatter to you, Mom?" I asked after gaining a little weight.
"Well, you do have a pooch where you didn't before," you said.
Maybe you were glad I was finally less intimidating to you. And maybe I'm being unfair. In any case, you said exactly the wrong thing.
You have a knack for that, you know - saying the wrong thing.
Your words have cut me to the quick so many times. When I told you once how your vitriolic tirades had hurt me so deeply, you looked surprised. "Oh!" you said, "I just thought my words would roll off of you like water on a duck's back."
Who are you? What mother in her right mind thinks that verbal abuse won't affect her very sensitive daughter?
Ah, yes, that's right - I forgot. You're not in your right mind. You never were, and you don't get it. You certainly didn't get it a couple months ago when you made that comment about my hair.
You don't understand how to be a mother with your words. The sooner I can learn that, the better.
"Just wait till it turns gray," you replied.
When I told Dad what you'd said, he came back with an appropriately parental response: "Your hair will be beautiful no matter color it is," he said.
The difference between you two is striking. He imparts confidence; you plague with fear. He shows fatherly partiality; you speak out of your own insecurities.
You speak with hints of jealousy, as you always have.
I don't know how I knew. I guess I felt it even as a young child. I couldn't have been more than 4 years old when I walked down the steps that day in my frilly dress. You were at the window, watching us leave. Somehow I felt your jealousy then, I felt your eyes follow me through the window, taking the sunshine out of that happy moment as a young princess with her doting father.
I have no idea if the memory is merely a projected vision of perceived reality, or if it really happened. I will have no way of knowing because I wouldn't dream of bringing this up with you.
I wouldn't dream of it because I already tried to talk to you about other things.
I tried to process with you the origin of my eating disorder. "You were so insecure," you told me, "I didn't know what to say to you."
You said that everyone talks about bodies.
But not everyone talks like you do. "She has big hands and big feet," you said, describing one of your piano students. "She is going to be a big girl."
You say "big girl" so emphatically that I feel the shame you are heaping upon your poor piano student. You talk about someone's being "big-boned" as if it were a disease.
"Do I look fatter to you, Mom?" I asked after gaining a little weight.
"Well, you do have a pooch where you didn't before," you said.
Maybe you were glad I was finally less intimidating to you. And maybe I'm being unfair. In any case, you said exactly the wrong thing.
You have a knack for that, you know - saying the wrong thing.
Your words have cut me to the quick so many times. When I told you once how your vitriolic tirades had hurt me so deeply, you looked surprised. "Oh!" you said, "I just thought my words would roll off of you like water on a duck's back."
Who are you? What mother in her right mind thinks that verbal abuse won't affect her very sensitive daughter?
Ah, yes, that's right - I forgot. You're not in your right mind. You never were, and you don't get it. You certainly didn't get it a couple months ago when you made that comment about my hair.
You don't understand how to be a mother with your words. The sooner I can learn that, the better.
Monday, July 6, 2015
Compared
"You have nice full lips," you said. "Look at mine and how thin they are."
"You're so tiny. I used to be that tiny. When I got married I was 5'7" and weighed 120 pounds, and I felt fat."
"I love your dimpled hands," you said. "Look at mine and how gnarly my knuckles are."
"You have a nice jawline. Look how my jawline is, how my chin connects to my neck."
I never realized it before, but you constantly compared yourself to me. You didn't know what do to with a girl. You always told me that Grandma was so happy for you when I was born and turned out to be a girl, but you never told me that you were happy for a girl.
Maybe it's because you didn't know how to be a woman.
"Men notice things like that," you said, pointing to my chewed fingernails. Yet you chewed yours. You bit off skin, rolled it around between your fingers, and flicked it across the room, all the while sitting in the Lazy Boy, rubbing your legs together like a boyscout rubbing sticks together in hopes of a fire.
I don't know how to make sense of all that you said to me. You compared yourself to me, and you compared me with my brother. "Huh," you said, puzzled, "he learned that so quickly." I hung my head at the piano. So I was dumb. I knew it.
