I am in a breakthrough crisis, having gained some sense of my abuse.
One of the things I remember most about school was feeling miserable. I couldn't tell you why, because if I did, you'd simply assume I'd had an annoying parent. Then, there was the pressure to be a "good" girl, so I wore a big bright smile while secretly hoping someone would notice the sadness buried in my eyes. They never did. In fact, I was often referred to as one who "had it all." Good grades, well-mannered (must have had a good upbringing), and so very friendly, just like a child. What could a sweet little girl like myself know of misery?
Right?
Truthfully, I've been plotting to kill myself since I was eleven. I couldn't just do it, what would become of the poor soul who found my dead body? I had to make it clean and thorough, make sure I didn't try and fail and end up as a vegetable or something. Hanging wasn't an option, so maybe a reclusive overdose would work. But where would I get the pills? And, more importantly, which ones do I even take? Does a few bottles of aspirin work? Hell if I knew.
I don't think I was simply a depressed kid just as I don't consider myself "whiny." It's hard to say that, because I was depressed, and when I try to confine in family members, the respond is: "we all have our stuff to deal with, you have to learn to too." I want to agree with them, really. On one hand I want to write this all off as self-pity and parental angst, sweep it under the rug and move on with my life. But, I can't. It follows me with every step I take from the moment I open my eyes in the morning to my dreams at night. I am perpetually stuck in a rut, and I want to know why, and I want out.
My parents are divorced. My brother and I primarily grew up with my mother, who, as I now understand it, has borderline personality disorder. I don't know how to talk about it, because it's everything to me and then doesn't make sense to anyone else. I could tell you how my mom would follow me to my room and rampage through my stuff, again and again, looking for evidence to show how demented I was, how awful I was, how much I hated her, what my father was telling me behind her back, what trash I was reading, what trash I was writing, what morbid fascinations erupted from my soul. I was the bad child, and there was nothing I could ever do to change that. People don't understand this. They don't understand this because they didn't grow up with a borderline parent. They don't understand how severely sick in the head these people are, and what a burden that places on the children. They don't, but they think they do.
So how to I begin to explain to you, you who is so far and ambiguous, what it was like? Should I try to defend myself in retrospect? It certainly has never worked before. Perhaps I'm not worth defending, or perhaps I was doing it all wrong, or perhaps I just didn't have a choice up till now. I suppose I'll simply give my best honest account and tell you how it made me feel and how I reacted.
It takes me a while to see that I'm angry. When I was little and upset about my mom, I would yell. I would yell back at her while she yelled at me and demand she stop yelling first before I stopped. This logic never sufficed. My brother would jump in and say I had to stop yelling first because I was the child, and besides, if I calmed down, she would eventually calm down. But it was hard, seeing as in my mother's eyes I was such a troublemaker and there was always something she could pick a fight with me about. I feel dizzy and sick inside just thinking about it.
Over these last few months I've learned more about my father's life than I have in years. His father is undoubtably an alcoholic, and from what I've heard, was a very stern and harsh parent. My grandmother, well, was apparently abusive, explosive like my mother. Me and my step-sister speculate she could've been borderline too, but I suppose we'll never really know. At any rate, my father and his seven were raised to have the deepest respect for their mother. I've heard numerous times in the family: "She had to raise eight boys!" There's some sort of awe and admiration that goes with it, and that's drilled down into my dad's heart with a nailgun.
He would never, ever talk bad about my mother. He would admit she was difficult, and as I grew older, make it obvious that's why he divorced her, but he would never say out loud the obvious: that she didn't just take things too far, but was in-sane. The few times I saw him a week I'd relay my troubles with mom (but then always being careful never to tell how terribly she spoke of him) and tell how she did this and that and how it made me feel. The answer? I had to do what was right no matter what, and be the mature one in the situation. It actually wasn't that bad of an answer, and my dad was always so sensitive and loving. I left feeling better knowing he listened and sy(em?)mpathized.
