#abusive mother

You know my mom so well.

afro-merican:

I’ve been stuck in an abusive household for my whole life. I’ve been wanting to leave this hellish household since the age of nine, and I’ve fantasized about (and attempted) running away more than once throughout high school. When it came time for college, my mother forbade me from going to college out of state, saying she was “afraid I’d get a girlfriend”. I’ve tried to find work but every place that I applied to rejected me, and when I asked my mother to help me, she refused. I found a few odd jobs but nothing that ever paid me enough to support myself. I’m 25 now and I’m determined that this year is the year that I finally get a good, permanent job and move out.

I recently came across this post on reddit that showed how to successfully beat the applicant tracking software that employers use. To sum it up, you should have a resume tailored to each type of job you’re applying to, and you should send in a cover letter with each job application you fill out. I’m not gonna lie, I was extremely anxious to start writing cover letters, but I found an extremely helpful video which showed me how to write a winning cover letter that employers love. I followed the instructions and I already have two interviews scheduled for this coming week!

In addition to this, I have created a little cheat sheet which goes over different questions the interviewers may ask, my strengths and weaknesses, and my skills. My strategy is to study study STUDY this cheat sheet so that I am prepared for this interview.

This is the year I am getting out of here. I know it. And I’ll have earned this job, because no one else will teach me how to do this for myself. That’s something I can be proud of.

It just pisses me off that my parents purposely screwed me over, never teaching me any valuable life skills & abusing & neglecting me until I was scared of everything, all because they wanted a perfectly obedient live-in servant. And when I finally started to advocate for myself, they realized they’d failed and tried to kill me.

Things have been ok for the last few months in respect to mental health. My mother had been on pretty good behavior, at least for her anyway. 

Though around the holidays she had a meltdown while driving and purposely tried to crash the car b/c we’d disagreed on something. Clearly that was terrifying but it’s not like it was the 1st time she’d done that. And thankfully she did not succeed.

 It scares me that I can write that out with a straight face. 

The last week she’s been acting like a complete gremlin. I know it’s because my birthday is coming up b/c she does this every year. She’s wicked for weeks and then enters all-out torture mode on my bday.

But I won’t give her the satisfaction. I have simply elected to no longer have a birthday. Or–at least not one I will tell anyone about.  

And i don’t mean a party. I mean the actual date. It’s become a trigger for me. I have so many trauma anniversaries on or around it, that the whole month of February is something of a psychological mine field. 

 I get stressed out by seeing the days count down on the calendar. So I have decided that it’s just any other day and I will move my birthday, a day for celebrating being alive, elsewhere.  

Just a reminder, you are NOT required to accept gifts and cards from people you’ve gone no-contact with, even if it’s your parents.

I just slapped ‘return to sender’ on a Christmas card from an abuser. 

I’m not gonna let it ruin my day.

Since the holidays are upon us, just remember to take care of yourself.

I know the holidays are hard. I know some families act worse than monsters. 

I know a lot of people don’t have anyone to rely on. 

But if you can’t do anything else, please be kind to yourself.

They treat you inhumanely and convince you everyone else has worse intentions.

Theyare the devil you know.

Once you’re finally able to go out into the world, you’ve been trained to see everything & everyone as a potential danger. You know nothing else.

& When you’re always silent & shaking like a leaf people are less likely to want to be your friend.

Because your fear is visible, you look scary to everyone else. 

So you continue to be alone.

Reminder not to be lulled into a false sense of security by your abusers.

So much of being an abused kid is growing up to redefine your childhood.

And I’m not only talking about finally seeing your situation for what it was. I’m talking about reclaiming parts of your identity too.

So many of us had our ‘favorite things’ robbed from us. SO many of us were assigned a favorite color, favorite animal, favorite toy…We didn’t get to make that choice for ourselves. Our abusers tried to construct us into who they wanted us to be. It’s time to take back being you.

I know it was a bit ago, BUT a little update on how mother’s day went this year:

My sibling and I, for the past few years, gave our abusive mother appeasement gifts. Mostly because I’d likely get physically & verbally attacked if we didn’t. 

This year was different. We didn’t do a single thing for her. Both of us are just completely fed up with her.

Thankfully it was a cold & rainy day, so she slept most of it. Only exploding at me once about something ‘unrelated’ (yeah sure). But she got nothing because she deserved nothing. 

If you’re living in an abusive home & aren’t able to leave or aren’t ready yet, it’s perfectly okay & there is nothing wrong with you for staying put & waiting it out.

It is often safer to stay put, gather your resources & keep a roof over your head until you are ready to go.

It does NOT make you ‘weak’ or 'lazy’ or 'not trying hard enough.’

It’s okay to process your situation at your own pace.

It’s completely bizarre how quickly my mother cries at minor inconveniences. But yet, she went through years of physically & psychologically torturing me & I was expected the keep a straight face the whole time. It wasn’t “supposed” to effect me.

One awful thing about being raised by abusive parents is that they don’t teach you basic social etiquette & they isolate you so you can’t learn.

 For years, maybe even decades you might do things that are rude, mean, or have bad connotations & you have NO clue because no one corrects you. 

Everyone raised in a good home assumes it’s your nature to be weird & rude so no one says anything out of fear of confrontation. And when someone DOES say something, it’s almost never somebody who corrects you gently. It’s almost always someone who explodes at you. 

Then you get confused as to whether you’re actually wrong or that person was just a jerk who likes to yell at people.

My town is on lockdown & I’ve been stuck inside with my mother for 3 days…

it’s going…..it sure is.  

