Cord Cutting
I had to tell her
When I was really young, my mother used to sit on a pedestal in my mind. I would watch her eyelashes when she blinked, thinking she was so beautiful.
Her perfume and face creams made me feel safe. The sound of her voice was a beacon. When her attention was on me, it felt like the sun. I was warm.
I don’t remember exactly when things changed but I continued to see my mother in that light long after people started to tell me a different story.
My grandmother told me once, “Your mother is hard on you because she loves you.”
I didn’t understand what that meant, but it made me feel special until my aunt told me about the real conversation that prompted that revelation.
“Your mother is harder on you than she is on your sisters. A lot of people have noticed.”
I still didn’t get it but mostly I just pushed it to the back of my head.
High school was different. Friends asked me what was wrong with my mother and why did she treat me like that? Why did she favour my sisters? Some people were cruel and teased me because of it.
I still continued to defend her and even argue with people who brought her true nature to light. I refused to believe that my mother felt anything but love for me.
In my twenties, I began to confide in friends. I told them about random events in my childhood, without an agenda. They responded with things like, “It’s a wonder you’re not more screwed up.”
My husband had trouble being around my family and for the longest time, he refused to talk about it. He finally told me that he hated the way my mother spoke to and treated me. He couldn’t stand it.
In my thirties, I hosted a birthday party at my apartment and I invited a variety of people. Afterwards, I was told by three different friends that they were all furious with my mother and with how she had treated me on my own birthday. One of these friends, I knew since childhood and she told me that it was not something new to her. She told me that almost everyone in our close-knit elementary and junior high class had noticed. It made them all angry and/or uncomfortable.
Still, I kept making excuses for her. I was caught between the indignant anger of people who saw the truth and my desire for a loving mother-daughter relationship.
It was only when I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia that things really started to fall apart. When I finally woke up.
I tried to lean on my mother for support but she refused. She called and texted me many times to offer me advice or to find out what I was doing about my situation. I begged her for her shoulder because I needed so badly to lean. She said to me, “This is what I know to do. This is what I can do.” Even after I asked her not to, she continued to push her advice on me, sarcastically adding, “Ooops, I’m not supposed to do that, am I?”
When she asked me why I was isolating myself and pushing family away, I tried to explain that, that was not what I was doing. I asked for her understanding and told her I needed time. I needed my family to come to me.
She responded by telling me that she set up an appointment with a doctor and a specialist to get information because what I was saying “just wasn’t adding up”.
I told her to do what she needed to for her, but to please leave me out. I asked her to refrain from giving me an update from that appointment.
She texted me after to tell me that she had told the doctors that I was isolating myself and that she just didn’t know what to do anymore. She told me that the doctors had reassured her that this was normal and that I would come around.
I was dumbfounded. I asked her why she chose to lie and she did not respond.
Today, things have been turned around and according to my family, I am the one who has to fix things. My father refuses to speak to me unless I listen to what he has to say about what I have done wrong. However, he won’t even entertain my version of things. He calls my perception “distorted”.
My sisters and my cousins ignore me. Some family members have even blocked me.
The moment I knew for sure that I wasn’t the problem was when my mother last tried to contact me.
“I thought that maybe enough time had gone by . . .”
I stared at the text, unsure of how to respond. My immediate instinct was, “Hell no. I’m definitely not ready.” But I didn’t want to hurt her so I explained it nicely.
“I don’t think so, I’m not ready. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be.”
She responded with, “Everyone used to tell me that something was wrong with you, but I refused to believe it.”
It took everything in me not to get pulled in by her modus operandi. And I was okay for a while. But then I found out about my aunt’s terminal cancer along with her desire to keep it from me. I felt an anger burning in me. I realized that it had been burning low, for a long time.
The reason being, I just kept stuffing everything down deep, making half-hearted attempts at telling my truth. I kept trying to explain myself when no one was actually listening.
The end of last year brought an end to an era. I have changed and my reaction to my mother’s behaviour is proof of that.
I have felt a primal need for some time now. Ignoring her wasn’t enough. I had to tell her that I was done. There would be no more space held, waiting for her, somewhere in the back of my mind. I had to tell her I finally realized that contrary to what she has consistently, since my childhood, tried to convince me of, there is nothing wrong with me. I had to tell her that her behaviour was and is toxic and insidious. That I don’t care what anyone thinks, because they don’t know. She and I know, though.
There is a great reclaiming of power in telling someone that you truly see them, even when they are desperately trying to make you believe that you aren’t.
That power comes with a painful knowledge of tragic truths. It also comes with a breath of freedom as you see in yourself an unfamiliar strength.
The gift and the lesson.
