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x---an--othered--another---x · 3 years

Text

this is about the first woman that broke me.

CW // parental abuse, neglect, family trauma, conversion therapy, body dysmorphia, christianity

Dear "Mom".....

This is everything I want to tell you, and too terrified to speak.

I know you will never understand.

You and Dad always used to speak about how my arrival to the world was with purpose. Unlike my older brother, I was the baby that was planned, because he always wanted a little girl. Unfortunately, now, we understand why. But we aren't here to speak about him -- not yet, anyway.

In childhood, I remember my anxious attachment with you. When out of my sight, it was not unusual for me to cry or scream for you. I found life without you to be vile and fearful. I was also terrified that you would never come back to me.

I loved you so deeply. I needed you even more. I always wanted my mom. I felt emotionally empty and confused without her... perhaps, to a point that could be considered "abnormal". I don't know how it started. I just felt it, and too such an overwhelming capacity, even for a small child. Mama's boy in the making.

Sometimes -- many times, actually -- you did leave me quite perplexed, to say the absolute least. When in good spirits, you were perfect; a loving, nurturing, kind, and thoughtful existence, capable of soothing and comforting my deepest woe or worry. It was not unlike you to occasionally spoil me, be it with gifts, snacks, quality time, or simply your positive attention. Your laughter could put a soft smile on my face, and, beside of you, I felt not only loved and cared for, but also, whole. It was a fullness I could never achieve through anything or anyone else. I understood this early in life.

In retrospection, it is phases like this that make me ashamed of my burning resentment for you.

Because, what the rest never knew, is that this was never you, all the time. I firmly believe it is who you wanted to be, and even who you still hope to be -- maybe even believe that you already are. Perhaps, you tried your best.

But, I cannot forget this.

There is a special kind of self-blame that comes with looking into the same eyes that once bore an adoring gaze for you, and, suddenly, watching them fill with what could only be described as unbridled hatred and loathing in your anxious direction. To be sharing a warm embrace for one moment, to finding it impossible to look up at that twisted, angry expression so soon after. Regardless of what you intended, I need you to know that I was legitimately scared of you, in such moments. If looks could kill, I would have been dead by age 10.

Of course, this is much more than just an uncomfortable stare that I am so disturbed by when I reflect upon the past we shared. Whether you will ever accept this or not is irrelevant, because, in the end, this is the truth: You physically assaulted me, and more than once. When you caught me telling my friends about this, you gaslighted me into believing that it was 110% my fault, that I triggered your explosive rage and therefore deserved this. If not this specific approach, you would only convince me that I was grossly exaggerating, or that it never even happened to begin with. If you happened to ever be reading this, I am positive you would do it, again.

Let's get specific, lest you then make the bold claim that I am engaging in an infamous "fake accusation" -- the abuser's favorite go-to line. I first remember an instance when I was 12: I got into the car after school with sharpie markings on my arms, because my friends wanted to playfully draw on me, and I told them they could do so. I had no reason to suspect that this would be some horribly upsetting event in your eyes; you had never even mentioned to me that this kind of thing was a problem, at all.

Your response? You took me to the nearest grocery store parking lot, parked as far away from the doors and other cars as possible, and proceeded to punch me. Granted, it was my thigh, sometimes my arm, but it was with as much force as you could muster in that moment, and you did it repeatedly. I was in legitimate shock, and, for one of the first times in regards to you, I flinched. I cowered. I cried, and I asked you to stop. You did, only to continue to verbally tear into me. By this point, I was too stressed out being in a car with you to even hear what you were saying to me.

You never apologized for this.

While this was not the first time you had taken out your tantrum on me -- physically or emotionally -- I can confidently say that this was the day I knew I could never trust you. From this day forward, my every move and word would be calculated. I would learn to hide everything from you, which, eventually, led to hiding everything from everyone I ever knew.

You laugh when you tell us the story of how I would "vomit on command" when you would spank me as a toddler. I obviously do not remember this, as I was between two and four years old, at the time. I thank whatever deity helped me forget this, because I have since digested how actually fucked up what you always described really is.

"You would get into trouble, and I would spank you, and you started puking to make me stop," you would say with a giggle and a smile. "So I got to where I would just hold you over the porch when I did, so you would puke over the ledge instead of the floor."

Mom, do you understand that what you were punishing with such callous ferocity was my trauma response to your husband grooming and molesting me?