I was 4 or 5, no more than 5, and I felt dumb. You made me feel dumb by telling me I was a slow learner, by comparing me with my genious brother, who never had to work at all in school, who learned Greek in a summer by himself, no tutor.
But I tried to prove I wasn't dumb. I won spelling bees, math competitions, poetry contests, and art contests. I tried so hard but felt dumb in comparison.
And in comparison to you, I felt something that I still can't pinpoint. I felt ashamed for being me, feared growing older, and learned that you felt ugly.
I felt ugly too. I wanted men to think I was beautiful, but I always felt like a hairy beast, like an animal - like a man.
In college I learned about hermaphrodites, and I wondered if I maybe I'd finally found the answer to my hirsute appearance. I was a fraud of a woman; I was really a man, but no one knew.
Except, I am not a man.
I am a woman, and I don't care what men think of me. I do, but not in the way you taught me. I don't need to care for my fingernails so that men will like me. I want to take care of them because I want to look nice - for me, not for anyone else. I reject what you taught me. I reject your worldview.
It doesn't matter what men think of me. It matters what I think of me. I matter.
"You're so tiny. I used to be that tiny. When I got married I was 5'7" and weighed 120 pounds, and I felt fat."
"I love your dimpled hands," you said. "Look at mine and how gnarly my knuckles are."
"You have a nice jawline. Look how my jawline is, how my chin connects to my neck."
I never realized it before, but you constantly compared yourself to me. You didn't know what do to with a girl. You always told me that Grandma was so happy for you when I was born and turned out to be a girl, but you never told me that you were happy for a girl.
Maybe it's because you didn't know how to be a woman.
"Men notice things like that," you said, pointing to my chewed fingernails. Yet you chewed yours. You bit off skin, rolled it around between your fingers, and flicked it across the room, all the while sitting in the Lazy Boy, rubbing your legs together like a boyscout rubbing sticks together in hopes of a fire.
I don't know how to make sense of all that you said to me. You compared yourself to me, and you compared me with my brother. "Huh," you said, puzzled, "he learned that so quickly." I hung my head at the piano. So I was dumb. I knew it.
I was 4 or 5, no more than 5, and I felt dumb. You made me feel dumb by telling me I was a slow learner, by comparing me with my genious brother, who never had to work at all in school, who learned Greek in a summer by himself, no tutor.
But I tried to prove I wasn't dumb. I won spelling bees, math competitions, poetry contests, and art contests. I tried so hard but felt dumb in comparison.
And in comparison to you, I felt something that I still can't pinpoint. I felt ashamed for being me, feared growing older, and learned that you felt ugly.
I felt ugly too. I wanted men to think I was beautiful, but I always felt like a hairy beast, like an animal - like a man.
In college I learned about hermaphrodites, and I wondered if I maybe I'd finally found the answer to my hirsute appearance. I was a fraud of a woman; I was really a man, but no one knew.
Except, I am not a man.
I am a woman, and I don't care what men think of me. I do, but not in the way you taught me. I don't need to care for my fingernails so that men will like me. I want to take care of them because I want to look nice - for me, not for anyone else. I reject what you taught me. I reject your worldview.
It doesn't matter what men think of me. It matters what I think of me. I matter.
Friday, July 3, 2015
To them
I hadn't seen you in a while. 8 years I think it had been. When you asked what I was up to and I told you I've had to stop working due to severe depression, you didn't ask more. You didn't even show you cared. You changed the subject and talked about the cute little girl in the room who'd had a long day and was tired.
In fact, you both did. You both seemed relieved not to have to talk about what I was going through. You laughed and chatted as though I'd said my life was grand, couldn't be better.
Your life is busy and full. Next year you're embarking on an expense-paid adventure in the Czech Republic, and you're looking forward to a change of scenery, to happy challenges ahead.
Meanwhile, I sit and listen in silence. My sciatica is painful, but I say nothing. I listen, nod, ask follow-up questions, and pretend to be interested, although subdued. My heart is heavy. I see you enjoying whatever is in front of you, and I am miserable by comparison.
