I have a new energy flowing through me the past few days, maybe I’m healing. Maybe I’m feeling emotions I’ve never felt. I feel liberated, I feel sad. I’m processing. Looking back so I can look forward. Letting go for good. Trying so hard to forgive myself. Forcing myself to send love. Letting go of any leftover rage I feel. Someone that hasn’t had an abusive parent can’t really fathom what this means. I simply cannot have a relationship with this person any longer. Suggesting that would be the same as suggesting that I stay in an abusive relationship because “but that’s your partner!” By the same logic that’s given for abusive parents. I think for people that have never experienced abuse on this level it is disorienting to believe. If you come from a loving home, if you have a parent that asks you how you are doing (as a child or as an adult), a parent who is interested in helping you discover who you are as a person, who doesn’t guilt trip you for taking care of yourself, I’m sure it can be hard to imagine someone that grew up with only that behavior. But I can ensure you it happens. I’m just now at 35 finally standing up to my abuser.
I stopped replying Saturday night to the messages that were coming through. I had been replying calmly, logically, but it was clear I wasn’t going to be heard. The replies I received were consistently meant to try and make me feel guilty or tear me down. I decided it was time to stop responding, and surprisingly I slept soundly that night. Yesterday, while I was at the gym, four additional messages came through. Long paragraphs telling me how I would be allowed to share my grievances with her to ensure she doesn’t feel berated. She asked that I write out a list of all the perceived wrongs she has done, I’m sure so she can argue all of them. She included how disrespectful and awful I was on mother’s day (I hung up after being screamed at) and then oddly enough, for the first time in my life, apologized for how she handled the divorce when I was 12 (with excuses of why it happened that way). I wasn’t going to respond, in fact I spent hours with the confirmation in my head that I wasn’t, but then I had another thought. Essentially I responded with the first message I sent, I don’t need validation on the things I need to heal from, I need to feel like I can safely express myself and be heard in a conversation. Really what I’m asking is for my boundaries to be acknowledged. I said that the best way to do this would be to enlist the help of a family therapist/neutral party. Her response back of course included, “I won’t do therapy.”
To me, that is that. That is a final response. This is closure. This is showing me all your cards. I don’t feel bad, I don’t feel guilty. I don’t want her in my life, I feel much healthier without her in it. I know all of this, my logical mind is on board with me. My heart is catching up. I’m finalizing my grieving process. I think that’s why I’m awake at 5am. It’s like going through a break up, but with a parent. She even told me “good luck” twice. I even sent my sister a screenshot of her final message and jokingly said, “is she breaking up with me?!” That’s how much pride my mom has.
Sometimes I wonder where I would be if I wasn’t a mom. If I couldn’t do a live action comparison of how you don’t act like this as a mother. Even with being a mother myself, it took me 15 years to truly come out of the denial I was in. Would I have made it this far without having him? Would I have gotten too deep into addiction to cope with the abuse? Would I have not been able to find my way out? Or the scariest alternative, in any parallel reality would I have turned out just like her? I’m grateful I’ll never know.
The Girl Without A Face 