Nevermind the "where were you when it happened" speech -- why were you beating the shit out of me when I showed that behavior (which, by the way, is concerning as shit)? Why were you beating the shit out of me AT ALL?

And why, even now, do you tell the story with such a sadistic giddiness about you?

Moving on. I can harp forever on the chronic, neverending shame, despair, and animalistic fear that came with the fanatic Southern Baptist family dynamic -- or, those jarring, unexpected alternations in your ability to provide me with healthy love and emotional substance. However, the abuse really kicked up a notch once I reached puberty, which, I was unfortunately old enough to internalize, and therefore remember later into my adult life.

I couldn't count how many times you body-shamed me. Called me ugly, made "jokes" about my chest and ass, jumped on me the second my leg hair became visible to you. I remember those acne pills you insisted I start taking, because you were so worried that I would get scars all over my face from the intense breakouts. You loved the idea of me wearing make-up, but if I wore it my way over yours, then I just looked "evil" and "scary". You always hated how much I hated skirts and dresses.

It was as if my own body did not belong to me. Nothing I wanted to do with it was ever good enough for you. I was not allowed the control over my self-expression, my appearance, my whole vessel. You only wanted it to be yours to control and manipulate. Why?

And let's not forget your obsession with my hair. Good fucking god, Mom, your preoccupation with my beauty (of lack thereof) was so not fucking normal. I remember all the times you forced me to have my long hair cut into a dumb bob, because "it's not like you're gonna style it, anyway, what does it matter?" I remember sobbing the first time, and you did not emote in response, whatsoever. Or when I did not take a shower on Christmas Eve night, and you got mad at me because my hair was "too greasy". What was the response to that one? Oh, right. You "accidentally" caught my ear in the flat iron, after sloppily and angrily clamping the hair you were attempting to straighten for me.

On Christmas morning. I was seriously mortified. Inconsolable.

I became desensitized to my looks quite quickly, as I had internalized and accepted the fact that you so kindly graced me with. It became a finalized concept to me that I was irredeemably disgusting to look at and would never be called beautiful by anyone in my life. As true to myself as the grass was green. You made sure I knew this. My friends were always a threat to both of you for a reason. God help you should I tell them. God help you should I experience genuine love from another person.

As if this weren't enough, fast forward to the days I began to realize my queerness. I came out to the first person, and I felt nothing but freedom and euphoria. I became addicted and kept on telling others. I wanted to be known, to be seen, as me.

Living in a small town, it, of course, did not take long for the pastor and his wife to receive notice that their child was openly coming out of the closet to everyone but them.

Cue the fuckin' war drums, here, because I fear that words will simply never do.

When you stole my phone to rummage through my texts, you saw that I had also come out to my aunt -- the only family member I could count on to be supportive, at that time. You responded to her with a short text:

"Never talk to [000] again."

And she never did.

She died, two years later.

She, too, never got to know me. It was out of my control. I will never forgive you for this, and I mean that, genuinely.

In those two years, I covertly dated behind your back. Despite that you had taken my only source of external contact -- just in time for summer break -- and made extreme attempts to isolate me so that only direct family could access me... we stayed together. It was so very strained, but all I wanted was love. In the midst of "voluntary" conversion therapy, I needed it more than anything. I could quite literally have died without it.

My grades naturally dropped through these months of pretending I could be cured of my diseased attraction, which was met with force, as usual. Anything but an A, or a high B on the report card, and I may as well have shot someone in the streets. By now, it did not matter, to me. I was so fucking dead inside, by now. You broke me. At this point, you could have gutted me with a knife, and I would have barely reacted. I felt like nothing, so much so that I became no one, at all.

But hey. At least ya'll felt better.

Only, you didn't. The divorce came mere months following these events. I had never been so happy to see a relationship fail in my life. I should have been sad, but I knew this would be my ticket back into a normal life. You would finally fuck off, and I could just be a human being with no judge or critic looming over me every waking moment of my life. Maybe now, finally, I could live a life that wasn't graded. I didn't have to be godly -- perfect -- anymore.

You never knew this, but I will say, the way I became aware of this news was a lot less exciting. Through another restless night, I snuck to the kitchen for a snack. Your bedroom door was closed. The light remained beneath the doorway. You were fighting. Unfortunately, it was not that uncommon for you two to bicker, so I, for the most part, tuned it all out.

That's when the punching started. Your voices went momentarily silent, as if confused or stolen. Only the muffled, gutteral growls on occasion emitted from behind that closed door, between was sounded like the intentional, rage-induced smacking of skin.