But your existence is limited. You still live at home with your parents, you go to the same church you grew up in, you play the same hymns and recycle the same few offertories over and over - you told me tonight.
Maybe in the Czech Republic you'll find it within yourself to engage those who suffer. Maybe there, you'll suffer too. I know it's terrible to wish it on you, but I am jealous of you. My existence is limited too, but somehow my struggles have taught me empathy. Is that so proud of me to say? I don't feel proud. I feel weary of pain, weary of holding back the tears when there are so many to be shed.
I'm sorry I'm envious. I know it's wrong. I don't know what to do with all pressures in my own life, with the depression and anxiety and physical ailments. I know they could always be worse, my new sciatica case in point.
Your life, though, seems so easy. You think to do something and you do it. You decide to go to the Czech Republic, and it all works out for you. You want a Master's in linguistics? No problem. You got it.
While I languish with health problems at every turn, you flourish. Maybe next time I see you, if ever, you'll see and care that life for some is not as easy as it is for you. Maybe next time you won't have to: maybe I'll be better.
In fact, you both did. You both seemed relieved not to have to talk about what I was going through. You laughed and chatted as though I'd said my life was grand, couldn't be better.
Your life is busy and full. Next year you're embarking on an expense-paid adventure in the Czech Republic, and you're looking forward to a change of scenery, to happy challenges ahead.
Meanwhile, I sit and listen in silence. My sciatica is painful, but I say nothing. I listen, nod, ask follow-up questions, and pretend to be interested, although subdued. My heart is heavy. I see you enjoying whatever is in front of you, and I am miserable by comparison.
But your existence is limited. You still live at home with your parents, you go to the same church you grew up in, you play the same hymns and recycle the same few offertories over and over - you told me tonight.
Maybe in the Czech Republic you'll find it within yourself to engage those who suffer. Maybe there, you'll suffer too. I know it's terrible to wish it on you, but I am jealous of you. My existence is limited too, but somehow my struggles have taught me empathy. Is that so proud of me to say? I don't feel proud. I feel weary of pain, weary of holding back the tears when there are so many to be shed.
I'm sorry I'm envious. I know it's wrong. I don't know what to do with all pressures in my own life, with the depression and anxiety and physical ailments. I know they could always be worse, my new sciatica case in point.
Your life, though, seems so easy. You think to do something and you do it. You decide to go to the Czech Republic, and it all works out for you. You want a Master's in linguistics? No problem. You got it.
While I languish with health problems at every turn, you flourish. Maybe next time I see you, if ever, you'll see and care that life for some is not as easy as it is for you. Maybe next time you won't have to: maybe I'll be better.
Thursday, July 2, 2015
To her
You said you didn't love me. You said it took you two years to feel anything for me. I survived, so I know you must have tried. But in my earliest memory you are nowhere to be found.
I am alone in that memory, standing in my crib, bawling. I am alone in my little kid pajamas. My crib is bare. I am standing in my crib, and no one comes to comfort me.
You never came.
You were depressed, I get it. I've been depressed too. I can't imagine what it's like to care for a child when taking a breath seems like work, when facing a new day is the worst feeling of all. But I'm tired of making excuses for you.
I've thought about how you were neglected as a child, I've tried to have compassion for you. I've rehearsed over and over the strange things you told me about your childhood.
And now I'm ready to say enough. Now I'm ready to see that even though your austere upbringing left you aching for love, you still didn't give love to me. You fed me and clothed me, and for that I'm grateful, but you didn't nurture my heart. You neglected it.
For once in my life I am not going to make excuses for you. I deserved love; even as a baby, I deserved it, and you didn't give it to me. I don't care that you tried but couldn't. The fact of the matter is, you failed.
You failed at helping me make sense of my world, of my emotions, of my femininity. You failed because, I think, you couldn't make sense of anything yourself.
