Tag: #personal

When I was young, I had jaw surgery which went disastrously wrong. My mother openly mocked and ridiculed me. She had been indifferent to the precipitating problem and to the surgery itself, but flaunted how much she enjoyed the aftermath.

One night, she attacked me because my lower lip was numb and I literally couldn’t feel a piece of spinach stuck to my lip. She repeatedly pretend-asked, “Are you tellin’ me you can’t feel that?” while laughing her head off. I requested, in a civil and normal tone, that she tell me more nicely in the future. The next night, she re-attacked by making an over-the-top, theatrical production out of “telling me nicely” that food was on my lip, with more uproarious laughter at the malpractice victim’s expense.

Every time I timidly mentioned possible legal action or repair work, she smirked at me hugely and said, “You’re not mad at that nice Dr. Scheetz, are you?” She sometimes said that out of the clear blue sky, apparently just to remind me that she didn’t care. At one point she even made a public speech about how kind and thoughtful and skilled he was — and such a good-looking man, too!

She was indifferent to him before he hurt me, so I could only surmise that she idolized him because he hurt me. That was a painful realization. I already knew she didn’t really care about me and that she esteemed people who had hurt me, but going out of her way to exalt someone who hurt me was just plain malicious.

Because my jaw and mouth were no longer as they should have been, since then I have had to swallow hard. This was visible. Every single time I swallowed my own saliva, I had to gulp it in order for it to happen at all. My mother smirked and tittered, repeatedly giggling that I was “just doin’ that,” cracking herself up at the expense of someone freshly maimed by a surgeon.

Because no substantial repair work is possible, I still swallow hard. Every time. Many times a day.

It’s not a lot of fun to be reminded of what your mother is really like by the simple, human, and necessary act of swallowing. What does one do when one’s own bodily function is a trauma trigger?

I have looked into partial cosmetic repair (functional repair isn’t possible). When my mother learned of this, she actually had the nerve to ask if I wanted her to come out and “help” me during the recovery period. I said no, and reminded her of why — and, of course, she attacked. She instantly and viciously denied, then haughtily proclaimed, “I’d never do that!” She is a wonderful person, and wonderful people don’t ridicule the recently maimed, so therefore what happened didn’t happen.

Except it did. You did what you did, you lying bitch. Even if not a single other living soul ever learns of it, it still happened. The truth is true.

When I was a teenager, my mother wouldn’t allow me to leave the house alone. I don’t mean that she forbade potentially dicey activities — that never even came up. She became angry if I simply wanted to go to a movie or some other innocuous thing. She insisted that it was only right and proper to do things “with people.” Apparently these mysterious “people” were going to just magically appear on the lawn, since I wasn’t allowed to leave the house to meet any.

Who were these “people” really? Someone I knew from school? Nope; my mother threw a horrible, snarling fit the first time I tried to arrange to have some ice cream with a friend without Mama sitting there too. She fought tooth and claw against any school friendship I tried to form.

So who were they? If nobody from school was acceptable, and I couldn’t go to a public place to meet anyone else, and the magic lawn people hadn’t turned up yet, then the only way to do things “with people” was to do them with the others already in the house.

In other words, she really meant that I should only leave the house to do things with her.

One of my mother’s cousins waited for the magic lawn people. Over the decades, she turned from her parents’ child into their nurse. The magic lawn people never did show up, and she went through her own old age alone.

One of my own cousins waited for them as well. In her fifties, she’s still waiting for them to show up and doing activities only with her mother. But hey, at least she only does things with people.

I chose to move out instead. About three years after the “I take for granted that you’re too slutty and delinquent to eat ice cream without me” incident, I packed and left. No magic lawn people were involved. I did it myself.

Years passed, but I still felt a little bold the first time I walked up to a movie ticket booth and said, “One, please.” It was, of course, a complete anticlimax; the cashier didn’t bat an eye, and why would he? I think that was the only time I’ve seen a theater movie alone, but in retrospect it seems significant. I am allowed to do that, and there is absolutely nothing immoral or scandalous about performing an activity when I’m not “with people.”

I’ve observed something similar happening to other people as well. Most abusers know not to say outright that they themselves should be the center of all things, so they come up with euphemisms and misdirections.

A common euphemism for the self is “family.” These parents often tell their children that family is the most important thing, family is what counts, family should be the center of everything. Since the kid’s only starting family is the family of origin, what this means is that they, the parents who are speaking, are important and count and should be the center.

A variant is “what really matters” or “what’s really important” or some such. This never means work, health, or even religion — it always translates back to “family,” which, again, means the parents themselves. In their own eyes, they are what really matters.

We know that they really mean themselves because they often continue this even after the children have spouses and offspring of their own. An escaped child who declines taking Mom to lunch because he’s attending his son’s soccer game may get a response of “You are wrong to neglect your family. Family matters. Don’t forget what’s really important.” Just as my friend didn’t count as a person, the man’s son doesn’t count as family. She means herself.

However, they may not know that they really mean themselves. This is not a self-aware bunch. They may genuinely believe that they are sagely teaching the importance of socializing, of strong blood ties, of having one’s priorities straight. My mother probably genuinely believed that she would have allowed me to leave the house to meet a friend, if only I weren’t so untrustworthy and terrible and everyone she didn’t choose weren’t so awful. If asked, I doubt she would have stated outright that her goal was for me to be a friendless spinster. I doubt she even had a goal for me which considered my own experience — her experience was what mattered. There’s no way to know, but my guess is that she herself didn’t realize that her controlling behavior narrowed my choices down to her and the magic lawn people.