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I'm trying to move forward as an adult struggling with my past. I have been detached from majority of my family for several years now and I have just recently decided to try and deal with one person at a time. I blame my mom for not removing us I grew up with an alcoholic dad who abused all of us. He was physically and verbally abusive my entire life, and I've been working on myself since I moved out and finally set myself free in my mid-late teens. Every year I'm away I remember more and every year I'm away I'm ready for the next step. I have some old anger that has returned, or maybe it never left, but I was trying to be proactive by seeing a counsellor before things got bad for me. I wanted to see if I could get back in contact with my mom and move forward with one relationship that I am ready for. Not certain if I am ready to be close or have any kind of relationship with her yet I just know that I am feeling like the clock is suddenly ticking and I don't want to regret my choice to push everyone away forever.
My mom has always mattered most to me in life. I have been trying to save her from my father for most of my life. I realized 3 years ago that I needed to let that go, I took some steps to make sure I was going in that direction too. I'm not over it yet and I think it is what kills me the most. I can't have a relationship with my mom who is staying with a man thats killing her. She isn't the mom she was when I was a kid, and even then she wasn't her full potential. Now she's worse... she's unhappy and she is going to die that way. I am having a very hard time accepting that she is mentally ill. I'm having a hard time accepting that she will never leave my dad and that there isn't anything I can do about it. I keep catching myself wondering if there is something else I can or could have done to get her away from him and I am trying to stop that thought with the fact that it's not my responsibility. It never was and I took on way too much as a kid, I should not have been so involved in their adult bs. I wish I left sooner to escape the amount of damage my childhood caused, but I am happy today that it has made me the caring, loving person that I am. I know I will be a good mother one day because of it.
I'm not sure how to find the space in my mind that accepts these things. I'm not sure how to talk to her and hear her stories about her day and her life and not think about how he treats her. I don't want a relationship with my father, I never really have. I understand his life circumstances that made him who he us but I am not willing to accept that he never took responsbility for his own behaviour to create a better life for himself. I no longer have the capacity to be around a man who beats me down every time I am around. I no longer have the capacity to be around a father who detroys my mother every single day. This family is broken and it all is due to him.
I have walked around angry for most of my life. Fist clenched, teeth grinding, irritated at everything, quick to react, and miserable. I don't like being her on my worst days. I consider that girl the teenager in me, the child that I hate. I don't want to feel like her ever again, but every once in a while she returns. She is familiar. She is easy. I know I'm not actually her anymore, but I hate that she is quick to return. The hopeless teenager with no self-esteem and pure hatred for most things, even if they bring me joy. Always smiling, thats the best part... so no one ever knew what was happening or how to help, except a few that didn't know how anyway. Hiding myself from the world and everything that could possibly save me. Anxiety ridden and depressed all of the time. Afraid to be loved because love always hurts. No one is safe and no one to trust. Most of these things I've conquered as an adult, but they come through in subtle ways. Ways that I wish I knew how to completely eliminate as I'm aware it's still holding me back in life. I could be happier, less stressed out and with more opportunties and companionship.
My dad always called me ugly, told me I was fat (I wasn't), reminded me that I was a loser constantly and going no where in life. He would ground me for weeks or months. I was controlled. Curfews and made to go to bed even if I just got home from work as I was getting older. Yelled at for most things, even if minor and didn't even make any sense. I woke up to fighting, I went to bed to fighting, I came home to fighting, I had nightmares about fighting; I was terrified of my own father. I would wake up to the house destroyed, go to bed to the house destroyed, come home to the house destroyed; watch the house get destroyed. I would see my mom get hit, I was see my brother get hit, I would see my sister get hit; I would get hit. Everything had been broken and replaced at least once if not 100 times in our house. The neighbours heard the screaming, he didn't care when he was raging or drunk or both. He didn't care because he wasn't even human in those moments. I had no privacy, so I tried to hide in my room most of the time. I wasn't allowed to be myself. I wasn't good at anything, they didn't even support me in the things I was good at. Mom was too messed up because of dad to really be there for me. She couldn't even be there for herself. She could never clear her head. The only time I saw my mom truly be herself is when he was away for work or vacation with friends for weeks at a time. She only really smiled then. He punched my sister, he punched my brother, he punched my mother; he punched me. No one really knew and even if they saw a little, I guess they never saw enough. I should never have been there, I should have been taken away, this house I lived in was jail for me.
