I don't really remember my childhood. I remember bits and pieces. I remember being 11 and my mom smashing every dish in our house because she was angry at my dad. I hid in the closet and prayed that I wasn't going to die. Mostly, I remember being lonely. I remember having a rich fantasy life. I remember referring to myself in third person all the time as "She" not me. I remember the sense that I didn't really matter. I remember having to be perfect, get perfect grades and being held up as a trophy prize because I was smart. I remember my mom pushing me to do various activities, and I remember a lot of criticism. I don't remember much else.
My parents were never physically abusive. I was never molested. Most people would say I had a pretty good childhood. Most people didn't see the other things that went on in my house. My mother is a control freak, and she's not happy unless she has all the people in her life completely under her control. So, all through my childhood I was constantly denied things I wanted to try and pushed into things I didn't want to do. I desperately wanted to do gymnastics, but I was told that it was too dangerous, instead I got to take tap dance. My mother loved tap dance and had tapped when she was young. I hated it, and the only reason I went to the class was to do ballet, which I loved.
There are incidents that really stick out in my mind, because my memory is still very spotty until high school. Looking back, I realize that I didn't have much sense of self, not even in high school. I remember when I was twelve we moved about 200 miles from the town I'd grown up in. We moved onto a farm owned by my dad's boss. I had a tiny little room, but there were woods to explore and I liked living there. My mom decided to go back to work after we moved, so I was left alone and given a list of household chores to do. By the time I was 13, I was pretty much taking care of the house alone, cooking dinner a few nights a week, doing all the clean up, and I was very resentful. I kept a diary of my feelings. My mother had never talked to me about my new chores, and I didn't get a raise in allowance or anything special for doing them. I was just supposed to do the work. One night I woke up to find my bedside light on. I'd kept my diary in my night table. My mother never said she'd read what I'd written, but she didn't talk to me for weeks. I'd called her a *itch in the diary.
I always had to be perfect. I had to have perfect grades, perfect clothes, usually ones she chose for me. I remember going to a wedding for one of her friends and having to wear this sailor dress. I hated that dress, and I didn't want to wear it, but I had to because my mom told me she'd paid too much for it for me not to. She chose a lot of my clothes, and those she didn't, she complained about spending money on. The kids at school made fun of the way I dressed, and I wanted to look more like them so I'd fit in.
My mom constantly told me I was getting too fat, or that I was starting to get saddlebags, that I needed to be on a diet, and that when she was my age she only weighed a 100 pounds. I developed a borderline eating disorder. I didn't eat all day. I hoarded my lunch money and hid it. I would take a little out to buy a book or something I wanted. I dieted all the time. I watched every bite that went into my mouth. I exercised every day. I read fitness magazines. My mom had bought a stationary bike for herself, but I would come home for school and ride it for forty five minutes. I got down to where I only ate about 500 calories a day. I started losing weight, and she told me I looked good. I'd been at a NORMAL weight the whole time. At some point in high school, I stopped this behavior, but it resurfaced again in college. I stopped eating when I was depressed. I couldn't swallow my food. I started seeing the school psychologist for my depression and admitted that I was having problems eating. He threatened to put me in the hospital, and to avoid that, I tried a little harder.
In high school, my mother compared me to my best friend, who usually got better grades and everything I came easy for. I had to work for my grades. I often got bored and just wasn't as good at school in general. It didn't matter how hard I worked, it wasn't good enough. When I started looking at colleges and majors, I was very attracted to counseling fields, but my mother talked me out of that field saying I didn't want to listen to other people's problems all day. I ended up majoring in education, because I really wanted to be a writer, and my mom insisted that I have something to fall back on. Somehow I ended up being a music ed major, although I didn't really want to do that. I dropped the music major my freshman year, and the education major my sophomore year. My mother was furious and demanded to know what I was going to do. I didn't know, but I knew I didn't want that. I didn't pursue the counseling career, even though I was still interested in it.
I still had no sense of self. I felt very invisible. I felt like I didn't matter. I considered suicide for a little while, but I couldn't find the courage to cut my wrists. I wanted someone to understand, to help me, to make me feel worthwhile. Anytime I tried to talk to my parents, they didn't want to talk about me, just their work and their problems. I was their emotional dumping ground. They didn't want to listen to me.
I finally met some friends my senior of college and started having something of a social life. It was the first time I'd ever had any fun in college. I'd spent most of the time studying and working. My grades dipped, but I didn't worry too much. I got involved with a guy who didn't love me, but who made me feel special. I ended up pregnant.
I often made choices that went against my mother's wishes. I couldn't rebel against her openly, so I would do it passively. I chose to keep my son, instead of aborting or putting him up for adoption, even though my mom told me my life was over. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. I would never have forgiven myself for making a different one. She's held that choice over my head for years. I was kept a prisoner in her home through financial and emotional abuse for years. She taught me to believe I could never survive on my own. Anytime I got close to being able to escape, she would sabotage my effort. She maxxed out my credit cards and refused to take responsibility. She took out cards in my name and maxxed those out, then claimed she didn't have them. Eventually she defaulted on those cards, and I started getting letters from collection agencies. I was in massive debt, and I didn't know how to get out, so all I could do was try to repair my damaged credit so I could leave.
I tried to escape a few years ago, but I couldn't come up with enough money to move out. I was devastated. Just a short time later, my son was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, and my mother had a new thing to hold over my head. My son's disability became my mom's crutch. She worked against my efforts to teach him responsibility. She either did everything for him, or else screamed at him because he didn't do things right (her way). Screaming and criticism became a daily part of our lives. I wanted to escape so badly, and I still couldn't. I worked even harder at getting out of debt and payed off the debts my mom had incurred on my cards. I wanted to get my son out of that situation where he was getting screamed at all the time. My mom blamed his problems on school and bullies, but the truth was, she was the biggest bully of all.
I found out a few months ago that there was an entire court proceeding I knew nothing about, that my mom had impersonated me in court and forged my name to documents. I had a judgement against me for a massive amount of money on a credit card I'd never had. It was one of the ones my mom had taken out in my name. IT was the last straw. I started looking for a new place to live, a new school for my son, and prepared to start over, with nothing if I had to. I wasn't going to be a prisoner anymore.
My son and I have our own place now. I won't say we never argue, but he's not screamed at daily either. He gets to make decisions, do things normal kids get to do, and I finally can relax a little because I have a place of my own finally.
