Closure? Maybe? Meh.

Therapy is a trip. I mean it's seriously a wild ride. I started out this round thinking I was going to be talking about my ex beating the shit out of me or step daddy diddling me & passing me around. I thought those were the main issues in my life that needed to be dealt with. While those are important, and while I am very aware of how they have and will affect me, probably for the rest of my life, they definitely haven't ended up the main topic of conversation.

My mother has. I've realized that pretty much everything wrong with me stems from things she did (or in her case a good portion of the time, didn't do). My mother didn't protect me. Not only that, she knowingly and willingly put me in harm's way. She threw me to the wolves for her own selfish needs. And she used me as a pawn. As I look back on my life, I realize that I was nothing more than something to brag about. She got attention because she had me. In reality though, I was a nuisance, and she made that very clear.

I really started thinking back on my life, and asking questions of family members to see if my memory served me right or if I was forgetting something. My long term memory has always been abnormally vivid. Like I can remember the house we lived in on Herald St. in Bay City, MI when I was a baby. I'm not sure when we moved out, but I know it was where we lived when I was born, and when I had my trachaeostomy at 14 months old. I can picture the front porch, and walking in to the living room. To the right was my bedroom, and I believe another bedroom and bathroom. Straight ahead was a swinging door that led into the kitchen. To the left was a counter and to the right were stairs. Under the stairs was where we kept the dog and cat food bowls. Straight back was the back door. My Uncle Joe lived upstairs with his Samoyed named Tosh. One night when my Aunt Chris was babysitting, I woke up crying from what everyone thought was a nightmare because I said I saw "people in the indoos," which meant people in the windows. It wasn't a nightmare. I was awake. I don't know what I saw, but I can assure you it wasn't human and it was looking right at me from outside my window. I'll never forget it. My aunt gave me a hug, a Dorito, and a sip of her Pepsi, and put me back to sleep. I'll never forget that house or that night.

My point is that I have very vivid memories of my past. The thing is, my mom isn't in a lot of them. Before she split up with my dad, my memories are of him, my grandparents, aunts, & uncles. I literally have ZERO memory of her up until I was about four and it was only the two of us. But it's funny because aside from things she's told me, the only memories I have are kind of negative. Like I remember when we lived in Bend, OR after Mount Saint Helens blew and the ash made its way south. I woke up one morning to see everything covered in it, and in my young mind, the world had turned black and white. I was petrified. I remember running into her room crying, trying to wake her up, but she just ignored me and told me to make a bowl of cereal and watch cartoons. I remember getting one of my vaccinations and waking up the next day with my leg stiff and sore, trying to wake her up to ask her to make me a bowl of cereal and she told me I could do it myself. So I grabbed a chair, dragged it to the counter, and did it, but I got in trouble when she woke up because I had poured the entire box of cereal out to get to the toy that was at the bottom of it. On both of those instances, I was four. But if you hear her version of the story, we had a great life. We watched TV together (her shows, nothing I wanted). We would sit in the living room and sing together (her music, nothing I chose). If you hear her tell it, we were super close. Except I didn't tell her shit because I learned from a young age not to trust her. She couldn't (and still can't) keep anything to herself. She loves gossip. She loves drama. If it isn't there, she'll create it. And it's taken me years to realize the full extent of it.

But let's get back to her not being there. When my step dad started molesting me, I had a diary. I wrote about it. I didn't tell her because he came to me crying and apologized. They separated shortly after that, completely unrelated. Not too long after they separated, he came to visit us and they were talking about reconciling. I had a bigger bed than her so they slept in my room while he was there. They found my diary and for some reason thought it was ok to read it. They read what I wrote about what he had been doing to me. The next day, right before he left, they confronted me together. They asked me if I had skeletons in my closet. Excuse me?! Do I have skeletons in my closet???? I said no. An abused child doesn't admit to shit in front of their abuser. Especially when said abuser also beats the shit out of them with belts, their fists, and other random objects. I played dumb. They kept pressuring me. It was the most awkward conversation. He finally left and she told me they read my diary. I was fucking shocked. Seriously dumbfounded. She told me he cried and promised it would never happen again, blah blah fucking blah. Yeah, I'd heard that line of bullshit before. She told me she wanted to move back there and work things out with him and had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to. I WAS 11 YEARS OLD!!!! Yes, you read that right. My mother had the fucking nerve to ask her 11 year old daughter if she wanted to go back to the man who was beating and molesting her. But what do kids do? They want to please their parents. And I missed my friends. So I said yes. And I can't begin to tell you the amount of times I've heard her justify it getting worse by saying things like, "well you said you wanted to go back." Fuck you, bitch. Fuck you. I was a child. It was your job to protect me. Period. End of story. If you tried and failed, fine. You didn't even try. Fuck you.

Things got worse. So much worse. For years. She'll tell you she was in an abusive relationship. Not from my angle. I was. She looked the other way. If he beat me, she'd leave the room. She didn't know about all the times he came into my room at night. She didn't know about all the things he did to me, or how he shared me. Or maybe she did. It wouldn't surprise me at this point. I watched her turn a blind eye to so many things, I wouldn't be surprised if she knew about it all. Finally she left. I was a sophomore in high school. I thought things would get better for me. What a fucking joke. I didn't have a mother. She resented me. She resented my little brother. She'll spin a different tale. Hell, she might even believe it. But actions speak louder than words. Let me tell you a little story...

