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.