It's like stalking but less fun and more invisible...

So.... a year ago I was planning a wedding and my escape plan from my mother. I still can't figure out which one was more stressful... Lately, she's everywhere. Not physically. I don't think she will ever be that ballsy. I dream about her. I think about her. I question my decision to stay away from her. I hate her. I love her. I whine that it's not fair that I got the shitty mom while my brothers got the nice, sweet, sacrificing mom who thought the sun shined out their collective ass.

I've had a lot of people remind me these past 10 months that this woman I've walked away from, is my mother. I've never forgotten that. I've been told I need to forgive her. I need to get over it. I need to hear her half of the story. I don't want any of that. I've spent my life hearing her half of the story - she's the victim. My father was a drunk and a pot head, my first step father was physically violent (which I have no memory of - when he left in the back of a police car, with me standing in my Garfield jammies, I thought I had done something wrong. Especially because once he got inside that car, I was alone with one of my brothers and no grown ups were there. Safe.) and the following one was "The biggest mistake of [her] life". Her parents made her become a nurse when all she wanted was to be a music teacher. Everything was done to her so that no one would see what she was doing to the small girl behind her.

I continue to tell people, "yes. she is my mother and she should have known better than to treat a small child like she wasn't worthy of being loved." No one wants to hear that. I've even flipped it and asked them, what if this weren't my mother, but an abusive spouse? Would you want me to leave? Would you want me to take my son and run and find a safe place where this person couldn't find us? How the hell is this so different?

She's everywhere right now. I think the thing that bothers me the most is wondering what my life could have been had I been encouraged and loved and nurtured and cherished in the way that my brothers were. I think I would cut that bitch if I met her. Or I would be eaten up with jealousy to the point of insanity. I hate how filled with envy I am. I hate it because I would never, could never wish my childhood upon another child. And then I realize that my reasoning is that another child might not have been strong enough to handle it.

I am strong. If there were an emotional Iron Man competition, I would beat the living hell out of almost everyone I know. I would win. Granted, I don't even feel like I'm a strong person. I deal with the aftermath and fallout of my childhood on a daily basis. My go-to response when something happens is to apologize, blame myself for it, and privately tell myself that if I weren't alive, nothing like this would have happened. My anxiety levels are off the charts to the point where even discussing going out and finding a job throws me into panic attacks and crying spells. I can't sit with my back to an open room without having to focus on my breathing. I've walked out of a coffee house because my usual seat, in the corner armchair, was occupied. If I'm so strong, why the hell am I so scared???

I hear her voice in my head at night. Never saying anything, but always implying a dare. "I dare you, Sunshine. I dare you. Do it. " I stand each day on this precipice and always look down wondering if someday, I will finally do it. Just to shut that bitch up.

Not so quick update

To explain what happened to me as a child is difficult. I have fractured memories and bottles upon bottles of anger and hurt about them. When I was really little, it was easier. I was more pliable and I could worship my mother and believed she was the greatest thing in the world. Things took a turn though. I don’t remember exactly when that was. I don’t remember if it was a single moment in time or if it was gradual. I remember her last marriage ending and feeling responsible for it and becoming more resentful of her for it, but then I remember something that happened earlier for just a second and then it fades away into the mist. Did she start disliking me because I gained weight or was it because I was on the cusp of puberty and she didn’t like it? I honestly don’t know. I used to tell people that she and I were either far too different or far too alike to get along with one another, and maybe on some level that’s true, but not true enough to excuse what she did.

The best way to explain it is in the scraps of information I have from her childhood. She told me that she was responsible for her brothers and keeping them out of trouble or she would get in deep trouble herself and she told me that things, at several points in her young life, got so bad between her mother and herself that she nearly moved in with her aunt, my grandmother’s sister. That’s all I have to go on, but it’s enough to know that I am not the first daughter in my family to have been subjected to narcissistic abuse.When I came out a girl, I didn’t stand a chance at being cared for. I was a “fix it” baby, meaning my parents conceived me to fix their marriage. Neither of them will admit it, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if they were divorced when I was barely a year old, there were major problems long before I stumbled along.

