mother

Layers of Protection

~ KJ ~ 19 Comments

No one ever asked why I wore a bathing suit under my clothes. It was quite visible through the white polo of my private school uniform. I wasn’t going swimming in the middle of winter. But for years, I would wear a bathing suit over my underwear and under my clothes, and no one ever questioned it.

Why? Because it helped me feel protected. In my child mind, I foolishly thought these extra barriers, these layers of protection, would prevent me from being abused.

So I stuffed myself with wads of toilet paper. That toilet paper was going to protect me. She can’t put anything inside me then. She’s not going to be able to hurt me.

And then I’d wear two pairs of underwear, sometimes three. Then, my bathing suit. Then my pants. Then two or three shirts. I needed all of that to feel protected. I needed to be covered. I never wanted to be without my protection.

But those layers didn’t work. She still hurt me. It just took a little more effort.

I never gave up trying, though, even to this day. I always wear two pairs of underwear. I always wear at least three shirts, no matter if it’s the heat of summer.

And when I am feeling vulnerable and afraid, I go right back to my childhood methods of protection.

Since I’ve been struggling with this memory, I’ve found myself reverting back to childhood a bit. I’m teetering in a place between being a free, 30 year-old adult and being a scared child. As weird as it is, I feel like both at the same time.

I know I am an adult, but I am also living in fear of my mother. I check my bedroom door ten times to make sure it is locked before I go to bed. Why? Because I don’t want my mother coming in and hurting me. Adult me knows my mother isn’t even here, but the fear is still playing out actively in my head.

And as I’ve gotten ready for bed each night, I have created a protective cocoon of clothing: extra clothing under my pajamas, a sweatshirt with the hood over my head and closed tightly. Throw blankets wrapped around me like I am human burrito.Why? Because I need to protect myself from my mother. My mother, who is nowhere near me anymore. My  mother, who doesn’t even know where I am. But that knowledge doesn’t matter because I am living in a state of confusion, a mixed state of past and present that has become my reality.

I’m not sure what is worse: living in fear and not knowing why, or living in fear, totally aware of the irrationality of it all, but not being able to control it.

Flee, Part 1

~ KJ ~ 17 Comments

I sat in the waiting room of my therapist’s office this afternoon, fighting the urge to get up and leave. I looked at the door, then looked at the clock, debating if I could dash out without running into her. I can’t leave. She’ll worry. I have to leave. I can’t do this today. I spent so much time debating with myself, that before I knew it, my therapist came out of her office and my option to flee was gone.

I was scared. I wanted to run away because I was scared of what was going to happen. I knew my therapist would know something was wrong. It doesn’t matter how many times I say “I’m okay.” My face always tells the truth, and today my face was telling the world that something was wrong.

Sure enough, my therapist knew I was not okay. She asked when it all started. I told her. I told her how I couldn’t stop crying. I told her I couldn’t sleep. I told her about the memories that were (are) not stopping. I told her I didn’t want to remember anymore. I couldn’t take anymore heartbreak.

My therapist talked about memories and what memory loops mean, and all the things I already knew. Therapy was a safe place to talk about it. I knew that. But I was still scared. I tried to process it anyway. I knew that hiding it and avoiding it was not working; that was obvious to me given how I’ve been the last few days.

He knew. He was there. I started crying. Uncontrollably. I felt the pain in my heart come back. My head was hurting in a weird sort of way, like a pressure was building up inside with no way to release it. And I just kept crying. I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted that little bit of hope I had been holding on to that my father was just the tiniest bit of a decent person. But that is shattered now. That hope is lost.

It was too much for me to accept. I started doubting everything. Maybe these memories aren’t real. Maybe I’ve just made this all up in my head. I knew in part that these memories were real, but I didn’t want to accept them. I wanted my hope back. I wanted my innocence back. I wanted my father back.

I’ve had memories before where he is there, but not really there. This was different. It was clear what was going on. There is no doubt in my mind. He knew. And he didn’t protect me. He didn’t help me. He helped her.

Why? I don’t understand. My therapist says not to focus on the why, not to stress myself out trying to understand people who cannot be understood. But I can’t help it. I don’t like it when I don’t understand something. I don’t understand my life. I don’t understand the people who raised me, although I’m not sure saying “raised” is really accurate at all.

I struggled to stay connected to the present. The difficulty of working through flashbacks and memories is realizing that you are in the here and now, and not back when the trauma happened. Sometimes I am afraid of reliving it, so I push it down and try to forget about it. For the record, that never works.

My therapist has to constantly remind me that I am safe there, that no one is going to hurt me. So why is it so hard for me still? I want to feel safe. I just want to feel safe for once in my life.