When I told you I wanted to commit suicide as a 16-year-old, you told me how you almost attempted to hang yourself as a 27-year-old. You made my depression about you, not me.
When I was 13 and we looked in the mirror together, you told me that you and I, "we have faces that need makeup, that just look better with makeup." So you taught me I was ugly.
When I was 10 and you looked at my fingers and saw hair on them, you told me you used to burn the hair on your fingers. Instead of validating my appearance, you taught me I needed to be ashamed of it.
When I was growing into bras, you told me you didn't know what to do about breasts when you got them, so you reached across the fence and touched your neighbor girl's breasts. You made me feel scared of becoming a woman.
When I finally got my period just before 6th grade, I hated it. I never wanted to be a woman like you. Being a woman meant feeling ugly, hairy, and altogether unlovable.
Being a woman meant feeling ashamed.
If I could start fresh, I would. If I could unlearn what you taught me, I would. If only it were that easy.
I reject who you taught me to be. I can say it, I can think it, but living it is so hard.
Still, I reject it.
I know now that I am a human being, worthy of love, whose individuality is to be prized. I choose to be separate from you.
I feebly choose to be different from you, knowing that we are inextricably linked, but certain I must think of you as crazy or not-right-in-the-head or weird from this point forward.
You are not all bad. I know you have good intentions, and, for the most part, that you tried to be a good mother. So I still talk to you and feel grateful for your thoughtful gifts to me.
But I reject your worldview. I choose a different one. I choose a different me than the one you said I should be.
I am alone in that memory, standing in my crib, bawling. I am alone in my little kid pajamas. My crib is bare. I am standing in my crib, and no one comes to comfort me.
You never came.
You were depressed, I get it. I've been depressed too. I can't imagine what it's like to care for a child when taking a breath seems like work, when facing a new day is the worst feeling of all. But I'm tired of making excuses for you.
I've thought about how you were neglected as a child, I've tried to have compassion for you. I've rehearsed over and over the strange things you told me about your childhood.
And now I'm ready to say enough. Now I'm ready to see that even though your austere upbringing left you aching for love, you still didn't give love to me. You fed me and clothed me, and for that I'm grateful, but you didn't nurture my heart. You neglected it.
For once in my life I am not going to make excuses for you. I deserved love; even as a baby, I deserved it, and you didn't give it to me. I don't care that you tried but couldn't. The fact of the matter is, you failed.
You failed at helping me make sense of my world, of my emotions, of my femininity. You failed because, I think, you couldn't make sense of anything yourself.
When I told you I wanted to commit suicide as a 16-year-old, you told me how you almost attempted to hang yourself as a 27-year-old. You made my depression about you, not me.
When I was 13 and we looked in the mirror together, you told me that you and I, "we have faces that need makeup, that just look better with makeup." So you taught me I was ugly.
When I was 10 and you looked at my fingers and saw hair on them, you told me you used to burn the hair on your fingers. Instead of validating my appearance, you taught me I needed to be ashamed of it.
When I was growing into bras, you told me you didn't know what to do about breasts when you got them, so you reached across the fence and touched your neighbor girl's breasts. You made me feel scared of becoming a woman.
When I finally got my period just before 6th grade, I hated it. I never wanted to be a woman like you. Being a woman meant feeling ugly, hairy, and altogether unlovable.
Being a woman meant feeling ashamed.
If I could start fresh, I would. If I could unlearn what you taught me, I would. If only it were that easy.
I reject who you taught me to be. I can say it, I can think it, but living it is so hard.
Still, I reject it.
I know now that I am a human being, worthy of love, whose individuality is to be prized. I choose to be separate from you.
I feebly choose to be different from you, knowing that we are inextricably linked, but certain I must think of you as crazy or not-right-in-the-head or weird from this point forward.
You are not all bad. I know you have good intentions, and, for the most part, that you tried to be a good mother. So I still talk to you and feel grateful for your thoughtful gifts to me.
But I reject your worldview. I choose a different one. I choose a different me than the one you said I should be.
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