I realize that when I am ready to begin dealing with my past that I begin to relive the imagery of it all. I am not exactly comfortable with it all but I feel the need to let it out every so often to realize that it was real. To confirm that I am not crazy, to confirm that it was bad enough to make me the adult I am today. I have to relive it sometimes so I can remember that it was that bad, that it wasn't just discipline and that I'm allowed to forgive myself for my struggles today. I have done a lot of work on myself to become the woman I am now and the woman that I actually am proud of. I still have a lot of work but I know I'm not a loser and I know I am smart and I know I am beautiful and even on my worst days when all of those old things he used to scream at me come into my head I can remind myself of what I am writing. I know I am not what he convinced me I was, I am worthy. I am capable of living a life without fear and I am capable of believing in myself and I am capable of any change in this world. I do not need to be broken forever, I think I am going to carry this story with me for the rest of my life but I do not want it to be me for the rest of my life. I can't let the story become me anymore.
I am terrified because I don't know how to be around my mother without reliving this story over and over again. I am afraid because she is still living it with him. I am afraid to watch my mother decay for the next 20-40 years of her life. I am afraid that my mother at 60 terrifies me and that my mother at 80 will hurt even more. I know deep down that woman is good and pure and he turned her into something she never deserved. I am terrified because I always imagiined a better life for her and for us, but she didn't take those opportunities to leave. All of the scenarios we used to talk about, and the ones which I imagined would finally be the last straw, have happened and you still stayed with him. He threw you down the stairs when you were pregnant with me and you spent 9 months with me and a broken leg. He left a foot print on your ass when I was 9 years old because he kicked you with a steel toe shoe. He pulled a knife out and held it to your head when I was 12. He tried to convince you to kill yourself when I was 14. He made you sleep in the freezing cold for over a month. He cheated on you when I was 15. He cheated on you when I was 17. He cheated on you when I was 26 and you finally knew it was true and you still stayed. He beat up your son, he beat up your daughters and he beat up you. He beat me in the snow when I was dying from pneumonia and kicked me out of the house. We lived in fear, we walked on eggshells (your words) and none of us were able to be children because you didn't have the courage to save yourself let alone your children. Now we are all adults solving childhood problems, now most of your kids are stuck in the past. Now most of your kids aren't around. I'm confused that you are now in an empty nest and you still choose him. You lost your kids and you still choose him. You lost your mind, mom... and you still choose him. I'm disappointed because you know I was going to help you leave, and I still would, but you won't. You'll never leave. It'll never change. And your kids don't know how to deal with being around it anymore.
I lost my mom to my father. I lost my mom to a man who only cares about himself. I lost my mom because she is more afraid to lose him than me. I lost my mom because she is mentally unwell. I love my mom but this realization is too much for her daughter. I can't think about it, I can't witness it, and I can't accept it. I don't know how. I don't know how to love my mom and have her in my life while she is still with him. I want to forgive her for the things I missed from my mother growing up because she was too consumed by a violent and unhealthy relationship with my father. I'm afraid that right now I can't because she is still living it and I no longer want to live it myself. I hope that therapy brings me peace. I'm at my next step in recovery but I'm afraid to take it. I'm afraid to let go of the responsibility to save her. I'm terrified to accept the fact that I never will be able to save her from him until he dies. I'm afraid to give up on the idea that it is up to me, the youngest kid, to save her from my abusive sociopath father. The child in me can't let it go yet. My life's responsbility was this, my childhood was this, I lived and breathed this. I was never really a child.
I could never do this to my own children :( I can only be thankful that I have learned something that someday will make me the greatest mother I think I can be. I can only be thankful that this has made me a compassionate and empathetic human. I can only be happy that I have grown and continue to grow from the child and teenager I once was and once hated. I know there is hope and although this is not my best day, I try to write with positivity. I try to remember that life is a lesson and it taught me to be kind. I'm just trying to make sure that I am kind to myself in the process. Time to take care of myself first.