On My Mother:

I often find myself comparing how I do things to the way my mother does them. I'm sure, to some degree, this is perfectly normal, however, I may take it to another extreme.

See, I'm not good friends with my mother, as many mothers and daughters are. I don't depend on my mom for priceless advice, recipes, or support. My mother broke me at an early age in regards to my feelings for her - rather than someone I enjoyed spending time with, doing things with, or being around, I find myself doing everything I can to not deal with her at all.

I think it started when I was young, probably 5, and my mother started making me feel bad about myself. I came down with chicken pox. I was covered in itchy bumps and, being 5 years old, had no real way of coping with this other than to scratch and be miserable. I stayed with my great-grandparents since I couldn't go to school and my father slept during the day since he worked third shift.

I remember vividly, my mother coming home from work that day, and looking straight at me and saying "I saw the cutest little girl at McDonald's today when I went to lunch. She was so pretty. She wasn't ugly, all covered in scabs and sores like you." Yes, 30 years later I still remember that. I'll never forget it.

That's when I began to dislike my mother. 

She took great pleasure in abusing me in ways I didn't understand to be abuse then - pulling my hair out when she brushed it, hitting me hard with objects like boards, switches, fly swatters, her hand, whatever was handy. 

My mother didn't teach me how to cook, or how to sew, do laundry, iron, fold clothes, or even how to keep house. After the incident where my mother told me I was ugly I began to steal from her. Makeup, mostly, and I thought that was the answer. When she found out she beat me until I bruised and demanded I tell no one, especially my father. She hated me. I hated her in return.

I lost respect for and overcame my fear of her when I became a teenager. She thought she could still bully and hit me, scream obscenities at me, name call, and put me down. When I was 14, she swung at me, intending to slap me in the face. This time, I swung back. I connected with her chest firmly, and she was finally in her place. The physical abuse stopped. I was old enough and smart enough to fight back and now she knew. However, her tongue lashings continued well into my adult life.

My mother took some kind of strange, sickening glee in abusing my brother as well. My brother had digestive issues when he was a child, and would frequently become constipated. My mother seemed to love giving him enemas, it was her way of forcing herself on someone else again. She used to beat my brother when he was a baby, just 2 or 3 years old, for crying. For being afraid of the dark. Her favorite words were "I'll give you something to cry about" and she loved to follow through with punishing blows and hateful words. Sometimes the abuse would seem so horrible to me that I'd run in screaming for her to stop. She would hiss at me that I was next. I was older, so I'd tell her to bring it. She didn't.

Flash forwards to my adult life. I graduated high school at 17 with no honors or accolades, just a basic diploma. I worked full-time at a department store. I wanted desperately to get out of my parents' house because of my mother. I looked into renting a trailer home with a roommate, but no one was willing to fully commit. I ended up dating a man 5 years older than me, and became pregnant. At first I didn't tell anyone. Then my mother noticed. She told me that she knew I was pregnant. I could not stay in their house. She was not going to have to deal with a baby. I was no longer welcome there. I needed to marry the father.

Stupid me, for the last time, took my mother's advice. I married him and moved in with him and his parents.

My husband abused me physically and emotionally. Beatings were something I was accustomed to but of course I feared for my child. Several times I had no choice but to go back to my parents' house and spend the night, and was always met with the contempt of my mother and harsh words. 

Of course, in my married "home life", I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know how to cook much of anything outside of boiling water and tacos from a box. I knew nothing about cleaning up after someone else, or how to work the washing machine. I was 18 years old, and this was what my mother had suggested to me. After two and a half years, two children, and more beatings and abuse than I care to remember, I finally left. I had no choice but to return to my parents. My father was fine with this. My mother continued her disgusting behavior. I was condemned to the partially finished basement of their house. At first I slept on the floor in the den, later my father helped me clean out the spare, partially finished bedroom which had served as my brother's playroom until then.

I fell into depression. 

My mother fluctuated between tolerable and unbearable, as usual. I did my best to avoid her for a long time. With my bedroom being under the kitchen I knew when she was upstairs. She seemed to relish in dropping pots and pans on the floor and stomping. When she was angry and I was in the room downstairs, she would slam things and drag the chairs across the floor, so any peace that I could have wished for was ruined. If she knew I was trying to get one of the children to sleep, she would redouble her efforts, pausing only to listen for a few seconds for the sound of a crying child.

I loathed her.

I saw my out in a man that I worked with. He had shown me attention and made it clear that he was interested in me. He was also 10 years older. I viewed him as stable and mature, but of course, my mother hadn't explained things to me that I have since explained to my daughters - men are capable of putting on a fantastic show when their penis tells them to.

He promised to take care of  me. I believed him. I moved with him to another state, and became pregnant again. I guess now is the time, 3 pregnancies later, to inform you, dear reader, that my mother never discussed birth control, sex, love, or anything else with me. Why would she? She hated me anyway, and I'm sure she enjoyed my suffering.

I probably don't have to tell you how my relationship with this older man ended, but I will tell you anyway. It ended with him dumping me off at my parents' house, seven and a half months pregnant, and never coming back until a week before I was due. He came back and stayed with me in the dank, disgusting basement of my parents' house, and I thought he was back for good. He wasn't though. He was in a relationship with another woman, in fact he was living with her up until the period when he decided to come and stay with me until I bore his son. I still wonder what he told her to this day. No, no I don't. I don't wonder, not anymore, really, because I don't give a shit anymore.

Of course, after I gave birth, he went away again, and only came back when it was convenient for him. I eventually told him to not come back. I wanted to get out of my parents' house. It seemed like I was destined to stay there forever. I went through depression, and then drugs. The drugs were a good self-medication. I mainly smoked pot. Occasionally I'd take pills, if they made themselves available. My mother continued her horrendous behavior. I wanted to get a job, but I knew that a job without someone to watch the kids would be nothing more than a job that paid for daycare. My mom refused to help, of course - she had things she wanted to do, a life she wanted to live, she was "active" and "social" (she was neither in reality) and she was done raising babies. "Besides", she countered, "you won't make enough money to get out, there's no way you can get a job that will pay for rent and lights and food". And again, I was trapped in the basement, no help, no assistance, very few friends (of course I was humiliated by my living arrangements and lack of family support). Please, dear reader, do bear in mind, throughout this whole, disturbing story, that my father is my saving grace, had he not been in the picture I'd have been homeless and on the streets. I know I haven't mentioned him as much, but this is entitled "On My Mother:" and that's who I want it to be about today.

Today I am better aware of the things I have gone through as a child and young adult. I'm still bitter to some degree, I won't deny. I feel like I lost a good portion of what should have been fun years - going to college, establishing myself, having fun being a young adult. What I ended up doing was having babies and being abused, even fighting for my life at times. Now I can't wait until my kids are grown and out of my house. I'm finally out of my parents' house, but it took 10 years after the last failed relationship to get out. I don't contact my mom very often, in fact I don't contact her at all unless I absolutely have to. I now watch my brother go through the same motions that I did, just older than I was - mixed up with bad, evil women, getting them pregnant, working a dead end job, moving in and out of my parents' house, depending on the the mood of the whore he keeps making children with, and whether or not she can access her dope supplier. He's been living in my parents' basement for about 3 weeks so far, this go around. He hates his kids, and he doesn't try to hide this. In fact, when he has his kids, you can hear him screaming in my parents' basement, "I F###ING HATE YOU, SHUT THE F### UP!" 

 If you think it has nothing to do with our mother, you're insane.