anger built up inside of me. Why I can have a grudge so deep for my
mom and upbringing. Why I bottle up my emotions. Over the past
idunnohowmany years I've recognized and tried to let them go...the
grudges, the hate, the anger.
Everything has been going so well. I get home today and my mom's
eyebrows are high, the corners of her mouth low. I'm baffled. I ask
what's wrong and she unloads. She YELLS at me about leaving my window
open and this is the second time and on and on....and on and on she
YELLS and I just feel smaller and smaller and increasingly worthless
and pathetic with each word she yells. I want to say I'm sorry but I
know my words, my feelings, emotions everything is worthless. She
wants to hear the words (I'm sorry) but only to spit on them and throw
back more angry words.
I said nothing.
I made myself dinner.
She sits at the kitchen table eyes burning my back while trying to
busy myself, tears streaming, trying not to sniffle.
"Don't you have anything to say to me?" She snorts.
"I'm sorry. Of course, I'm sorry!" I'm sobbing now. "But I don't know,
it was an accident. It was an accident. I'm sorry. I just know that
anything I say or feel, any emotion I have is the wrong one. People
wonder why I can say such hurtful things to you, it's this. It's the
way you can yell at me and look at me with such anger and hate in your
eyes. That's why." I spew, choking on every word. I can't even
breathe. I don't want to exist. I don't want to be her daughter.
And her reaction was just as I thought: anger.
She tells me that she doesn't, she couldn't possibly hate me. She
tells me that she only has love for me. She always has love for me.
She's angry and frustrated about a money situation. She doesn't hate
me. She tells me this is why she can never say anything to me because
I always "throw it back in her face" and "turn it around" to make her
feel like shit.
No.
I don't want her to feel like shit anymore than she does me. I know
that. I know she is frustrated at the situation, at my mistake, at
money; I do understand that but she doesn't realize the weight, the
effects of her words. I have 2 options: bottle it up or fire back. I
wasn't trying to hurt her, though I know I did, but it's the way she
makes me feel and it upsets me, angers me that she could do that to
me. That she can make me feel so worthless. She's my mother. I'm her
daughter.
She said I need to "take responsibility" for my actions. She already
told me (yelling) that I had to pay the difference of the bill when it
comes. Is that not taking responsibility? Accepting my penance? It's
not enough, she wanted to hurt me. My mother.
It's so hard. I love her. But she hurts me so much with her words. Who
do you tell? If I tell people it makes her look like the bad guy. It
would make people feel awkward or uncomfortable around her. It would
taint her image. She is loving and all that good stuff but her
anger....her words...they're brutal. And I'm the only one who hears
them. Anger and frustrations are taking out on me and I feel her anger
and frustration in more core and my own worthless, pathetic self along
with it. In my core.
My dad used to talk to me the same way. It killed me inside. I couldn't wait to move out, to get away, to stop trying to be everything he wanted me to be and never living up to it. Some days were okay, we were best buds. Other days I was "a lazy pig". I feel for you and I'm sorry. I hope it gets better, try your best not to let her words affect you. Its easier said than done, I know. But you can't let her defeat your spirit.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds so much like my relationship with my mum. Every day she is screaming at me, over nothing, over something old, over anything she can think up. She eats away at me, and I crumble apart so easily at her words.
ReplyDeleteI'm the only one who hears the cruel things she says and the only one who understands why she does it.
None one hurts you more; no one loves you more. I think it's impossible to shut out either of those feelings.
I can't give advice because I don't know how to handle it myself. I guess that I know she hates her life as much as, or maybe more, than I hate my own. She's never known love so she doesn't know how to express it. On some levels she craves perfection in me more than I do.
I don't know, I could try and evaluate it and justify it forever, I know I'm just babbling now. But I want you to know that I understand the feelings you write about and most importantly, I just want you to know that I care and I wanted to send you some love
Stay strong
Ophelia x x x
i sort understand what you're going through.
ReplyDeletemy mum is the same. her words hurt me so much and are partly what has led me to this ed. she's nice around other people
but at home she always has to find fault in me at the smallest things. like one time i left a dirty plate in the sink, she started yelling about how all i do is eat and neevr clean after myself,how i show her no respect, how its the reason i'm gaining all this weight...blah blah
in other people's company its always 'jenny's been very good..did you know she got an A*?
i don't understand it either because i love her to bits. but i find it better to bottle up the feelings instead of starting a fight i'll never win.
i've leant to just accept mine the way she is. there is nothing i can do about it. i say sorry at when its needed(when she thinks its needed), i laugh when she laughs..etc
and things move along, because i can't keep on dwelling on things that are never gonna change. and i knw for a fact she won't change.
it might seem like the easy way out but it helps keep me sane
goodluck to you hun
i know talking to her will do no good, but i'm sure you'll find a common ground with your mum somehow!
xxxx
Oh i'm so sorry sweetheart. She really is just being unreasonable and it's not that you're worthless, i promise. My dad can be the same way a lot of the time, nice and kind until i make one little mistake and then i'm dead. You've just got to have a good cry about it and try to remember that there are people out there who love you, no matter what little mistake you may make. *hugs*
ReplyDeleteI wish she could somehow read what you've written when she's calmer.
ReplyDeletesometimes i read your blog and i could totally confuse it with mine
ReplyDeleteeverybody things my mum is great i dont i blame her for everything she hurts me but like you said shes my mum i love her
sorry i feel really down for you because i know what its like hopefully one day it will be better
x
I'm so sorry. It's horrible when these things happen.
ReplyDeleteShe tells me this is why she can never say anything to me because
I always "throw it back in her face" and "turn it around" to make her
feel like shit.
I've heard this many-a-time said from mother to daughter. Mothers, if you don't like your kid's behavior, where do you think she learned it from? Duh.
You turn it around on her? What does she think she just did? Instead of listening once in a while to your feelings, she automatically gets defensive.
My mother wasn't much of a yeller, but there were frequently instances where I was "bad", and if I "took responsibility", they parents would get more angry because I didn't have the reaction they expected from me. What? I never understood it.
When a mother has a problem with their daughter, it's because they see too much of themselves.
They don't realize that they're killing their children.
It will get better for you - if she isn't willing for family therapy, then you just need to put some distance between you. I get along much better with my family now that I don't talk to them every day.
Stay strong: if a bunch of us goons on the internet who've never met you know that you're a special, complex person, then people who know you must know it as well.