My early childhood was good. I had all the toys I wanted, within reason. I had two brothers that let me play with them, sometimes. I had a mom who would sing to me and let me sing with her. My infancy was not that good. My first memory is of shouting and crying and screaming all around me. My oldest brother hiding me behind this God awful ugly chair in the corner and kissing my forehead and then nothing. When I asked about it, I was rebuffed, repeatedly, until finally she told me that my father was beating my other brother and she was trying to stop it. Paul, the oldest, knew it was his job to make me safe and he did. When I asked why that was such a huge priority, I was told that my father had once hurled me across a room (as an infant) because I was crying. Honestly, it was a good call on her for making the decision to hide me. These memories and incidents are why I rarely drink. I will joke about it, but my father’s alcoholism is a huge deterrent in my drinking life. When they divorced, things got better. The only really bad memories I have of that brief time included my two trips to the hospital, once for hypothermia because my step father had left me in a bathtub with a window open in the middle of winter and again when nearly I nearly drowned in a hot tub. The only reason she took me the second time was because there were a lot of people there and my aunt insisted I go. When I became of school age, things started to get worse.

I haven’t ever really been all that lucky. I joked for years that the last time I’d ever won anything was in kindergarten when we played musical chairs before Christmas break, and to be fair, I killed it. Seriously. I was the bomb at musical chairs. I can’t really remember much about that period of my life. I remember the smell of the art room at school. I remember being a sort of pet to Paul’s friends. I remember Brian hating me and beating me up on a regular basis. I avoided him when I could and whenever I went crying to my mother, I was told I shouldn’t provoke him. I should just learn to walk away and be the bigger person. This wasn’t a concept I could grasp at the age of 5. I don’t think I grasped it until I was in my late teens/early twenties. That was a constant in my childhood and adolescence though. Brian hitting me, kicking me, pulling my hair, making me cry, making fun of me, calling me horrific names that no woman, much less a child, should be called. I hated him for years. HATED him. I remember being so excited when he was a senior in high school because I knew he’d be gone after the school year was done and I wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore and maybe, just maybe our relationship would improve. The funny thing about it though, is that when my mom lost her job and moved up to Michigan (leaving us behind), our relationship improved. We stopped fighting. We started getting along. We were able to cooperate and co-habitate with one another. We were friendly. Which has made me wonder what in the hell she was saying to him about me. Triangulation is an enormous feature in my relationships with my my brothers. Since I stopped talking to her in January my relationship with Paul has gotten so much better, but I will get into that in a bit.

I wasn’t denied the basic human needs for the most part. I had food, clothing, and a bed. I had toys and books. But I don’t know if I would say I had love. I had something resembling it, but the memories are so foggy and unreliable. I remember getting in major trouble for playing with my mother’s make up, but I remember her taking care of me when I had the chicken pox. I remember playing by myself a lot and always feeling like I didn’t belong. My first suicidal thought happened probably around the time I was 5, 6, or 7. I had a recurring dream about horrible goblins living under my bed that would stab you with a machete if you slept on your back. When you got up in the morning, the machete was still there and the people were wandering around just expressionless because they were dead. Weird, right? I remember most of all being jealous of her residents at the nursing home. She was so tender and sweet and loving to them. I started faking sick on a regular basis when I was in third grade. I wanted her to take the time to care for me like that. Most of the time, when I was sent home, I walked home alone and curled up on the couch feeling empty and alone. I hated everything about my life. Everything. My mother chalked it up to hormones, but I was barely 8 and I didn’t get my period for another 3 years. Hormones my ass.

I don’t remember ever being reassured about things either. I remember feeling insecure all the time and jealous of how easily things came to my brothers. I remember being fascinated by things, but never encouraged. The piano was put in Paul’s room so he could practice whenever he wanted, but it was off limits to me. I wanted to be him by this point. I wanted to be as perfect as he was. I wanted to be encouraged and reassured and nurtured like he was at every turn. I wanted all of it, but I never got it. When I was in middle school, she started a job that involved a lot of traveling. She would be gone from Monday to Friday, usually, and while Paul was in town, he was at the university, and my aunt and uncle were in town, but they weren’t particularly fond of the idea of their girls spending time with me. So instead, she hired some lady she had once worked with to check in on us once a day. Otherwise, we were on our own. For perspective’s sake, I was 13 or 14 and Brian was 16 or 17. Now I realize that she should have had CPS called on her, but no one really got into anyone else’s business. Instead, I collected mothers. Women who were strong and kind and loving, but I always was well aware that they were never mine.

