After a Session with Zenmeister and Talking About My Mom!

MOTHER

1. Ugh, and stupid me brought up my bitch of a mother. That is a giant black whole, but I have talked about it with therapists before. It is a whole logic/emotion thing though. Logically I understand my mother had her own mental health issues (that NO ONE in the family will discuss), yet it is my mother so it is the emotion part. However, the trauma plays over in my head on a daily basis. The words she said. The physical abuse that was done. It is just there and it is like a meat clever slicing me open every single day. I don’t want to think about it I try not to think about it, but it just creeps into my brain and is there throughout random parts of the day - that meat clever slicing me open over and over again. When your own mother tells you she wants you dead, she hopes you get hit by a car or a bus on the way to school and you die it is traumatizing. Or when your mother tells you that you are stupid, you are fat, you are ugly, that is traumatizing – how can she say I am ugly, when I look exactly like her, except for hair color? She had dark brown hair – almost black. In 4^th grade I remember it was career day and I listened to someone who worked for NASA as a scientist and I was fascinated because I love science. So, I came bouncing in the door from school and I remember telling my mother I was going to become a scientist and work for NASA. She looked right at me and said, “you are too stupid to even go to college”. To this day, I can feel the deflated feeling I felt when she said that. I thought, it is my mother she knows best. The funny part is, those stupid ‘achievement’ tests that students take every year I was scoring high school level by the time I was in 4^th grade and I skipped 5^th  & ½ of 6^th grade because of it, but I still believed I was stupid. She would throw butcher knives at me, she picked up the coffee table and threw it at me. I had super long hair as a kid and my sister and I didn’t want to get out of bed on a Sunday to go to church. She grabbed us by the hair and kicked us in the ribs over and over until we were coughing up blood. Another time she got mad how I put the groceries away in the freezer and at like 3am she pulled me out of bed by my hair, dragged me down the hall, through the dining room and into the garage where the big freezer was and made me take everything out and re-do it all so it was organized better. She didn’t care I had final exams that day. After that, I asked a lady at church to cut my hair off. I had it cut so short I looked like a boy, it was so ugly, but at least I was safe from being pulled out of bed by my hair. My mother would constantly tell ME – not the other kids – just ME that she hated ME. My mother absolutely hated me, everything about me. The other kids heard it, they know it happened they acknowledge it happened and we talk about it.
2. My mother had suicide attempts. One on MY 15^th birthday. Her second attempt on my 17^th birthday. I think they were perfectly calculated to be on those days. Yes, she had her own issues, but because of her hatred towards me she calculated the day she was going to do it. No one can tell me she didn’t. Out of the entire year that is the day she uses a butcher knife and slices her arm wide open? Please, I am not stupid. I may be blonde, but I am not an idiot. I dare one person to logically tell me how it wasn’t calculated.
1. I was the one to find her on my 15^th birthday – my mother hates my guts, wants me dead, and I come home from school to find blood everywhere and my mother trying to kill herself. How much fun do you think that was? Before I called for help, she said to me “oh, you need to make your own birthday cake”. Fuck you – you stupid woman. What made you think I am worried about a fucking birthday cake. I called 911, called my aunt to get my little sisters from school, because I didn’t want them to see what had happened, then called my dad, I don’t remember what I did with my older brother. He might have had football practice so everything was cleaned up and done/figured out before he got home, so he would have stayed at our aunt’s house.
2. Within minutes people were everywhere. My best friend (who was just 3 houses down) had come over to by my side, people from church heard and were everywhere to make sure the blood and house had been cleaned, etc. They had an action plan to make sure all kids had a place to sleep that night. It was chaos. For some reason, the cops were more worried about me than any other child in the family. I remember a female cop grabbing me and not letting me back in, ushering me away, but close enough for questioning and making sure I had VERY strong support that night. All the other kids were allowed to go back to the house the next day, but I wasn’t allowed to go back for a week. Always seemed strange to me, 24 hours vs 7 days. It was worked out with the Gilbert police and the family that had taken me in. The female officer went to the store bought me a cake and a social worker brought me some clothes. To this day, I still am friends with the family and talk to them weekly, but I have never brought up that event. We have never talked about it again. I have no doubt if I did bring it up they would tell me everything I wanted to know, but maybe I don’t want to know. Maybe I don’t care enough to know. Maybe I found enough love from that family that there is no reason to know. Maybe too traumatizing to ask. Is it too forbidden in my brain? None of the siblings bring it up…….but they also didn’t see what I saw. However, we can’t get the REAL answers we want anyway, the topic will go to the grave with our father.
3. Yet, no one will talk about her mental health and what her diagnosis was. She was held 51/50 four times that I absolutely know of but it was always hush hush – like us kids didn’t know our mother was gone. Shit, we weren’t that dumb! My sister that is closest to my age and me have cornered my dad and blatantly asked him about it. His response was, “that never happened, I don’t know what you are talking about”.........................uh ok……..your own brother or other people didn’t take us kids in for nothing. We heard the phone calls, we knew what was going on, I was old enough to understand what suicide attempts were. I SAW it with my own eyes. Stop being a coward and just tell us. There is no reason to lie about it. She has been dead for 21 years. It isn’t like she is going to come after you.