Every time I try to write I end of writing a novel. So I'll do my best to keep it short.
A year ago I had a really bad falling out with my mother. The backstory is way too long. I had a very strong suspicion a family member was being abused. I called my mother to try to reason with her to do something about it, but all she did was blame the person whom I suspected was being abused. I told her that if she couldn't keep him safe, I'd have to file a report with Adult Protective Services. That's when she lost it. She told me I should butt out. I told her I couldn't do that because I didn't trust her. Screaming at me, she asked why. I told her it was the wrong time to talk about it, so she screamed. So, I told her. I told her what I thought I would never tell her. I told her she had abused me and that the whole reason I have PTSD is because of her and my father. Up to that point, it had taken three years of weekly therapy to finally be able to see that and admit that. I told her that I had no reason to trust that she would keep the person in question safe, just like she didn't keep me safe.
Since then, my mother has done everything not to take responsibility. She talks about how I turned against her in that instant. How I said hateful, cruel things to her out of spite. She said, "I don't know what your therapists have been telling you but you say the cruelest things to me." The crazy thing is I was completely calm for the whole conversation. I didn't feel vengeful, I didn't feel cruel. I felt exposed.
For a year now I've anguished over whether or not I've made the right call. I doubt myself over and over again thinking, "Did she really do the things I remember her doing? Was it really abuse? Did I just have a warped sense of reality? Am I just being dramatic?" I ask myself that all the time. But this last month, all this anger has been bubbling up inside me and I'm incensed at her.
No! I didn't make it up. Nothing I said was cruel. I didn't call her names. I didn't yell at her. I wasn't asking for anything unreasonable. My therapists haven't brainwashed me against her. They've revealed her true nature to me. I didn't ask for it. I didn't go to therapy to bitch about my mother. I started therapy because my life was falling apart. I was letting people use and abuse me left and right. I lost myself, I didn't know who I was, and I didn't think I was worth anything. I HATED myself with a deep deep passion.
Everything I've learned has been because of scars that I have. I never thought I was abused. I thought my parents, "just had a really hard time, were under a lot of pressure, and loved me very much despite the fact that I was such an incredible burden on them". "I was lucky they did anything for me," I thought. "I owe them everything," I thought. I made sacrifices for them because, "Family comes first. We are hispanics. We're supposed to stay together and work together."
I'm angry. I didn't make it up. I'm angry! IT'S NOT ABOUT HER! She makes everything about her. I'm angry that she will never understand what she did. I'm angry that she will always make me the bad guy before herself. HOW CAN I MAKE ANY OF THIS UP? How do you fake the nightmares? How do you fake the panic attacks? Why would I want to kill myself because of a fantasy? How are my fiancé, my therapist, my psychiatrist, and my best friends able to see the constant struggle I have just to get through a day if there is nothing bad going on inside?
I'M PISSED!!! I'm pissed that she is perfectly capable passing judgment when it doesn't cost her a dime. She has never spent a cent on my medical bills. She does not have to pull me fully dressed in a sweater, jeans, socks, and winter cap out of a bathtub full of scorchingly hot water. She doesn't have to hold me in the middle of the night when I wake up screaming. She doesn't have to be there when I break my things, cut all my hair off, or drive off in a car. She's not the one who looses clumps of hair everyday in the shower from being so stressed. She's not the one humiliated when a panic attack hits me in the middle of my entire class because my teacher unexpectedly decides to certify us on Child Abuse. She doesn't put the work in. She not the one who has to go to weekly therapy, monthly psychiatry visits, and med changes.
SHE ROBBED ME! SHE LIED TO ME! I'm doing everything to keep going. I'm doing everything right, but the world never stops spinning. Life doesn't stop. So, I have to use everything in me to not only push through all these scars, but I have to learn to survive in the world just like everybody else.
EVERYTHING I DO IS SO THAT I CAN LIVE...not just survive. IT HURTS. It hurts to be abandoned and misunderstood. I feel alone and angry. I'M SO ANGRY! I read so many articles and forum threads from parents who have become estranged from their grown children. These parents anguish over the desire for an explanation. They wish their children would tell them what's wrong. I DID! and I didn't do it out of spite or cruelty. I did it because I really thought she would hear me and make different decisions with the person I was worried for. BUT SHE DIDN'T! SHE BLAMED ME AND HIM!
I feel like I hate her, but I love her so much. I just want to live my life. I have a beautiful life. I wish I could push all of this under the rug and press forward. But that's the shitty part about PTSD. The flashbacks, the anger, it all boils up involuntarily when I don't want it to.
I TRIED DOING IT HER WAY! I TRIED going on as if nothing had happened. I tried pulling myself up by my bootstraps. And then my mind broke. I BROKE! BROKE! SHATTERED! FELL TO PIECES! All that stuff I try to deny and repress so that I didn't have to see you as a bad mother, so that I didn't hurt your feelings, so that I didn't earn your rage, ALL OF IT came back with a vengeance. I DON'T WANT IT! I DON'T WANT IT! I DON'T WANT IT!
But it's here. You put it here. f*ck YOU! I have to clean it up. I have to suffer. You just get to bitch, and deny, and try and put me back into the old roles.
I WON'T GO BACK! I won't be you! I'm getting stronger, and someday soon, you're going to loose all your power over me! Nothing you do will be able to rob me of my self worth. You won't be able to make me feel bad. You won't be able to tug at my heartstrings and take advantage of me. I hope you won't matter. I hope your opinion won't matter to me. Soon, you won't be able to hurt me anymore.