After the first morning of her being home she was already acting like a troll ready to club someone over the head. I was just sitting there quietly trying not to lose it. Oh and my headphones died the first day so I have to listen to her screech at the tv 24/7. 

Hopefully the closures only last for the minimum of 2 weeks time & not the max. time of over a month. 

I’m getting really frustrated because my health issues keep relapsing. I’ve been in physical therapy for over 6 months now & every time I almost recover, it’s like my body hits the reset button and I have to start over.

I was doing really great the last few weeks and then all of a sudden I’m getting dizzy again & can’t do almost anything besides lay in bed all day. I’ve accidentally broken a bunch of things because I’m pushing myself too hard & end up knocking things over. 

This is the 2nd relapse I’ve had & it’s starting to sink in that I might never get better. I might be like this for the rest of my life . Stuck living w/ my abusive mother, unable to do basic things. Unable to do what I love.

I don’t want to get too deep into it but I’m even more pissed b/c we finally found the cause of my issues & it’s likely a result of something my mother caused. Now I’m basically getting flashbacks to being a teen b/c she used to tell me, “I’ll keep you here forever & never let you leave,” ….& that’s exactly what’s happening. It’s my worst fear. 

February-April are bad mental health months for me as it is & her behavior has been bad recently. Once she kept screaming at me to come downstairs, knowing how dizzy I was. She announced excitedly she’d bought my favorite food for dinner, only to say I couldn’t have any & mock me when I got upset. 

She sits downstairs & treats any sound I make like a source of entertainment. I sneeze, drop something? She lets out an incredibly fake, boisterous laugh & mocks me for making noise. It’s such bizarre behavior & she. doesn’t. stop. I can’t do anything without her commentary. When asked to stop she goes feral.

My life has been one trauma after another & every time I try to improve it something worse happens. Now I have to watch as people who tortured me my whole life travel, get married, & live it up. As I can only stay in bed as my body continues to get weaker. It’s just not fair. It feels like I’m being punished for being born. I just want a normal life. A quiet one where my body works right & I don’t get abused. I’m starting to think I’ll never get that.

Anyway I’m not in a good place right now & just needed to vent it out. I’ll be ok but I’m just really frustrated.

Only after I realized how seriously abusive my family was, did I understand that others thanking their own families for “love & support,” wasn’t just some cheesy gesture. 

It never dawned on me that other parents are a very real safety net for their kids & not demons behind closed doors.

Today I had a flashback because one of my friends broke her arm. I stood there crying because I remembered how I broke my arm. How I was in pain for 5 days, how I couldn’t sleep because I was in so much pain, because my mom wouldn’t believe me that I broke my arm. She said that I just made it all up. I had to beg her that she would take me to the doctor. When she finally said yes and she realized I really broke my arm she just said I should stop being a baby.

My mom used to send me to bed without dinner.

I remember crying in bed, because I was so hungry.

I couldn’t even fall asleep, because the hunger made it impossible.

When my mom was finally sleeping, I went to the kitchen to look for food.

I only found cheese rind on the table.

I was too scared to open the fridge, because I didn’t want to wake her up.

So I just ate the cheese rind.

I, a 8 year old child, had to eat fucking cheese rind…

People think I’m weird, because I’m always quiet and do “weird” stuff they don’t understand.

But if they only knew. If they only knew what’s going on in my life, they would understand.

They would understand why I’m always quiet. They would understand, because my mom always told me to shut the fuck up and that everyone hates me anyways.

They would understand why I do “weird” stuff. They would understand, because i need to do some stuff to cope with my mental illness, to get through the day.

My mom always says that I’m crazy and that there’s something seriously wrong with me. And that she hates the way I am and wishes she had a different, better daughter.

Well, jokes on you mom. You made me that way.

I’m standing in front of a mirror and look at myself.

I try so hard to find just one tiny thing I love about me. But I just can’t. All I can think of is ‘ugly’, 'fat’, 'unlovable’ and 'disgusting’.

And it’s so hard for me to live like that. I feel ashamed when people look at me because I just feel so ugly.

I have to thank my mother for that. Because I grew up with her saying that I’m 'ugly’, 'unlovable’, 'fat’, 'disgusting’, 'a shame to her’ etc.

For real, please never ever think that emotional abuse isn’t real abuse. It is. It’s so fucking real.

It causes so much damage.

It feels weird to know that there are people who aren’t abused by their parents.

My mom gets angry over nothing and you can grow up without getting slapped or being called names.

It’s just so surreal for me.

Me:

I‘m feeling confident today.

Me literally 1 minute later:

don’t open your fucking mouth, they will hate everything you say, they hate you already!

This may sound weird, but am I the only one who, sometimes, doesn’t want to get better?

Sometimes i think my mental illness makes me the way I am, almost like an personality of me and if I’m getting better, I feel like losing a part of me.

I don’t know, I can’t really describe it.

I just read that people who were abused, apologize a lot.

And I do that all the time.

I bumped into someone at work and it wasn’t a big deal, but I couldn’t stop apologizing.

I am just so afraid that they’ll get mad at me or that they’ll leave me, so I keep apologizing over and over again.

I do this every single time and now I know why.

It’s funny how some people think that fathers are the ones who are always abusive. They tell me that a mother can’t be a abusive.

They’re wrong.

My mom is abusive and let me tell you, how many times I was afraid to come home from school, because I knew, as soon as I came through the door, she would beat the shit out of me.

Or the times she called me names, spit on me and said I’m worthless.

So, yes. Mothers can be abusive.

I hate that a lot of people say verbal abuse isn’t abuse.

They just say „oh don’t be dramatic, that’s not real abuse.“.

But it fucking is!!

Some people need to understand that there are different types of abuse.