Sooner or later however, the band aid would come off. I wanted to go live at my dad's house, where my dad didn't scream at me like my mom did, or go after my diary, or act so paranoid and sensitive in public. My step-mother was so smart and fun to talk to, and I thought my step-sister (who's ten years older than me) was the coolest person in the world. I can still hear my mom's voice, saying she was only living where she was for me. Working long hours at her terrible, stressful job for me and my brother, because she didn't want to leave us with our father and go back to Florida where she was from and her family lived. I wanted to tell her to leave, that I'd feel better the farther away she was, but I never could. She probably wouldn't have left anyway, and it would've just upset her, and there was already enough of that. What was the point?
I might have hinted at it in one of our screaming matches, but I was always told: "You think it'd be any better over there? You did ___ wrong, and your dad won't let you yell at him like you do to me." Well, he won't yell at me about it like you do. He'll actually talk to me. "He'll get upset too. It won't be any different." ...would it have been different? When I was twelve I would've said yes without a doubt, but now I feel so confusingly conflicted. All these years have really taken a toll on my psyche. When I start to talk about it, I feel like someone is going to tell me I'm exaggerating or too sensitive. I've had plenty of people do so already: classmates, friends, family, psychologists, public speakers, mental health interviews, etc.
Here's the truth: I was abused. I was abused emotionally, and maybe a little physically too. It's so bad that I set myself up for failure. I become friends with people who are going to hurt me. I stick around after others have hurt me, again and again, while I get dog scraps in return for my kindness. I want to sit here and make excuses for my mom and stay by her side through thick and thin because she's all alone now that I'm in college and I'm scared of what will happen to her now that I'm not there. But at the same time, I feel so used up, like I've thrown my pearls to the dogs and now there's nothing left to give to anyone who wants to love me for whoever the hell I am. I don't know. A lot of my life I was who I had to be, who was a responsible, nice girl. If I dared to be "immature" like others my age, I would be reprehended by my dad. When it came to my mother, there was too much fighting to relax for a moment. So if I was really honest, who knows what would've happened. If I hinted at it, no one would take me seriously, much less see how I was dying inside. So who am I? A scared little girl who's still dying inside? Uhh, maybe. I feel really hurt inside, and it is hard to trust anyone with this information. But, at least I can talk about it, at least I can put it into words. I've been going crazy these past few months trying to put this mess into words and am only now doing it, microscopic inch by microscopic inch.
I worry all the time if what I say makes any sense, if it has any meaning or worth. Does it put anything into the grand stream of life? Or is it something I have the right to talk about and get out of my system? If so, why did no one listen? Why when I yelled and yelled as a child, crying out to God that someone would listen, my father and brother would tell me to quiet down and behave like an adult before they listened. Then, when I was an adult, I was so well-mannered that nobody believed I had any problems. Then no one would take me seriously. Does that make sense? Am I victim to the ignorant judgments of others? Is it "okay" to be the victim? Is that really such a bad thing, or does it prove how self-pitying and hopelessly selfish I am?
Does anyone hear what I have to say? Does anyone care? Should I just not care what you have to say to me? Is it really that simple? I don't think so. I was always looking for the answer, the "it's okay, you're not really a bad person, it's just that your mother is crazy." Well, I think I got just about everything but that. I don't mean to sound selfish, but whenever I say that, I feel like someone is there saying, "well yeah, you are." Honestly that's what I've always gotten in response, and with the way it leaves me feeling, I'm afraid I'll have to disregard it all. I can sit here all day asking myself: "in this situation, is that okay? Or is not, and there's a better way to go about this--a way to express myself without being so selfish?" I don't know, so I hope I'm not wrong about this, but I can't keep feeling the way I feel. I have to do what's best for me now, and if that's being a self-serving little asshole, I guess that's who I'll be.
I really hope I'm not though, I really hope whoever I am can do better than that. I hope when I have kids I'll feel good about myself so they will too and I'll find a good guy who doesn't care I'm so messed up and we'll be able to create our own heaven on earth and pack some goodness into the stream of life. I guess if I can dream it, I can do it. A very cynical part of me along with a heavy stream of memories involving cynics and pessimists is screaming "NO!" from somewhere very deep down, but another part says: "You can be anyone you want to be. Your past doesn't define you; it might be your story, but you're the writer from this point on." I hope that voice carries me to safety, and I thank God the light hasn't gone out.
Love, L.T.
