Both yesterday and already today my mom’s voice has been creeping in and out of my head. Memories of how she would react. Her disgust at my dead lawn, “You need to water that”. The mess left in the spare room, “What is all of this, it looks terrible”. Every spot, every piece of clutter. It becomes overwhelming to keep up with. I also think back to when I was a kid, how I taught myself how to do laundry at 7. How sometimes, for the most inconspicuous crimes, I’d have to clean the bathroom for hours. Honestly, I still have an aversion to it.
And I’ve already gone through all the things that were done to me as a teenager. The neglect, emotional abandonment. Things that are too difficult to speak of yet. But one thing that came up this morning was her conspiracy theories, and the impact they made on my life as an adult. Now I’m not big into politics, and I’m especially not big into the fact that it’s slowly turned into a war between one side or another. I have my own beliefs and I think it needs to be rebuilt, there are a lot of things wrong with the way things have been running if you ask me. But that’s just my opinion, I have an opinion on religion too. I don’t hate the next person if they think differently than me, I was taught by my grandma as a little girl to keep those specific things to myself.
So my mom has lived in a different state from me since 2008, but around 2014 things really started to change. She started saying crazy things, forced me to get passports for me and my son. By forced I mean relentlessly asked every single day if I got it done for months, finally sent checks to pay for them, the whole nine. I finally did it just to appease her, fit it in to my incredibly busy day as a single mother. Even though I wasn’t planning on an international trip, this was what I had to do in order to have any relationship with my mother.
Obviously in 2015, things started to heat up everywhere, but especially internally in my family. My mom would get in screaming matches with anyone who didn’t agree with her, storm away, not maintain the same relationship with them. I observed this behavior, and it made me so incredibly anxious inside. I knew if I formed an opinion different than hers she would no longer be in my life. Every day I would call her on my drive home from work, this was an expectation that was set up to maintain the relationship, sounds unhealthy doesn’t it? And I would go on about my day, force her to listen, but as soon as she could transition the conversation she would take the chance. My blood pressure would rise every time. I would roll my eyes. Try not to listen, try to distract myself. Since I was in traffic if something were to happen that would irritate me I’d go off, and she would hear that. And then every chance she would get (even in the last conversation we had although I hadn’t drove to work in two years at that point) she would tell me how awful I was for losing it. How terrible my road rage was.
So this went on. And on. And on. For years like this. I learned to get accustomed to it. I wanted a loving, healthy relationship with my mom so much I didn’t realize I was getting the opposite. I didnt realize how destructive it was. That even though I was only half listening it was still slowly chipping away at my sanity. For years. Like a form of torture, I guess. And then when the lockdowns happened she was so happy. “This is what I’ve been telling you about, finally it’s happening”. And I was so confused. Because it was the opposite of everyone else, yet at the time she was my only family support system. At the end of 2018, I stopped speaking with my dad and sister also. So I listened to her for the first time in 6 years. I said, “What now”? As if nothing ever sank in. To my surprise it did. It was almost like a recap, except the only difference was that I now leaned in.
So I guess I’m ready to admit that for two weeks in the summer of 2020 I dove in. I went there, after 6 years of drilling it into my head. I learned everything that my mom had been talking about for years. At one point I felt like I was having an existential crisis. She was excited. I think to finally have someone on her side. She didn’t care how it was effecting me in my day to day life.
Through my healing process I’ve had to forgive myself for leaning in, for listening. Because I know now that this greatly contributed to my mental breakdown. And how could you possibly tell a doctor that? You can’t. So I had to also forgive my mom, which is still a process. Because it was more important for her to be right than to protect her child. And now I have to live with the negative points on my life record, the one that shows that I lost my mind back in December 2020. And the worst part is she knew it was a possibility, she said months later that many people lose their minds when they are researching. For some reason that angered me even more.
I guess in the end I’m more angry at myself. For allowing this behavior for so many years. For craving someone’s love so terribly that I was willing to put up with anything no matter what. For looking up to her. For thinking because she was my mother she was someone I could trust. For assuming that at the end of the day she wasn’t so selfish. It turns out she was.
The Girl Without A Face 