Please, no

~ KJ ~ 9 Comments

I’ve spent the last hour laying in bed crying, trying to block out the flood of memories that have been bombarding me off and on since this morning.

It all started in therapy. My therapist and I were going over the stages of treatment worksheet I had done last week. We got to the section on medical care, which tends to be an issue for me, but I’ve been working on it decently the last couple of months. Primary doctor. Check. Dentist. Need that. Gynecologist. Initiate panic.

I started feeling sick. My stomach was queasy, my head was spinning, and I felt my chest getting heavy. I didn’t want to talk about it. Please, no, don’t make me go. The panic got worse, and then the memories started flashing before me. I tried to make them stop but they wouldn’t. I remember crying and then I drifted away.

I knew what triggered the memories. It’s the same reasons I’ve avoided going to that kind of doctor. I connect it with what my mother did to me. She said I was sick there, and she needed to help. But she didn’t help at all. She hurt me. Over and over. And it never got better.

The thought of someone being in that position with me is mortifying. I can’t deal with it. Fuck, I can’t even handle it in therapy. Imagine if I was at an appointment, what would have happened. I can’t. It’s not going to happen.

My therapist wants to work on it together a little bit at a time. But I’m scared. I’m so damaged. It’s not even going on anymore but the damage is done. I can’t erase the memories, I can’t forget how it felt.

And if that wasn’t enough, the memories have kept coming, even hours after my therapy session. Don’t tell anyone, they won’t understand. I’m just trying to make you better. I didn’t tell anyone. I was a good girl. So why did it keep happening? Why didn’t I get better?

Daddy is standing there. He’s holding my hand. But it still hurts. Why is he letting her hurt me? Does he know I’m sick there, too? I don’t understand. What did I do? I keep saying please, no but no one is listening. My voice is gone. I close my eyes but I still feel everything.

I don’t want to remember anymore. My heart hurts.

I can’t be like her

~ KJ ~ 13 Comments

I’ve written before about my fear of being anything like my mother.

That fear comes in all forms.

Whenever someone would comment about how much I looked like my mother, it made me sick. I would respond very calmly, “Please don’t say that.”

But they always continued to say it. Because I did look like her. And I felt the disgust and hatred and fear building up inside of me every time. I would run to the nearest bathroom and cry. I’m just like her. Other people are saying I’m just like her. It has to be true. I would punish myself for looking like her, as if it were something I had control of.

I hid my feminine attributes because I figured it would make me less like her. If I don’t look like a woman, I’ll be okay. I’d squish my breasts flat so I could look more like a boy. I’d wear baggy sweatpants and t-shirts. I changed my hair color and style (which didn’t work, because my mother would soon change her appearance to copy mine). I tried so hard NOT to look like her. I hated myself for being a woman because my mother was a woman. But that was something I don’t  have the power to change.

Even though now, I don’t have to deal with anyone saying how much I look like her, I am still reminded of our similarities in other ways. And I hate it.

I continue to try my best to be the total opposite of her.

I involve myself in relationships with types of people who I know my mother would never associate with.

I deny myself the privilege of having children because being a mother would make me my mother, and children don’t deserve to be hurt by me.

I have turned away from God because my mother continually paraded as a Christian.

It’s not even just the major things. I avoid her favorite foods and drinks: cookie dough ice cream, Dr. Pepper, Kit Kat bars. While I know eating and drinking those things won’t change who I am, a part of me believes it brings me that much closer to being just like my mother.I avoid things I really enjoy because they are things that my mother enjoyed. It’s not fair.

I was eating a chocolate Poptart the other day, and out of nowhere, realized that my mother also ate them quite frequently. I stopped eating it and threw it away, completely disgusted with myself. We like the same things. I’m destined to be just like her.

A big reason why I have problems with anger is because I associate anger with my mother. She would often fly into rages; it was her normal. So now when I feel angry, I connect that feeling with being like her, and I try to suppress it. Except that suppressing anger rarely works. Instead it builds up inside, and ends up exploding at some point. And then it proves the point. I am just like her now.

My mother: consumer of chocolate, soda drinker, Christian, woman, mother, narcissist, sociopath, child abuser.

Me: a product of my mother.

I don’t want to be like her. I can’t be like her. But I am.

4 Miles of Freedom

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

Something I saw on Facebook inadvertently triggered a memory.

It wasn’t a bad memory. I would have liked it better if I had the memory at a time other than 3 o’clock in the morning, but I guess some things are just out of my control.