A year ago I had a really bad falling out with my mother. The backstory is way too long. I had a very strong suspicion a family member was being abused. I called my mother to try to reason with her to do something about it, but all she did was blame the person whom I suspected was being abused. I told her that if she couldn't keep him safe, I'd have to file a report with Adult Protective Services. That's when she lost it. She told me I should butt out. I told her I couldn't do that because I didn't trust her. Screaming at me, she asked why. I told her it was the wrong time to talk about it, so she screamed. So, I told her. I told her what I thought I would never tell her. I told her she had abused me and that the whole reason I have PTSD is because of her and my father. Up to that point, it had taken three years of weekly therapy to finally be able to see that and admit that. I told her that I had no reason to trust that she would keep the person in question safe, just like she didn't keep me safe.
Since then, my mother has done everything not to take responsibility. She talks about how I turned against her in that instant. How I said hateful, cruel things to her out of spite. She said, "I don't know what your therapists have been telling you but you say the cruelest things to me." The crazy thing is I was completely calm for the whole conversation. I didn't feel vengeful, I didn't feel cruel. I felt exposed.
For a year now I've anguished over whether or not I've made the right call. I doubt myself over and over again thinking, "Did she really do the things I remember her doing? Was it really abuse? Did I just have a warped sense of reality? Am I just being dramatic?" I ask myself that all the time. But this last month, all this anger has been bubbling up inside me and I'm incensed at her.
No! I didn't make it up. Nothing I said was cruel. I didn't call her names. I didn't yell at her. I wasn't asking for anything unreasonable. My therapists haven't brainwashed me against her. They've revealed her true nature to me. I didn't ask for it. I didn't go to therapy to bitch about my mother. I started therapy because my life was falling apart. I was letting people use and abuse me left and right. I lost myself, I didn't know who I was, and I didn't think I was worth anything. I HATED myself with a deep deep passion.
Everything I've learned has been because of scars that I have. I never thought I was abused. I thought my parents, "just had a really hard time, were under a lot of pressure, and loved me very much despite the fact that I was such an incredible burden on them". "I was lucky they did anything for me," I thought. "I owe them everything," I thought. I made sacrifices for them because, "Family comes first. We are hispanics. We're supposed to stay together and work together."
I'm angry. I didn't make it up. I'm angry! IT'S NOT ABOUT HER! She makes everything about her. I'm angry that she will never understand what she did. I'm angry that she will always make me the bad guy before herself. HOW CAN I MAKE ANY OF THIS UP? How do you fake the nightmares? How do you fake the panic attacks? Why would I want to kill myself because of a fantasy? How are my fiancé, my therapist, my psychiatrist, and my best friends able to see the constant struggle I have just to get through a day if there is nothing bad going on inside?
I'M PISSED!!! I'm pissed that she is perfectly capable passing judgment when it doesn't cost her a dime. She has never spent a cent on my medical bills. She does not have to pull me fully dressed in a sweater, jeans, socks, and winter cap out of a bathtub full of scorchingly hot water. She doesn't have to hold me in the middle of the night when I wake up screaming. She doesn't have to be there when I break my things, cut all my hair off, or drive off in a car. She's not the one who looses clumps of hair everyday in the shower from being so stressed. She's not the one humiliated when a panic attack hits me in the middle of my entire class because my teacher unexpectedly decides to certify us on Child Abuse. She doesn't put the work in. She not the one who has to go to weekly therapy, monthly psychiatry visits, and med changes.
SHE ROBBED ME! SHE LIED TO ME! I'm doing everything to keep going. I'm doing everything right, but the world never stops spinning. Life doesn't stop. So, I have to use everything in me to not only push through all these scars, but I have to learn to survive in the world just like everybody else.
EVERYTHING I DO IS SO THAT I CAN LIVE...not just survive. IT HURTS. It hurts to be abandoned and misunderstood. I feel alone and angry. I'M SO ANGRY! I read so many articles and forum threads from parents who have become estranged from their grown children. These parents anguish over the desire for an explanation. They wish their children would tell them what's wrong. I DID! and I didn't do it out of spite or cruelty. I did it because I really thought she would hear me and make different decisions with the person I was worried for. BUT SHE DIDN'T! SHE BLAMED ME AND HIM!
I feel like I hate her, but I love her so much. I just want to live my life. I have a beautiful life. I wish I could push all of this under the rug and press forward. But that's the shitty part about PTSD. The flashbacks, the anger, it all boils up involuntarily when I don't want it to.
I TRIED DOING IT HER WAY! I TRIED going on as if nothing had happened. I tried pulling myself up by my bootstraps. And then my mind broke. I BROKE! BROKE! SHATTERED! FELL TO PIECES! All that stuff I try to deny and repress so that I didn't have to see you as a bad mother, so that I didn't hurt your feelings, so that I didn't earn your rage, ALL OF IT came back with a vengeance. I DON'T WANT IT! I DON'T WANT IT! I DON'T WANT IT!
But it's here. You put it here. f*ck YOU! I have to clean it up. I have to suffer. You just get to bitch, and deny, and try and put me back into the old roles.
I WON'T GO BACK! I won't be you! I'm getting stronger, and someday soon, you're going to loose all your power over me! Nothing you do will be able to rob me of my self worth. You won't be able to make me feel bad. You won't be able to tug at my heartstrings and take advantage of me. I hope you won't matter. I hope your opinion won't matter to me. Soon, you won't be able to hurt me anymore.
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