Paul and I used to somewhat get along. We had a weird relationship though. As a single mother, my mom used him as a secondary authority figure – like a father figure almost. I liked him because he would call Brian off when he started to get “too rough”, and I use that term lightly. Too rough in my house meant that blood was drawn. I didn’t like him because he would never really have fun with us. Pillow forts were too childish and music was more important anyways. Granted, he is 6 years older than me. Things between he and I got bad when I got older. He tried to deter me from music, which in hindsight, I wish I had listened. He tried to keep his role as an authority figure long after it’s relevancy had waned. It never helped that my mother was always praising him and his efforts and how wonderful he was and how great it was that his friends were always over and how personable he was and etc etc etc... She never once said anything remotely close to that for me. I was supposed to be her. I was supposed to be the musician she never got to be. I was supposed to stick it to her parents (in a matter of speaking) and I was to be everything she wanted to be. She wanted to be a singer, I majored in it, but Paul was the one who became the musician she wanted to be. She sent him, multiple times, to Europe to study or compete. He became an organist, a pianist, a harpsichordist, a composer, a conductor, and a very well respected member of the musical world. I didn’t.

In my family, both in the home and extended, I was a punchline. Little Aimee who couldn’t keep her clothes on at the age of two. Little Aimee who had horrible temper tantrums and would slam doors. Little Aimee who was too loud. As I became a teenager, my sexuality became something everyone was afraid of. Not because they didn’t understand bisexuality or anything like that. Most of them didn’t know I liked girls until Sara. I was a young woman. I developed early, which for some reason was reason enough to pigeon hole me as a tramp by the time I was 15. I was poorly supervised as well, so of course, I was going to whore around. In my 15^th year, I had two boyfriends and one boy I loved desperately and tried desperately to forget. I broke up with one of them because he moved to quickly for me and I broke up with the other because I didn’t want to be someone’s property. I made decisions for myself and I was forced to grow up far too quickly. I became the head of a household when I was 15 and my mother moved to Michigan. She was home on weekends, but that didn’t change the fact that I ran the house and did everything but pay bills and grocery shop. I got my older brother up and off to school every morning. I made dinner and made sure homework was done. I did all of this and when I had the audacity to break my thumb in gym class, she threatened to move me up to Michigan with her before the school year was out. Never mind that there was only 2 weeks left to school and she’d been gone since February. My aunt and uncle that lived in town, by this point, were barely talking to us, and whenever I called to talk to my cousin (who was only a month older than me), she was never allowed to talk to me. I was dangerous and not to be associated with. When I started seriously dating people, I dreaded bringing them home to meet my family. I’ve only let them meet 2 people I’ve dated and I will never put Sara through that. I love her too much.

I don’t trust a lot of my memories though because I’ve been gaslighted. Whenever I brought up a memory that didn’t fit or had an argument with my mother, she rewrote history and presented it as fact. I wrote her a letter about a year ago, addressing the things I saw wrong in our relationship and how I wanted to fix them. I received a letter back telling me that I had stated months previously that I had admitted that all of these concerns were baseless and pointless and that if I continued to bring these things up to her, she would only speak with me about them in front of a licensed therapist. She said it because she knew I would back off and I did.

I don’t know if this explains anything, or if writing it was even necessary. I know that it’s a big part of why I can’t trust people, why I have anxiety issues, why I can’t handle harsh criticism, why I get defensive very quickly. I didn’t write this for sympathy or advice. I wrote this because it’s who I am. Not everyone gets the sweet wonderful dream come true family. Probably no one thinks they do, but there are people who do. My Sara is one of them. She came from a loving sweet family, with two parents who not only loved each other, but who adored each other and the babies they had together. I envy that childhood with my entire heart. I envy it, but I would never trade my childhood with someone else’s. I would never make someone else suffer just so that I could have it easy. I hate that I hate my mother. I hate that I love my mother. It’s unfair that any child should feel this way about their parent, but I get to stop it for my child and if others come along, them as well. Most people, understandably, get really upset when I tell them I won’t speak to my mother. They had loving mothers. Yes, they get angry at her from time to time, but they have never had to genuinely question if she loves them. I constantly asked myself “why can’t I just be good enough for her? Why can’t I just be enough for her to be proud?”. Now I’m asked when I will talk to her again. My honest answer is never. I can’t forgive her what she put me through because she chose to. I can’t forgive her because her apology will never be sincere and she will never be remorseful. I can’t forgive her for not even giving me 24 hours of happiness after my wedding before she treated me to the worst fight I’ve ever had with anyone. Instead, I'm happy. I have a wife and a son and a dog and a cat and they're all I need. She has a family that is nice and I'm trying to let them love me, but it's hard. I'm cobbling together a family from my closest friends. All of it is hard, but God help me, I'm trying. 

