Abuse

 Abuse.

This is going to be long, but it’s important.  If you only read the beginning, I want you to know:  If you are a survivor of abuse, or going through an abusive situation, you are not the abuse.  You don’t have to let it define you, and while it’s hard to move on, you can. 

I want to end the stigma for abuse victims – which is why I’m writing this.  I want there to be stigma for the abusers, not the abused.  I need to practice saying, “My mother is abusive.”

I don’t know why it still hurts so much so long after it happened.  I know she still hates me.  My dad has to be careful mentioning me to my mom or she’ll flip out.  Why does it bother me so much that someone who could be so awful to me doesn’t like me? 

            A few days ago – January 10^th, a memory popped up of a note I had typed in 2008.  The gist is, I was sick.  My mom was staying with me and I was doing home IVs.  Keep in mind I was 21 when this happened.  I packed and took my 9pm IV dose with me so I could stay out with my friends longer.  And by “out with my friends,” I mean we were at someone’s house watching movies – the same thing I would do at home while my IV infused, just with people.  My mom watched me pack up my meds, but at 9:20 my phone rang. I answered and she was screaming I was late to do my 9pm IV dose.  I reminded her I had it with me and it was infusing.  She changed to screaming I would wake her up when I came home at “all hours of the night.”  I was home by 10:30. I promised not to wake her when I got home.  I didn’t wake her, and did my treatments in my bedroom so she wouldn’t wake up.  I was writing in my journal, when at 11:40 my phone rang again.  I answered, really puzzled.  This time she was screaming that I didn’t wake her when I got home, so she had no idea if I was home or not.  I reminded her that she’d asked me not to wake her, but it didn’t matter.  She devolved into her “When will you grow up?/Why are you so irresponsible?”.  I just agreed with her, like I always did, but had to keep from laughing because I could hear her yelling from the room next door, and then heard an echo through the phone.  I hung up and I cried myself to sleep.    

 

            Before the “final disowning,” I always tried to live my life to make my mom happy, not for me.  I didn’t want to make her mad, so I often did what she wanted, not what I wanted.  This happened because any time I did what I wanted, she would disown me. 

            Once, I kept a big secret – that Dan and I had decided to build a house – because I knew she would be furious.  She had told us we shouldn’t.  I hid our decision from her because it was important to me that she attend out vow renewal and wedding reception.  And damnit! She has fun that night.  I’d never seen her and my dad so happy or having so much fun.  Never.  And then when she found out, she disowned me. 

            When she found out Dad and I were planning a trip to Hawaii for February 2019, she flipped out.  I wasn’t necessarily keeping the secret because she wasn’t speaking to me.  But she found out our plans, and then called me to tell me she wished I were dead.  She said she wished she had never helped me get through transplant.  This was in June 2018, a few days after George and I started dating – and he didn’t run! 

            Fast forward to Christmas 2018, George and I are on our way to central Illinois to spend the holiday with his family.  Mom found out Dad and I were still planning to go to Hawai’i in a few months, she again called me and told me she wished I were dead.  Dad and I still went to Hawai’i.    

            In May of 2019, I tried one last time to reconnect with my mother.  We talked on the phone a few times, but one day, for no reason, she laid into me.  She told me it was rude for me to go to Hawai’i with Dad and the Swensons.  She said I ruined their family vacation, and they didn’t want me there.  She told me I’m bipolar, or at the very least, have borderline personality disorder, and I was sobbing. 

            When my mom tells me horrible things, I freeze.  I always have.  I usually just agree with her to end the conversation faster, because it’s never helped to stand up for myself.  This time, Dad was in my living room, and could hear what she was saying.  He told me to end the conversation, and reminded me that he, the psychiatrist, doesn’t think I’m bipolar or have BPD. 

            Now I’m wondering why it was her business if I was rude and invited myself along?  How does it hurt her?  I didn’t invite myself along, but whatever. 