I went to a private high school in another town. It was another way my mother distanced me from people. My father would always drive me to school. For some reason, I don’t remember what exactly, my father couldn’t drive me to school for a few weeks (I think it was work-related). So I had to take the bus. The first few times, my mother went with me. Then she would just walk with me to the bus stop (about 6 blocks) and stay until I got on the bus.

One day, I was feeling rather rebellious. I didn’t want to take the bus. I just wanted to experience freedom. So I took a chance. I told my mother I was going to be okay and she could go. The bus was right down the avenue. And by some miracle, it worked. I had my chance. She turned away and as the bus came to a stop, I ran around the corner.

I was free. My heart was pounding, I was carrying a book bag that probably weighed at least 20 pounds, but I was free. So I walked. My school was over four miles away and up a hill, but I walked. For that hour, I got to experience some normalcy. I was still afraid. Afraid my mother was going to find out what I had done, afraid someone would see me walking and tell my parent. But none of that mattered. I still did it. I broke the rules because I wanted to be free.

By the time I got to school, I was covered in sweat and exhausted from the trek. But I felt empowered. I had done something that in some way I knew was wrong, because I had disobeyed my mother’s rules. But it didn’t feel that wrong to me. It felt right.

I wonder if I channeled that same part that made that brief escape walking to school, when I made that permanent escape from my mother’s prison.

It’s funny, as afraid as I was (and still am, in some ways), there was always a part of me that fought through the fear and moved towards freedom. It’s that part that got me to where I am today. Where would I be now without it?

 

Bugs

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

I saw a bug today. I can’t handle bugs.

From a distance, I think they are really awesome. Closer up, they are a reminder of what I grew up in.

I know, to some degree, bugs are inescapable. It’s normal to have a few gnats, a spider, maybe even a fly or two living through your house. But that was not my experience. It wasn’t a fly or two; it was dozens of flies.

I used to close my room off hoping I could keep them out, but each time several managed to remain in my space. Large, constantly buzzing, disgusting flies. I remember sitting at my desk, with my shirt over my mouth and nose, because one had been flying so close to my face that I was afraid it was going to fly right up my nose.

I remember the flies “dancing” just feet from my bed. Were they mating? Were they fighting? I don’t know. I shouldn’t know. I shouldn’t have been close enough to know.

And I couldn’t leave. I had to stay in prison. A prison infested with flies. I couldn’t even sleep because I feared I would swallow one. Even at my cleanest, I felt dirty. Flies exist in filth. And this prison was filthy.

People rarely visited, with the exception of family on Christmas. Even then, my mother would just grab trash bags, throw all of the shit sitting around the living room in the bags, and then toss the bags in the shower hidden behind the curtain. As soon as everyone left, she’d empty the trash back out all over the house. I thought that is what everyone did. Everyone must have piles of trash and useless shit sitting around their house.

I didn’t know any better, but at the same time, I recognized the conflict. As a young child, I wondered why we had to hide everything whenever someone came over. If it’s normal, why are we hiding it? Even as a child, I saw the dissonance between my mother’s words and her actions. But I could never question it. You never question the queen.

It wasn’t just the fly infestations. It was also ants. Everywhere. Not surprising at all, considering the squalor. Old food left wherever. Garbage left out. Wet cat food left out for so long it would dry up and harden, and leave a nasty stench throughout the house. The ants would travel everywhere. Hundreds of them. I would sit for hours and just kill bug after bug. I became so good at it, I could put it as a skill on my résumé.

I would obsessively clean and protect my space as best I could. I tried to clean the kitchen when my mother wasn’t home, but there was just so much shit. Shit that my mother refused to clean. She didn’t see a problem with anything. If something was old, or broken, or useless, she insisted on keeping it. No one could throw it away.

And because she would never change her ways, the filth stayed, and the bugs kept coming.

And now, every time I see bugs, I am reminded of the squalor I lived in for so long. While I am grateful to be out and in a clean environment that I can control, those experiences will stay with me.

Seeing more

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

When you live a sheltered life for so long and then find freedom, you see the world through a different set of eyes. You have vision that most other people lack.

While everyone else around me ceases to notice their environment, I am consistently amazed by even the most menial things. Whenever I am somewhere I haven’t been before, I have the excitement level of a three year-old child. I look up and around at everything, and take it all in. It doesn’t matter if it’s a burger joint on the corner, a large patch of grass, or a famous landmark – it fascinates me still.

I see the beauty in things that others take for granted. I look up at the sky, at clouds, at the stars. I walk in the rain without an umbrella. I stop and watch the geese walk across the grass with their goslings. I watch the worms wriggle between the cracks in the sidewalk on my walk home from work. I observe the butterflies as they fly so gracefully; they are free, just like I am now free.

