PowderfingerSenior Contributor
This is specifically for me only to write about things that happened to me. My thread that will remain continuous.
Two hands is not eneough to count the number of people in my life that commited various forms of abuse towards me.Sadly, every single type of abuse that is on the abuse wheel as forms of abuse, I have experienced. Some were romantic partners, some were friends and some were complete strangers. Today though, I am going to talk about my mother. I was also abused by my father and my sister but I am going to try stick with her. It's hard because sometimes the memories are intertwined with my sister and mother. I no longer have any contact with any of them in any way, shape or form. I'm still working through guilt of making that decision.
My mother- so much to say about her really. For the first time in my life, I feel safe but only here to talk about her openly. I dont feel safe anywhere else yet, not even with a therapist. I had no idea my mother was abusing me till I was 40 years old. I have just recently turned 41. To hear myself say that my mothers abuse was cruel is shocking to me but it is true. It was extensively cruel. I did not know I was being abused as a child, a teenager, a young adult and then a fully grown adult. It happened and it never stopped just because I was getting older and growing up. That is fact.
I sit here today and say to myself many times over, how could I not have seen that I was being abused by mother? Why did I not see it? Why did I not recognise it as abuse? I still go to say to myself you have it all wrong and it wasn't abuse, there must be something you are missing. BUT..... slowly I know I do not have it all wrong and slowly.... very very slowly I am starting to not blame myself for her abuse towards me. Through learning about responsibility and what it actually means, I am starting to understand that I am not responsible for her choices she made to abuse me.
It still hurts so much and it has done a lot of damage to my brain. It has done a lot of damage to failed relationships, how Ihave seen myself in life as a person, what I have done to myself as a result of the abuse, the people I have chosen to be in a relationship with that were no good for me at all, the friendships I chose to have that were toxic and unhealthy, the struggles I have had to have healthy relationships because I did not know what they looked like but I wanted to try, the millions of mistakes I made because I didnt know much better as I had never been shown better, the various traumas I went through because I didn't always know how to take care of myself, and the many issues that it has left me with. The isolation I feel and go through, my mental health diagnosis that I have as a result and that I was not born with and the work I have to do on myself for life. As for the damage to my brain, well sometimes all I had to get through something was to use my brain. Pretty hard to do when someone not only is abusing you physically but is abusing you psychologically as well. To mess with the psychology of someone's brain is one of the cruelest acts of abuse I have been through. It started and it never stopped until last year when I notified her I was cutting all contact. Did I get any response, of course not.
The many memories of my mothers abuse still haunt me. I have nightmares sometimes. They particularly come up when she has been on my mind for a few days. I always and for a long time wanted to know why she did what she did to me. I wanted to try understand and work her out, so I could help her. I feel sick inside of myself that I did that. I feel sick because that is how desperate I was for my mother to love me, I feel sick because I was a person that had empathy and a big heart, and I watched my mother suffering and wanted to help her be happier and not suffer anymore, I thought that is what love is. It is only now that I am older that I realise and know that the fact that my mother would turn her love on and off with me was not because of me, I now know that it was never up to me to be responsible to fix my mothers suffering and to be responsible for making her happier in life. I feel sick because I lost so much of my life and paid huge prices for what I thought I was meant to be doing. I am still paying those prices today. I am changing though with the new things I am learning, its slow change but I am changing. I could not have changed if I had kept up contact with my mother. To go beyond all the old voices in my head and to stop having hope was very hard for me to do, but that is what I had to do in order to cut contact. My mother messed with my head and my heart for a very long time.
I cannot do long descriptions of everything my mother chose to do. There is too much and in each of them a story. I kept it to myself all my life. I do not know at all what my reasons are for saying anything about them now. Perhaps that they arent secrets that only I know anymore and I do not have my mother constantly saying to me do not talk about me. She would do that when I would get into a new relationship with someone. For some unknown reason I would be struck with fear about it. If these conversations ever came up in any relationships I would usually go quiet about it. At times I would have some partners whom I disclosed things to, but that always ended up in dire consequences for me. My partners were horrified and would have a dig at my mum. I would beg them not to say anything. Come to think of it, they should not have. They broke my confidence and trust. It would usually result in my partners being angry with me, my mother being extremely angry with me and threats to be abandoned all over again. I blamed myself. This toxic pattern followed me for amny years. The main message was I was not allowed to tell anyone about me being abused. Of course I did not know this was what was happening, it took me 40 years to see what she had been doing to me for a long time. Believe me these things are so very hard to write. Acceptance, what else can I do? I know she never will take any responsibility for the things she has done. It caused me damage. There are times when I think I would like to take her to court. I guess I want someone to know what was happening to me. For her to hear that her actions and choices to abuse her child in the way she did was heinous and unacceptable. Some sort of punishment and an acknowledgement that I was the victim of abuse and abuse that had a great cost to me. Then there is pretty much everyone that says, well you are an adult now and you need to take responsibility for your own life. You cannot blame your mother. Not helpful, slap in the face and another dismissal of me and the abuse that was inflicted upon me. I really do not feel safe talking about her and the things she did. All I have learnt is to keep myself safe from everyone. I need to have a break now, but I will continue this on at another stage.