I could only use my imagination.

In my mind, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that our father was beating the shit out of you. Cue dissociation. The only emotion left inside of me was anger, similarly.

I grabbed a knife. I had no idea what I wanted to do about this, but I wanted to be ready, just in case. And I sat outside that door, and listened to this physical exchange intently, clutching my kitchen knife by the handle, ready to do... whatever.

It was after I heard his annoyed pleading of "stop, stop it" and your hissing "who is she" that I finally had an accurate picture in my mind of what was happening just a few feet behind me.

I went to my room. I tried to call my brother, but he was asleep, as this was all going on at around 3AM. I called my best friend, who had to also go shortly into the call. I laid in my bed, alone and afraid to a point of triggered regression. I slept with the knife under my pillow, just in case.

I pretended not to hear it, the next morning. I never told you. I had no idea what to think or feel, and I did not want you to influence those things for me. Long story short, you both were over, and, honestly, I was celebrating that shit. Even as you mourned it for months on end. I was burnt out of sympathy. I only wanted to be free.

Things slowly improved once dad was removed from the household, but, by then, it was far too late. I could sense you attempting to connect with me, to withhold your emotional reactions toward me, to engage with me and approach me with adult kindness. I entertained your efforts for a while under the guise that I may finally experience a loving, motherly relationship. I have since discovered that there are still so many things etched in this old stone that no act of kindness will ever undo, that I cannot move on from, because you still never apologized, or even acknowledged that you were anything below a great mother whatsoever. In all fairness, would it even matter to me if you did, anymore?

This does not even cover all of those miseries passed down from you to me. Between trashing my drawings because they weren't holy enough for you, assuming me stupid when I couldn't pass math with flying colors, always reassuring me that my friends would never fully love me, and ESPECIALLY not like you did, and so much more..... this relationship was doomed from the start.

And I am tired of blaming myself for not wanting to see you, anymore.

Every time I speak with you, I feel gutted and anxious. The persistent sense of powerlessness and insignificance comes back full force, as if no amount of years has separated me from your dysregulated emotions, whatsoever. When I know we have to engage, I am assaulted with cluster migraines, and my mouth is sewn shut. I take on another person around you, even now, because I have no reason not to assume that you are no longer capable of that kind of mistreatment.

Afterall, it still does not exist to you, does it?

Nobody saw it. I was too small to be my own advocate. No family or church members would ever believe me. Even if they did, they would tell you. You even successfully convinced me, for so many years, that I am the one being to hard on YOU for these things.

Mom. You were the god damn adult.

It is not up to a child to control you emotions for you.

The saddest part of all of this, is that... I am still anxiously attached.

Your favorite way to punish me as a kid was the silent treatment. Sometimes, it would go on for days. In those periods of time, I really thought you would never love me or speak to me, again. I blame this for my inability to cope with separation from those I love even still.

As fucked as you may be, that space is still a vacancy. The absence still hurts. The abandonment feels so unbelievably eternal.

I am sure you sense my distance. I am absolutely breadcrumbing you; I admit it. I will respond to your daily texts maybe once or twice a week, because it is all that I can handle, anymore. It is arguable whether or not even that is not setting me back. In all honesty, I want to be rid of you, entirely.

But... that's retaliation, isn't it?

I guess I never learned how to do that.

Or, maybe, I am still so fucking scared of you.

Whatever it may be, I know in my core that I am better off without you. But, how do I communicate this to you? How do I shamelessly become the thing I hated so much? How do I do that to someone? How do I abandon another person knowing just how much it hurts to be on that other side?

And why am I the only one who seems to ask themselves this question, here?

I cannot keep dismissing these pains. They not only haunt me in a way that feels so self-conjured, but they pave the path for me to enable similar behaviors within myself, to fall in love with that same violent smile in another person.

To normalize the abuse.

I simply will not do this.

Dear "Mom".....

While unquestionably the better parent, you are not a good one, yourself. I long for a day where I can comfortably address this with you. I fear that this is only a product of my waking dream.

I need to wake up.

Whether or not I ever say goodbye in the flesh, I have far beyond said it in my heart and mind.

Please. Give a shit.

Beyond surface level.

For once.

Sincerely,

000

P.S. You never wanted a little girl. You only wanted a pet. Accept that.

#letters i never sent #letters i’ll never send #dear you #dear mom #complex ptsd #surviving narcissism #family troubles #i hate you #i love you #i need space #i miss you #let me grow #this was your fault

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