I see the beauty in the people around me. The mother on the bus holding her sleeping child in her arms. The man buying food for a friend who is hungry, even though he has no money for himself. The friendly neighbor talking to a hyper young child just to give his mother a short break. All of the people who aren’t afraid or ashamed to be themselves. All of the people who freely offer hugs and encouragement. I see it all.

Before, I had no opportunity to take anything in. The world was scary, because that’s what my mother told me. There was nothing amazing or beautiful to see. In my mind, home was already scary as hell. If the outside world was any worse, I did not want any part of it. I know now that is was my mother’s way of keeping me sheltered. No desire to know the outside = no risk of her losing control.

I looked down towards the ground all the time.  If you look down, nobody will see you. No one would be able to see the shame, the pain, the hurt in my eyes. I never made eye contact. I never looked around to see what existed outside of the few places we were allowed to go. I shut myself off from the world.

Now, after 30 years, I am finally experiencing the world for the first time. Yes, I may react like a child sometimes. The simplest things are so amazing to me because I never got to experience them before. It allows me to see the world in a different light, a better light.

Sometimes, I wish others could do the same.

She didn’t deserve you

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

I was feeling rather confident going into my therapy session on Monday.

After all, I made it through Mother’s Day relatively unscathed. I felt a small sense of pride in being able to handle the holiday as well as I did. Mother’s Day is one of, if not the most, difficult holiday of the year for me.

Mother’s Day is not a pleasant holiday when your mother is a narcissistic sociopath. Mother’s Day is a horrible, painful reminder when your own mother was also your abuser.

I felt like writing those cards to myself and to my egg donor that Saturday night really put me on a better path. I got out most of what I needed to say. I read the card I wrote to myself over and over, trying to absorb its truth. And I think, in some ways, I did.

I brought the cards with me to therapy on Monday, just in case there was nothing else to talk about and I needed to fill time (Who am I kidding – there is ALWAYS something to talk about and there is NEVER enough time). I mentioned them to my therapist. She asked if I would be willing to share the one I wrote to myself. I hesitated a bit, and then downplayed the whole thing as lame. After all, who writes to themselves? It’s such a weird thing.

I got over the weirdness and took my card out of my bag. I managed to read the card all the way through without getting overly emotional. I had already read it to myself so many times within the two days prior, that the words were starting to become me. I told my therapist how I spent the day, the positive steps I took, the negative ones I avoided. She was proud of me.

But even with all of the positive things I did on that day, I found myself still missing, still grieving the absence of a mother. I laid in bed that night and stared at a picture of my egg donor for a good half an hour or so. It’s the only picture I have of her. I found it on Facebook on another person’s page awhile back and saved it to my phone. I don’t know why I did it; I don’t need any pictures of that woman. But I can’t seem to find it in my heart to delete it. So I stared at it, and went through a plethora of emotions, from sadness to anger to just feeling…blank. Here was this woman who no one really knows, pretending to be normal and decent. She even cracked a quarter of a smile. It wasn’t genuine, but at a quick glance, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

After a while, I made myself put my phone down. I was not going to torture myself any longer. It wasn’t fair to me.

I told my therapist about that moment, about all of the emotions I was going through, about my lack of understanding on why I did it. I told her about the card I wrote to my egg donor. My therapist then asked if I would be willing to share it with her. Whew. I don’t know. My emotions were running pretty high when I wrote it. It actually took me awhile to write it, as I would write a paragraph and then put it aside and decompress for a bit before starting to write again.

I took a deep breath, got the card out, and showed my therapist what I had written on the front of the card. A little twisted humor, maybe, but truthful humor at that. I started to read it out loud. As I got closer to the middle of the card, talking about how I thought something was wrong with me, I felt the emotions starting to come up. As I read the words I lived in fear of my own mother, I started to cry. I remembered what it was like to live in fear. As an adult, I realize how unfair that was to my child self. No child should have to fear their own parent. But that was my normal.

Through tears, I continued to read the rest of the card. By the end, I was a bit of a controlled emotional mess. I was angry, sad, lost, and empowered all at the same time. I was able to recognize that I didn’t need my mother anymore, but that didn’t change the fact that I needed a mother before and never had one.

I wanted it to be my mother that I was reading the card to. I wanted her to hear my words, to know how she has affected me. I wanted it to be her feeling for me, and not my therapist. But that will never happen. And even if it did, it wouldn’t matter. My mother is incapable of empathy. She doesn’t think she has done anything wrong. If it’s not about her, she doesn’t care. I can’t change that.

As I wiped my tears away, my therapist said “she didn’t deserve you.”

