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 15th 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.
