It’s Okay To Do Things That Make Your Symptoms Worse (as Long As You’ll Stay Safe)

I have therapy tomorrow, and my homework was to write, so... Hobey ho, let's go.

I'm fucking tired because my second father in law just died in a fucking stupid, traumatic, idiotic way. When my husband brought me into this family thirteen years ago, I gained three father figures. His dad, his stepdad, and one of his uncles. I was so lucky to have them in my life. But they're all fucking dead now. Cancer, cancer, and now an accident.

And I'm just. So fucking tired. My own father, after hearing about this, drunk dialed me three separate times while my father in law was on life support and sent me $500. Like, I appreciate the money. But could I have a hug? Could you tell me you love me when you're sober? Could you fucking try to fucking BE HERE? Could you try, at all. I want your attention. I want you to want me in your life. I want you to care about what's happening in mine. But you fucking don't and it's exhausting to keep wanting.

And then I have these three men that care and support me and protect me and every single one of them fucking dies within a few years of each other. And it's FUCKING STUPID. It's stupid they're dead. It's stupid I loved them so much. It's stupid that my mother is still alive when these good people are gone.

I'm fucking tired. I'm just so tired. I haven't been tired like this since I was in high school, living with my mother, being sex trafficked to pay the fucking mortgage.

I can't bring myself to feel anything beyond tired. I just want somebody to come take care of me, which is embarrassing, because I'm 31 fucking years old, but you know what? Nobody ever fucking took care of me. Nobody. And then when I was 19, I got a partner and his family and they loved me and taught me how to be loved and now they KEEP FUCKING DYING ON ME and I'm pissed. I'm pissed and tired and I want it to stop.

Common experiences with abusive mom:

hyper fixates on your appearance, constantly makes you incredibly self-aware of how you look and what others are thinking of you

compares you to other people, to show you what you should be more like (or look more like), making you feel like you’re the only worthless person

tries to control and micromanage your appearance, threatens you with missing out this and that if you don’t look up to her standards

uses you as emotional and psychological support

tells you how you are the only one who understands and loves her, forcing you to bear the burden of living as her “support system”

constantly makes you feel guilty for everything that is happening to her, makes you feel as if you owe her to make the world a bearable place for her

shares traumatic stories from her past that you are too young to understand and react to, expects unconditional emotional support and therapy from you even when you are a child

if the dad is abusive too, accuses you of being “just like him” or tells you that you remind her of him when she lashes out on you

also if father or another person is abusing you, she stands on their side or just pretends not to see or notice it’s going on, later tells you it’s your fault

silences your opinions with “you don’t know anything”

shows exaggerated concern for you for purpose of controlling where you go and what you do, makes you feel obliged to avoid certain places or situations so “she wouldn’t worry” but it extends to stuff you would usually be able to do safely, like hanging out with friends or traveling or having a social life

forces you to center her well being and her happiness more than your own and if you do anything for your own good, you will be called out for not thinking of her first

doesn’t feel responsible for providing you with decent meals or wardrobe, doesn’t notice when you’re hungry or lacking in basic resources, but lashes out at you if anyone else notices for “embarrassing her”

or alternatively, is crazy controlling over when you’re allowed to eat, what you’re allowed to eat, and what resources you are allowed to have

pushes you into interests and activities she wants you to have, disregards and criticizes everything you do that she doesn’t like

her behavior towards you changes in public, she becomes must more concerned over how other people perceive her relationship to you, is generally nicer if other people are listening

feigns concern towards you in front of others, in private keeps telling you how you’ll never make anything out of yourself

tries very hard to keep you at home forever if possible, refuses to teach you basic life skills, denies you resources you need to learn how to make something on your own, convinces you that you are in fact, helpless and incapable of survival without her, insists that you be dependent on her

breaks into your privacy, demands sensitive information about your relationships, conversations and thoughts, everything you do not feel comfortable about telling her because you know she’ll use it against you

accuses you of being a failure as a child, for being “heartless” and not caring about her at all, reminds you of everything she’s been thru only to raise you, talks as if she sacrificed herself for you

has periods where she doesn’t seem to even notice you, then in other times is completely obsessed with you and wont let you out of her sight

acts aggressive at times but always with pretense that her violence doesn’t count because she’s not physically able to seriously injure you, disregards all psychological and mental wounds of being assaulted and hurt by your own mother

acts like you’re an extension of her and have no existence or life of your own, refuses to accept any individuality and tries to prevent you from growing up and becoming your own person

makes you feel too guilty to say no to her, uses every social convention to make you feel as if you’re using and discarding your poor mother when all you want is to create a single boundary

refuses to acknowledge any of your successes but brings up your failures as a proof that nothing will ever become of you

insists over and over again that all she does is out of concern and love

here we go, i guess

my therapist suggested i make an anonymous blog to write about my experiences growing up in an abusive household, because i'm still trying to sort some shit out, and i keep feeling compelled to tell my story. but i can't publicly, because it wouldn't be safe for me. so here we are.

i feel old, the last time I had an active tumblr account was like 2012, lmao. this is weird.

Crazyheadcomics

I remember my mother constantly threatening me with stories of horrible foster homes, always obsessed with making sure I believed anything would be worse than the abuse currently happening at home. She threatened to drop me off at the fire hall, or that if I called CPS myself, that's what would happen.

Here’s a reminder that if your parents/guardians were ones that threatened to “send you away” anytime you acted out or didn’t live up to their expectations, this was wrong and you deserved so much better. I know my parents used to threaten to send me to a school away from them because my grades suffered. It felt awful.

If you have trauma because of it, your trauma is valid. This sort of emotionally abusive tactic from parents/guardians can make a child feel that their love is conditional and can also make a child feel they can and deserve to be discarded if they do something wrong. I want you to know that you should never have been made to feel that way and that it’s okay to make mistakes. You deserved so much better than this.

I'm getting back to a level of chronically ill where I'm like "wow I am actually very seriously sick all the time and not able to manage and facing the possibility of an incredibly drastic surgery" and I really really don't like it. I'm just over here hurtling towards the point of no return, preparing to have a huge organ removed from my body but having to suffer with it for the next 5 months while I wait for referrals, and I'm just tired and scared and sick.

Nothing happened, I'm just disabled.

And if something did happen, it's not your business.

You are not owed an explanation for my disability.

My cane is not an open door for interrogation.

Let me exist.

Obviously there are many things to dislike about adulthood but as someone who grew up in an abusive household for whom adulthood offered the only chance at an escape, it's incredibly important to me that i romanticize adulthood whenever possible because i know there are kids and teenagers like me out there who are seeing nothing but complaints about rent and taxes and the loneliness of living on your own and i know they're going to internalize all of that and assume it means that adulthood won't offer them the freedom and safety they've been dreaming of. So while i never want to minimize the difficulties of being an adult, i also want to highlight how incredibly nice it can be to finally have ownership of your life and your body and your time and money and food and everything else in a way that you never had before. You can choose when you wake up! You can choose what you have for breakfast! You can choose when to go to sleep or if you want to (inadvisably) stay up all night watching tv in the living room! In the living room! You can choose what to watch! These are little things, but they are worth taking pleasure in, and they are worth looking forward to.