My junior and senior year in high school, I was in Business Professionals of America. We had competition that took us from the local level to regional, state, then national. Junior year I went to state competition, but didn't qualify for nationals. Senior year I was determined to make nationals my bitch, and so I did. State was in Detroit, at the Renaissance Center. We stayed at the Westin Hotel overlooking the Detroit River with Ontario less than a mile in the distance. It was great. Especially senior year when I got to room with my best friend. I competed in three events: Prepared Verbal, Extemporaneous Verbal, and some other event where I took a written test. I qualified in all three events. The night I was preparing my posterboard and my speech for Prepared Verbal, I had stayed up all night, and was actually awake to see my neighbor's house across the street catch fire. I yelled for my mom to call 911 while I ran over and helped them get the baby out of her room. Anyways, I didn't expect to place that high in all three. Maybe in Prepared Verbal, but I did Extemporaneous just for the heck of it. I was given a topic, then I had something like seven minutes to prepare a three minute speech. I placed first in that event and in the unnamed one, and second in Prepared Verbal. That pissed me off with all the work I put in. But regardless, I was proud. We had an awards banquet that night, and a formal dance to follow. My best friend and I had a blast and I was so proud of myself. So was my advisor, Mr. McDaid, who was by far one of the best teachers I've ever had. He passed away a few years ago from ALS. It broke my heart to hear that. My mother however, couldn't have cared less.

After the bus ride back to the school, my best friend and I waited and waited for my mother to get there to pick me up. I called multiple times and she didn't answer. She never showed up, so my friend took me home. I didn't really mind at that point. I was still on the high of the win. I was going to nationals! In just a few months I was going to San Francisco! I figured she got called into work or something. Nothing could have prepared me for what I walked in to when I got home. When I opened the door, the house was empty. I don't mean nobody was home. I mean the house was empty. As in no furniture and no food empty. My friend and I stood there, jaws on the floor. I mean what do you say to that? Then, for lack of anything better to do (and because we were teenagers), we bursted out laughing. Like full on belly laughs. She said something about smacking that laugh off my face, which was an inside joke because of something my mother said once...and then we stopped. I didn't know what to do. I walked into my room, which looked completely normal. Nothing was touched. I was baffled. We lived next door to my grandparents so I went to ask them what was going on. They told me she had moved in with her fiance. They thought I knew. Again, I didn't know what to do except laugh. Inside, I was devastated, but what else was I supposed to do? I didn't know how to show it. I was conditioned not to. I knew she wouldn't care. I knew nobody would. My friend asked if I needed her to stay. I told her no. I just sat on the floor in the middle of the living room looking around, wondering what kind of mother just abandons her child like that. Oh wait, I know...the kind who throws her child to the wolves. The kind who places her oh-so-carefully on a silver platter and serves her like a Thanksgiving turkey to the man who she knew had already beaten and molested her. Yeah, that's the one.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to call her fiance's house. He was a nice guy, but I really didn't know him all that well. Eventually I grew to love him very much, but at this point in my life, I didn't know him from Adam. She told me I had 24 hours to pack my room up and they'd be there to help load it up so I could move in there with him. I said fuck that. I absolutely refused. First of all, there was the obvious. She didn't talk to me about it. She said she didn't have to because she was the parent and I was the child so I had to do what she said. Bitch. Then there was the fact that I hardly fucking knew him. And after everything else I'd already been through? Did she really think I was going to trust her taste in men? Fuck that shit. He also lived in a different school district. I was a senior. There was no way in hell I was going to switch schools my senior year. I told her I was staying and she could kiss my ass. And so I did. For a few weeks, I lived alone. I went to school. I ate meals at my grandparents or with friends. I did my thing. But it got lonely so I caved. Thankfully, this guy ended up being absolutely amazing and later when she divorced him (hubby #3), I was pissed at her for hurting him. He took me to school every day so I didn't have to switch midway through my senior year. He was there when my kids were born, and cried his eyes out when my 2nd one was born on his birthday. He was my daddy, the only real man who ever fully stepped up in my life, and for that, I'm thankful. But fuck my mom for just up and leaving me to move in with him. And fuck her for leaving and devastating him later. Can you tell I'm a little salty?

I could tell story after story about times she literally walked away or didn't care. But the sad part is, she did the exact same things with my brother. I mean verbatim. She left to move in with a man when he was in high school, leaving him to fend for himself. At least she told him she was leaving though. But when things didn't work out, after my brother had made a life for himself and had roommates and was living as a grown ass adult at 19 years old, she decided to move back in, saying, "well it's my house." He killed himself not too long after. I'm not saying it's because she moved back in. But I do blame her. Because she did to him what she did to me. He always asked me why she treated him that way. What was I supposed to say? She didn't love us? I had no idea why she was that way. All I knew was that our needs never mattered as much as hers. And that's why he's dead. Period. She knows I blame her. But she does not want to hear what I have to say. Then again, I don't think it'll even phase her. It'll just give her a reason to go cry to someone else about how I treated her so she can get sympathy. She's always the victim. Always. What a fucking joke.

The thing is, I'm strong. She's the weak one. I might sound pissed, but I'm really not. I really don't feel much of anything for her anymore. Literally nothing. No anger. No sadness. Just...nothing. And that feels good. It's a little closure I guess. It's been a long time coming.

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Lynae

Writer • Healing Advocate

Rewriting the stories I once survived