An interlude with death

I'm on the road today. Left this morning for Sara's mom's and now we are off to her grandma's. She's not doing well. I absolutely hate this time of year. 15 years ago, during this time of year, my grandfather was dying. I have always been an unreasonable person. Years prior to my grandfather dying I had taken time to figure out what order I was comfortable with losing my grandparents. My aforementioned grandfather was the last one on the list, so naturally, he was the first to go. I was close with him. I spent every spring break and at least a week with him and my grandmother. I lived for these weeks because at least this way, I got a minimum of 2 weeks a YEAR where I was someone's special kid. He and I used to go for little car rides around the lake and once, when I was a teenager, he took me to a mall an hour away so that I could do girl things, like go to Claire's. Between he and my grandmother I got spoiled rotten during those weeks. I'm not talking about materially spoiled. I'm talking about emotionally. I got to play epic games of skip-bo and monopoly with grandma and I got to stay up curled up next to my grandpa watching crappy CBS dramas. I waited for the water tower light to come on with my grandpa. We would have smorgasbord lunches where we cleaned out the fridge and combined foods that had no business being combined. I was given memories that have been more precious than any thing I could have been handed. The only things I ever took from their house after they were gone were one of my grandpa's handkerchieves and the pink plastic loop I gave them when I was little. Backstory: I had a horrible habit of leaving things at their house. They would tease me and say it was just my way of making sure they knew I would be back. So one time when I was four, I made them a pink necklace and gave it to them so they always knew I would be back. Funny thing is, I couldn't take it out of the house. I couldn't do it, so my mother, in one of her true mom moments, brought it back to her house and hung it from her calendar (where they had hung it in their house). I have never reconciled the reversal of my list. Doesn't by any means mean that I don't like my surviving grandmother. I adore her, but she wasn't the same for me. I hate watching Sara go through this. It stirs up a lot of feelings that I have tried to stomp down, but worse, it's knowing that once your favorite grandparent is gone, it never stops hurting. It dulls, and you get used to it, but then something happens. You get married. You have a baby. You get divorced. You struggle. Any thing really. And there you are, wishing you could see them or talk to them. Back to the bargaining stage. It's unfair.

Enough about you, let's talk about me

I learned about a new personality disorder this month. Not one that I have, but rather one that explains the whole of my existence. Ever have that one person who you constantly try to please over and over and get no where? Or if you succeed, they latch on to some other deficiency that you may or may not have? Yeah. That's what we call a narcissist. It's always about them and screw the rest of you assholes. Kind of like Julia Roberts.

I wasn't thrilled to realize that I'd been raised by one, but it was one of those moments where every thing just slipped right into place. I'm working through it, with the help of a therapist who was genuinely ecstatic when I told her I had figured it out. There's quite a large community of "survivors" out there. I don't really see myself as a survivor. I just see it as I had a kind of shitty childhood when it came to my emotional upbringing and I'm trying to figure it out. Sad thing is, I wonder if my mother had a mother just like her. It certainly would explain a lot.

I've been jumping between anger and sadness with this. I'm angry because of what happened and sad about what didn't happen. Or so it would seem thus far. Eventually, I will get through this grieving process and thankfully, one of my family members has been kind enough to let me adopt her as a kind of mom figure. I've needed it and the only problem I've had with it is worrying that I'm imposing or annoying her. But apparently, that's normal for daughters of narcissistic moms. Today, I'm neither sad nor angry. Today, I pity her. I try to make excuses for her, but it helps no one. Things were the way they were and now I have a mountain of emotions that I've supressed that desperately need to be dealt with. Today is just one day and I'm only one person. It will be okay and one day, this will be behind me. I just wonder what that will look like.