Yours

As I read Leslie Vernick's The Emotionally Destructive Relationship, I keep imagining what I'd like to say to you. So I'm going to say it.

You abused me. Maybe I should put it in present tense because of your most recent episode. You abuse me. You are abusive.

Let that settle for a moment. You are abusive. You have hurt me, mocked me, and ridiculed me, and I won't tolerate your abusive behavior anymore.

You are no longer allowed to treat me however you feel like treating me. You are no longer allowed to abuse me. If you do, I will leave your presence, whether that means packing my bags and leaving your house or asking you to leave mine.

Your apologies hold no weight in the face of repeated offenses. As your mouth drops open in shock at what I'm telling you, let the gravity of my words ground you. You are abusive.

You may have had a hold on me when I was dependent on you to take care of me, but now I am free. I don't have to listen to you go on and on, and I certainly don't have to take your abuse. No more.

"I just can't do anything right with you," you say. "I know you don't like it when I cry" - as if it's my fault that your tears and over-the-top emotions bother me. Nope. Your dysfunction is your own damn fault. I am not responsible for it.

Though I am working on becoming stronger so that your childishness doesn't affect me as much,  your behavior is yours to claim. Not mine.

Also, please don't share with me about your relationship with God. I feel so uncomfortable hearing you talk about Him because your version of Him is not the one I want. I shudder just thinking about what it's like to hear you speak of your spiritual journey. I wish I could figure out what exactly irritates me - although, irritate is not the right word.

I suppose it's because I so intensely want to come to peace about my spirituality and can't seem to find the secret to being happy I'm a Christian. I envy people who follow other religions because at least they don't have to think theirs is the only right way to live.

When I hear you talk about God, I get confused even more. Yours is the voice I wish to drown out, your misquotes of Scripture and failure to tell me God loves me. Yours is the voice that's often loudest in my head, and when you tell me with tears that you had an experience with God, I want to run away.

From the same mouth that belittles me comes assertions about the one Being who loves me perfectly - assertions that may be fine for you, but that are made with projections onto me. "You're so angry with God," you say.

So what if I am? Leave me alone and let me go to Him on my own terms, not yours. That's right, your behavior is yours; my spirituality is mine - my turf, my emotional space, my territory. It does not belong to you, just like your emotions don't belong to me.

I don't know why I struggle so much to separate from you, but I think it has something to do with the abuse. Enmeshment, co-dependence, triangulation - they all go together, don't they?

I wish you weren't my mother, but you're the one I've got; and you're also the one in my head. Slowly and painstakingly I'm removing your voice from my psyche, one thread at a time. Oh, I pray so hard to the God of the universe, not your God, but mine, that He will heal me from the wounds you have inflicted.

I pray and weep because of the abuse. It's not my fault; it's yours. Despite your troubled childhood, despite your unfulfilled longings, the abuse is yours. It rests on your shoulders. Not mine.

Take it - you deal with it. I know you're not strong enough to handle it, but it's not mine anymore. I don't cause you to abuse me. I show respect and kindness of spirit. I try to please you. You are the one to blame and always have been.

I am not willing anymore to say that I provoked you to disrespect my humanity with your humiliating gestures and words. They're yours. Take them back. Here, I've stuffed them in a suitcase for you. I could hardly close the zipper, it's so full of the crap with which you burdened me.

Yours. Not mine.