For how much of a decent human being I am, how caring and good-hearted I am, and all of that, my mother did not deserve me as a daughter. I never thought of it that way. All of this time I had been focusing on the fact that I deserved a real mother; I never thought that my mother didn’t deserve me. But my therapist. That woman didn’t deserve me. She doesn’t now.

She will never deserve me.

Mother-Yourself Day

~ KJ ~ 8 Comments

I woke up Sunday morning to a card, a bouquet of flowers, and gifts wrapped with a bow.


They are gifts I gave to myself. They are the gifts I would have given on Mother’s Day had I had a real mother. But I never had that, so I had to improvise. In many ways, I had to be (and continue to be) my own mother. And I’m accepting that now. As much as I long for a real mother, the opportunity has passed. It’s my job now.

I went to work that morning with Courage by my side. He comes with me whenever I’m going through difficult times or doing something I’ve never done before. I didn’t know how my day would go, so I brought him just in case. He was a good coworker-for-a-day. I was able to keep myself together. I text an old friend Happy Mother’s Day without getting upset. My therapist sent me a text and it reminded me of my importance, to myself and to the world. I was okay.

After work, I changed out of my uniform, into a nice shirt, and took myself to an early dinner. It didn’t matter that I was alone. I knew I deserved something special. I knew I deserved to eat. I was going to treat myself, and I did. Surrounded by families celebrating the holiday, I sat at a table by myself, with Courage sitting in the chair next to me. I didn’t have to force myself to eat. In that moment, all of the conflict I usually experience around food was gone.

I sat and read the card I wrote to myself the night before.

K,

You are your own mother. I know it’s hard because the woman who gave birth to you did not know how to be a mother, or maybe she just didn’t want to. The reasons don’t matter. You have had to parent yourself. You protected yourself when no one else would. You are learning to take care of yourself in the ways your mother should have (but didn’t) take care you.

I know it hurts. It hurts in your heart. It hurts in your mind. It hurts in your soul. A pain you can’t explain, because your mother isn’t dead. But she might as well have been dead, because she was never really there for you, ever.No one ever taught you how to love because your mother never loved you. No one taught you how to take care of yourself because your mother didn’t any worth in you.

But here you are. Surviving. Trying to love yourself. Recognizing your worth. Seeing all of the things your mother refused to see in you. You’ve done a great job keeping yourself alive. You got out. You mustered up all of the strength and courage you could, even when no one agreed with you or understood, and you left your mother for good.

And now you need to keep mothering yourself. It’s time to take care of you. You deserve to be cared for. Whatever that woman told you was a lie. All of those times she hurt you, that had nothing to do with you. You were just a child. It’s not your fault that she could not be a mother.

Now it’s your chance to be a mother to yourself. You can do it. You deserve it.

This Mother’s Day was the first time I didn’t break down. I didn’t dread the day, because I made it about me, not the woman who gave birth to me.

Sometimes we have to break traditions. Sometimes we have to bend society’s rules a little bit. I am my own mother now. That other woman just gave birth to me.

 

An Open Letter to the Children of Toxic Mothers

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

If you are reading this right now, I want you to know some things.

Everything you are feeling is valid.

You are allowed to be angry. You are allowed to be sad. You are allowed to be frustrated, pissed off, and mad at the world. You are allowed to feel any way you want and need to feel.

You don’t have to love your mother. Despite what society tells you, some mothers aren’t all that great. Sometimes, they are downright toxic. They may have hurt you, abused you, maligned you, or made you feel worthless. These mothers don’t deserve your love and respect. They didn’t earn that yet, and they possibly never will.

You are not a bad person for not loving your mother. Sometimes, it takes as much strength not to love as it does to love.

And if you do love your mother, even after all she’s done to you, that’s okay, too.

You know why? Because everything you feel is valid. Your heart and mind know the truth; the truth that people on the outside can’t see (or choose not to see).

Never let anyone make you feel bad for how you feel.

Go ahead and let out that anger. Go ahead and cry. You are allowed to grieve the loss of the mother you should have had, the relationship you deserved.

You are not obligated to anyone but yourself. You don’t owe your mother anything, despite what she or others may tell you.

You deserved more than a toxic mother.

I know it hurts. I feel the pain every day. I feel the emptiness within my heart where my mother should be, but isn’t. It’s a pain that only those of us with toxic mothers can understand. It’s a pain that lingers and never quite goes away. A piece of you feels like it’s missing.

You can still find that missing piece. You can still find that love and care you should have gotten from your mother. Sometimes, you find it in other family. Sometimes, you find it in friends. It may already be within you. You just have to connect the pieces.

You are worth it.

Take care of yourself. Be your own mother. You deserve it.