Dear Mother,
Well. I just don’t know.
Lets start here:
You guys harassed me for years to explain ‘the problem’. And when backed into a corner, I did, thrice. But it was like my voice was the breeze, three times over twenty years. Disclosure is hard and exhausting, and although I was caving in and giving you what you wanted, you somehow remained dumbfounded. I didn’t speak in tongues or write in code. It was blunt and to the point. But you guys just.. I don’t know.. Defied hearing any words.
No one is allowed to have problems except you. No one is allowed to struggle with their health or emotions or fail to cope psychologically. Because your life, health, past, existence, is harder.
The irony of ‘using you as my scapegoat’ is lost in your lifelong finger point at your own father. So you can throw that idea back where ever it came from.
You all seem to think the only form of abuse is sexual molestation. It’s not. But because of this, when I mention being abused… well you jump to that assumption and suddenly I’m the devil for flinging that word around.
ABUSE can be; Physical. Emotional. Verbal. Psychological.
When I was four, and my brother was at school and my father was at work. I was spoken to like trash. When she was angry mother’s lip would curl and she would snarl and spit as she spoke with venom. She emphasised the derogatory words like “filth” and “putrid”. I was disgusting and something was wrong with me.
It was perpetuated that I was a liar. I remember my heart breaking with betrayal when the vice principal declared knowing I told a lot of lies and I had to serve my punishment for supposedly knocking another student over on purpose, whom had just had an arm cast removed (as it happens, her father was actually PHYSICALLY ABUSIVE, there’s that word again, and broke her arm numerous times during childhood). I was baited to bullies forever after, because who would believe the girl that lies?
I wasn’t allowed to sneak in with my mum at night. I used to crawl around the bed, terrified to wake her, and climb in with dad. I barely slept because he would lay his arm under my head and exhale into my face as he slept, so I was never comfortable, but it was affection. So long as Mum didn’t wake up.
When dad got up to go to work, I had to stay over near the edge. I wasn’t allowed to touch her when she slept. I wasn’t allowed to touch her when she was trying to sleep. And if she knew I was there I’d be sent back to my own bed because I stank. When she woke and realised I was there she would tisk and make a point of changing the bed linen.
Stank and stink were popular words. My breath always stank with dramatic emphasis. I stank when I started menstruating. I stank after school. My feet stank. My hair stank. My room stank. I was putrid and filthy and disgusting, obviously.
My favourite times were when we had guests for dinner.. or we went to someone’s house for dinner. Because I could cuddle my mother there. She tolerated me because it made her look like a good and affectionate mother. I think she was affectionate in the early years, I think up until I started having an opinion and being defiant. I don’t remember when it started, but I remember being four at the earliest. She took something and I was crying.. and she had put it inside a bag… and she threw the bag and slammed it into a wall, breaking my precious thing, then dumped it all out on the bed in pieces saying I had asked for it by ruining her life.
I ruined your life a lot of times, so you said.
I didn’t ‘fix things’. I don’t know what I was supposed to fix. But that’s what you said. As an adult, looking back at me in those ridiculous doll clothes that weren’t in the least bit functional for a child to play in, I think “things” actually meant your childhood. I think I was supposed to somehow re-animate your past into this ideal that you wanted childhood to be for you. And I couldn’t, because I was an individual and a child. Maybe by the time I was four you felt like it wasn’t working like you had planned and so became angry with me? And that’s why I’m your disappointment.
I know you have a personality disorder. I know you are undiagnosed because this disorder is very clever… and not many professionals can pin point it without meeting other people involved with your daily life. Sometimes even the victims manage to fool the professionals about you. I think that’s an example of poor professionalism in my opinion. But my opinion doesn’t matter.
What matters is ATTENTION. Am I right? And it was Fathers Day and now that your son is a father and was being spoiled by his wife and child, and your husband was getting phone calls from the kids… who was left to attention YOU?!
You could live on the constant trickle of attention from Dad and my brother… but not on a day designated specifically for someone you are not.
And for the fourth time, I was backed into that corner. To disclose my ‘problem’. So I used common language because MAYBE simpler words would get through.
ABUSED.
Suddenly I am being victim blamed. My brother called me specifically to tell me I was a horrible person and he would be happy never to see me again. He says nothing ever happened and he would know because he was there.
Thankfully I know that means he has never been abused or molested or sexually assaulted. In my experience only women and prior victims are able to empathise with another victim. So I am thankful for that.
FYI it is common for women to be subjected to sexualisation by men. We have to learn to get used to it and shrug it off. Obviously this is also something my brother has been sheltered from, and for that I am also thankful.
I was so disgusted with his reaction that I fell for it. Fell into the manipulative trap. I called you back and asked to speak to you. You said no, that you didn’t want to speak in anger (hadn’t the stamina to be dramatic whilst snarling derogatorily at me, IMO)
I said this was your last chance.. and you still said no.
I actually called my mother ‘A Gutless Cunt’ then.
Today, she only sent me two sassy Woman Power-esk messages (to which I never reply) cutting me off from her life. Which is interesting because I actually did that over the phone less than 20 hours before.
In any case, shit’s fucked. And I’m not too upset about that. I have enough to deal with. However I am still, absolutely and thoroughly disgusted that I was victim blamed. Completely disgusted.
Come to think of it… Disgusting was another word I was as a child.
-SP.
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