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Thursday, March 24, 2016

Invisible Scars

“It is not the the bruises on the body that hurt. It is the wounds of the heart and the scars on the mind.”
Aisha Mirza

“The past is behind us," said Boudicca,"but the difficulty there is we keep looking over our shoulders.

Michelle Franklin


I am a child of abuse.

There. I said it. I've touched on it over the years, mentioned it to friends here and there, but I've never actually said the words.

I often downplay the abuse in my mind, tell myself it was nothing compared to what others have experienced, that I shouldn't really talk about it, that it was "normal", that there's no point in bringing up the "sins" of the dead, etc.

But it affects every single day of my life. It affects how I view myself as a person, as a mother. It's the vicious voice in my head that tells me I'm not good enough. It is the voice of my mother, a person who should have protected me, not hurt me.

My mother... well, she had a lot of demons. She herself was the child of abuse. She was often verbally and emotionally abused, was beaten, and came from a broken home. She married very young in an effort to escape an abusive father (who likely came from a long line of abusers based on the stories I've heard of his childhood), only to end up in an unhappy first marriage that resulted in a divorce. She suffered a miscarriage during her life and buried another child. She also suffered from a multitude of health problems which required a variety of medications that slowly killed her in some ways while keeping her alive in others, and which ended up ultimately contributing to her sudden death.

None of the items above excuse my mother from the abuse she put myself and my sisters through (my brother has never spoken of any abuse, and he had left the home by the time I can remember the abuse starting, which is why he's not mentioned), but they have helped me work towards forgiving her over the years. I love her and in ways I miss her, and I no longer blame her for the things she said and did. I don't even blame my grandfather anymore, though I did for years after her death (and the comments he made about her RIGHT after we left the hospital where she'd been pronounced dead only fed that blame), but I still live with invisible scars. Forgiveness does not always equal healing.

A few instances of abuse from my childhood stick out quite vividly in my mind... The time I told her I wanted to go to a public school (I was home-schooled partly due to my mothers health issues) and how ANGRY she became. She called me names, recited a cruel rhyme of, "Fatty fatty two-by-four, can't get through the kitchen door" that she heard in her childhood and told me that is what I'd hear in school because of my weight, and verbally abused me throughout that day. My older sister (who often was a target of my mothers abuse) urged me to apologize, to tell our mother that I didn't mean it, that we make her a cup of tea as a peace offering and try to sooth her anger.
The time she'd gotten angry at me for some reason I can't recall, and said to me that she'd found items in my room that, "Shocked her as to the kind of person that I was.". That ate at me for the longest time until I finally had the nerve to ask her what she could have possibly found that caused her to be so repulsed by me. Her response? "Oh, I don't know. I likely just said it to hurt you.". My mother often said cruel things just for the sake of being cruel, and I can't ever recall a time where she apologized for it.
The time she slapped me because I "looked" at her wrong.
The time she screamed at and punished me because I didn't freeze some spaghetti sauce that I didn't know I was supposed to freeze.
The time I stood between her and my older sister as she held a belt, and she threatened to let our dogs out, and that it would be my fault because I made her do it.
The time she screamed at and said horrible things to me because I refused to give her a large bowl of ice cream, regardless that my reason was because she was diabetic and I felt I was contributing to what would be her eventual death by giving in to her commands (when she died I felt extreme guilt over not standing up to her more often when she'd ask me to do things that I knew would harm her. I felt like I'd killed her because I was too much of a coward to say no).
Getting yelled at because I didn't put the paper towel or toilet paper roll on the "right" way, or not folding the towels correctly.
The time I stood in the way when she was going to force my older sister to pick up dog poop with her bare hands and I managed to at least get her to be able to wear gloves when I couldn't make the punishment stop completely.
That my mother let me physically and emotionally abuse my older sister and let me think it was normal because I saw my mother do it, that I was encouraged to do it, that I didn't realize it was wrong until I overheard my aunt tell my mother that the way I treated my sister was wrong and my mother told her to butt out, and the guilt I feel over my actions to this day.

Why am I writing this? Why am I talking about this? Because. Because my childhood affects me every day. Because I live in fear that the abuse won't end with me. Because I contemplated suicide as a teenager because of it and the only thing that stopped me as I held that bottle of sleeping pills in my hand was the fear of going to hell. Because I'm terrified every time I become frustrated with my children that I will turn into my mother. Because I second guess myself constantly as a parent on whether I'm being fair or if I'm being cruel when it comes to punishment. Because the voice I hear that feeds my poor self esteem and fear of failure is my mothers and I don't know how to make it stop. Because I tell myself NOT to talk about it, that it doesn't matter, that I'm just whining and I should shut up. Because abuse is abuse, no matter it's shape or form.

The abuse I suffered as a child is something I have to live with and work through every day. It has shaped who I am as a person. The pain from abuse lingers long after the abuse has ended. Our words and actions leave lasting imprints on those around us, and we need to be mindful of this fact.

I am a child of abuse. I am a fighter. I am a survivor. I want a better life for my children, my family, and myself. I want the abuse to end with me. I never want my children to ever feel what I have felt. I don't want my brokenness to break them. I don't want history to repeat itself.




I want to be free.