            She’s always tried to hurt me by insulting my friends – ever since I was in elementary school.  My two best friends – Sarah and Katie – were rarely my best friends at the same time because my mom was always telling me they were a bad influence.  If I was hanging out more with Sarah, she’d say horrible things about her and her family so I wouldn’t spend as much time with her.  So I’d swing over to hanging out with Katie, and she’d say horrible things about her.  She would even go as far as to say things like, “Why don’t you hang out with Sarah anymore?  She’s a much better influence and her family is nicer.”  

            I didn’t like inviting my friends over – but it happened sometimes.  Katie was the first person to ever tell me that I was being abused.  We were in the second grade, and I remember sitting on the old blue-green couch in their basement.  I was sobbing because of something my mom had done, and Katie looked me square in the eye and told me that she was abusive.  We were eight.  She made me promise that if I ever had kids when I grew up, that I would be nicer to them than my mom was to me.  And I never forgot it. 

            My mom continued to gaslight me to influence my friendships into adulthood – and my marriage – but I tried to ignore her and love the people I loved.  I think that bothered her more.  She always told me how horrible the Swensons were.  “They’re bad parents,” or “They don’t really like you,” are some of her greatest hits.  Anyone I care about, she needs to pick them apart to hurt me.  My theory is, for some reason, it hurts her to see me have other relationships.  She seems hurt if I care about anyone but her, or maybe it’s that I’m more well-liked than she is. 

            This has all been bothering me again – even more since I found and remembered the IV med and phone calls incident. 

            I just don’t know why it bothers me so much that she hurt me so much. 

            I’ve always justified her behavior – she was abused as a child, she suffered great tragedy with the death of my sister and my illness, etc.  But I don’t think any of that is an excuse to be a shitty human being.  Somewhere in there, I think she cares for me, but I don’t know. 

            If she cared for me, why did she destroy everything I made for her in elementary school?  All the clay projects – she has my brother’s on display, but mine are nowhere.  I once confronted her, and she said it was Dad’s fault because he failed to rescue my stuff from the basement before she threw it out.   My brother’s senior photos still hang in the living room, but mine are long gone – I assume trashed, as well. 

            Just the other week I got a phone call from my dad, asking me if I had all our home video DVDs that Darin and I had made for them for their 25^th Anniversary.  I said I didn’t, and I told him where they were the last time I was at their house (Easter of 2018).  Later that day, I talked to Dad, and they were exactly where I said they were, she just couldn’t see them because they were pushed to the back.  Why would she be so upset about home movies – a giant gift from my brother and me, if she didn’t care a little?  Was she looking for something to scream about?  Probably. 

           

            Last fall, I fixed her sewing machine.  Dad brought it to me, and I had some energy one day, so I took a look at it.  It was a really easy fix – her bobbin was tangled.  So I did basic maintenance on her machine and sent it back with Dad.  She also requested that I wind a few bobbins for her because she doesn’t know how.  I chuckled because she taught me how, but whatever.  I used Amazon to ship her some pre-wound bobbins, rather than wind them myself, and Dad said she was thrilled with the maintenance and the bobbins, but I never heard it from her.  Things like that confuse the hell out of me.  Is she just using my strengths?  Is dealing with me and my daily medical dramas too painful, so she’s found excuses to disown me?  Maybe.  Is she just friggin’ nuts?  Yeah.

Anyways.  I’m trying to be open and say the words, “My mother is abusive.”  Because I can’t dance around it.  No matter of pain or suffering in your life allows you a free pass to be a jerk.  I don’t know why my brother escaped a lot of this – but that’s a whole other topic. 

My mother is abusive, and every day I choose to be better.  From her, I learned I want to be kind.  I want people to like me.  I want to feel the love of friendship.  And I do owe her a lot.  I will stop short of saying I owe her my life – because while she was instrumental in saving it several times, I like to think I am strong enough I would have done it on my own.  I like to think that she hasn’t held my life in her hands and she never will again.