I've been on the verge of tears 90% of the day. When mom
doesn't get good sleep I get the brunt end of her attitude and cruelness. I
normally don't post on my personal page about what exactly is going on because
I continually hear “it’s the disease. She'd never say those things if she wasn't
sick.” I'm tired of hearing that because these are things she has said to me my
entire life. She has fooled everyone from the get go- we do not have the
relationship she portrayed to the outside world.
It is not the disease that makes mom say cruel things to me.
She has been emotionally abusive to me since I can remember (about age 5 is my
earliest memory) and it’s always behind closed doors. I remember one summer
that she was watching two of the neighbor girls while their mom worked. New brown carpet
had just been installed in our kitchen (who the hell puts carpet in a
kitchen???!!!) and I spilled grape Kool-Aid on the table and some dribbled on to
the floor. Mom was enraged and without thinking about the witnesses she grabbed
me by the throat and banged my head into the kitchen wall repeatedly while screaming at me
for spilling on her precious new floor. Tony came to my rescue and got mom to
stop. I was crying silently but the looks on the faces of my two friends-
complete and utter fear- those were seared deep in to my memory. My mom terrified
them and as soon as their mom got home they told her what happened. Of course
their mom did the right thing and demanded to know what happened. I’m not sure
exactly what was said but I remember mom never lost her cool in front of those
girls again. She'd wait till they were gone before she unleashed her anger at
me. She didn't physically hit me again after that afternoon, but the emotional
abuse got worse from there on out.
I learnt to play along with her charade because if I didn’t
I paid for it. Tony protected me as much as he could. And when I got old enough
to get a job I got one just to be out of the house. I didn't need the money; I
needed the escape from her. I realize now that Tony stayed at home as long as
he could so that he could protect me. When
he moved out, he always made sure to visit for dinner once a week and he made
sure he saw me at least twice a week to see how things were. He'd take me to a movie or out shopping
because he knew I needed to be built up after mom tore me down. He worked hard
to undo the damage mom did to me.
When mom and I were out in public together we could joke and
be silly- the picture of perfection. And I always wished we could be that way
at home too. I tried once in middle school and got my head chewed off. I could
call her a “dork” or a “dumbnut” out shopping and she'd say the same thing back
and it was all good. But being silly while no one was there to witness our “perfect
mother-daughter” relationship was futile. She'd call me lazy, a whore, an
airhead or she'd revert to her favorite way to cut me to shreds- “I have to
love you because I gave birth to you, but I hate you!” -any time I tried to
bring the fake into our real life. I learnt quickly where I stood with her and
how to not provoke her. During high school I did all the things expected of me
and dreamt of the day when I would be off to college. I made up for being the
goody-two shoes the moment I hit college. I drank, I slept around, partied almost every night and skipped a lot of
classes. I can honestly say I don't remember much of my sophomore year. I
crammed a lot of bad crap into my first two years of freedom.
The day mom found out she was pregnant with me she was
actually scheduled to have some sort of procedure done on her uterus. I have
been told she screamed “NOOOOO” when she found out she was pregnant. Dad has
always reassured me that she wanted me and that it was the shock of finding out
that she'd finally gotten pregnant when the doctors had convinced her she'd
never have a third child that made her scream. I don’t doubt that she wanted
me. I just don't think she wanted a daughter that is the polar opposite of what
she is. Instead of a little mini mom, she got a mini dad. I've always taken
after my dad in personality, attitude and intelligence. She was always jealous
of the bond he and I have. I remember that when I was about 6 or 7 one of
the little neighbor girls told my mom, “Amy loves her daddy more than she loves
you.” My ass was beet red and I couldn't sit down for two days when I got home that
afternoon. I didn't understand why loving my dad was such a horrible thing or why mom could be a daddy’s girl with her dad, but I couldn’t
with mine. But I did learn to never ever admit that I loved my dad more than my
mom again. I learnt to say what mom wanted to hear and to not trust the
majority of people to protect me and keep my secrets.
Now that mom’s memory is fading and her mind is going fast,
the cruelty has come back to how I remember high school. One minute she is
thanking me for taking care of her, the next she is telling me what a lazy
bitch I am. She accuses me of trying to steal her husband by making her look
stupid. She tells me W deserves to marry a better woman- a woman capable of
bearing his children and taking proper care of a man. She says I’d be an unfit
mother so it’s a blessing that I never had any children. When I change her, she
pinches at my arms and my breast. As I try to move her up in the bed she grabs
at where my pacemaker is and has gotten the edge of it a few times. She will beg me to sit with her and when I do, I get
to hear her talk about me. She talks to people long gone and tells them just
how rotten I am- how I'm being mean when I change her diaper, how I make her
roll on her side because I'm too lazy to just pick her up. I take hearing all
this as long as I can and then I make up an excuse to leave the room. I go down
to fold laundry and stand next to the dryer and cry. Or I slip into my office
and just shake from the silent sobs.
The disease is causing her to say cruel things to Dad. She
accuses him of hiding from her, of ignoring her, of not loving her. I will not
allow her to be cruel to dad so I call her on it and make her stop. He doesn't
deserve to be berated because he goes to work. He does all he can for her- he
sits with her, holds her hand, reassures her that she is not being put in a
home and he continues to love her as he has for 47 years. I make sure she doesn’t
hurt him like she hurts me.
But who stops her from being cruel to me? No one- instead I
get told "it's the disease" and that she isn't in her right mind. Maybe I should go back to saying “I'm fine” and leave it at that.
