Monday, November 26, 2012

I have mommy issues & I'm afraid to "grow up".

Is my childhood finally over?  Because  I’ve been mourning it for months.  I’m sure this has been a major part of my ridiculous depression that’s been plaguing me for most of 2012.  In February I’m turning 25 so I’ve been feeling like I have to magically turn into an adult now and simply let go of what was and will never be concerning my developmental years.  If not, I’ll turn into an ugly expired pumpkin.  But how the fuck does one do that?!

For one, everyone around me is having children so I feel like I have to grow up and make babies now too.  I live in the midwest so it’s pretty common place that people start having children right out of high school.  So it’s no surprise that everyone is having children this early.  In more metropolis areas it seems like folks tend to wait a little longer to sew their wild oats & get finically established before spawning little demons.  Dammit, I miss seeing my friends out at bars!  It sucks feeling like you no longer know anyone when you go out to the same places that you’ve been sneaking into since even before you were 21!  It’s depressing.  These people I know that have children running around now are not anymore established or more mature that I am.  In fact, I’d say I’m more mature than most people in this town regardless of age. 

I’ve had to be an adult my whole life which is why I tend to buy more children's toys than the average bear.  I didn’t get to have my fun as a kid.  Childhood was a confusing and lonely time for me during which I received mixed signals about myself and life from the people that were supposed to love and protect me.  In another person’s eyes I was overly spoiled but that’s not how I saw it.  I did have more of everything though compared to most anyone else I grew up with.  More new clothes, more new toys… I had an ENTIRE bedroom designated JUST for my Barbie village, as I liked to call it.  At one point I had over 400 Barbies but I never got a Holiday Barbie even though I asked for one every Christmas.  I know.  Boohoo for me, right?  

Speaking of Christmas I never believed in Santa sadly.  My mom told me when I was 4 that there was no Santa Clause.  I’ve always resented her for that.  She wanted to tell me that Christmas was Jesus’ birthday & wasn’t about gifts at all… That’s great and all but a 4 year old deserves to believe in magic.  Needless to say she generally gave me the shittiest Christmas presents out of the rest of my Family.  She never even tried.  

I’ll never forget my favorite Christmas in 3rd grade when my grandma came into the bedroom to wake me up because she was so excited to see my reactions to all the goodies she got for me.  She said, “Santa came!”  I can still see her standing in her house coat in the doorway with a huge smile on her face.  I jumped out of bed and BOOKED IT to that tree!  I got probably one of my favorite Christmas presents ever that year.  It was nothing I had asked for or heard of before but it was the doll I loved the most during my kiddie years…  A Kenya Doll!  I see they’re obviously making a comeback!  One will be added to my wish list as soon as they’re available on amazon of course! ;)

My grandma loves me more than anyone and I’m constantly fretting about her age and mortality.  I don’t think I can live without her.  Just typing those last 2 sentences automatically made tears fall from my eyes.  I cry about it everyday lately.  

Anyway, on that particular Christmas I had no idea where my mom had gone.  She wasn’t there when I woke or opened my gifts.  She lived there with us at my grandmother’s house but I remember her being more of an inconvenience than a mother to me at that time.  I was furious when she demanded that I move out with her that next year.  I was scared of what she would do to me when she had me alone again and my predictions were correct.  

What are your pet-peeves?  You know, the things that make you want to commit murder? Every time I lay down with someone that wiggles in their sleep from restless leg syndrome, or whatever, I imagine myself stabbing the part (or parts) of their body that they keep shaking uncontrollably in their slumber.  It’s like nails on a chalk board.  My mom shakes her foot to go to sleep and I always hated it when I had to sleep in the same bed as her.  I’d rather sleep on the cold ground.  

It affects me as much as “smacking lips” when you’re eating does to my mother.  Once my mother & I were watching some lame 20/20 special while eating our dinner on the couch and she kept complaining that she couldn’t hear (or concentrate) on the tv program because I was making unsavory noises with my mouth while I was eating.  Who thinks about shit like that?  I GUESS I can control the noise my mouth makes when I’m eating but if you’re enjoying the food you’re ingesting and zoning off to garbage on the tv it’s not quite so easy to be mindful of how you’re chewing.  

She eventually got tired of me forgetting not to “smack my lips” and reached over and punched me in my mouth while “shushing” me so hard she was spitting. I think I was in 5th or 6th grade when this happened?  She knocked me in the face so hard my lip was bleeding.  When I started crying she told me, “Shut up, I’m trying to hear this!” 

You mother fucking Cunt. 

I fucking hate it more than almost anything in the world when my mother shushes me.  It makes me want to bash her teeth out of her stupid fucking skull.  I’m not kidding in the slightest!  I realize how insane that sounds but I could give a shit.  If you lived with a bitch constantly shushing you your whole life for being too loud, too boisterous or being “embarrassing” you might just feel the same way.  

That’s part of the reason why today I’m so anxious around people.  I’m afraid I’ll be to weird, loud, vulgar, or “black”.  My mom actually told me on several occasions to, “stop acting black” because it’s, “ignorant & embarrassing”.  This is coming from my %100 African American mother. I won’t even get into the identity issues she caused me during my childhood because of that bullshit.  Not today at least…

Any new activities I tried when I was little, my mom ridiculed me for.  For example, I joined the volleyball team when I was in 5th grade.  I’ve never been particularly good at sports but my neighbor and friend Sarah, was on the team and I wanted so much to spend time with her.  Basically I was in love with her.  She knew it & teased me constantly… But again, that’s another story.  The story about me knowing I’m primarily attracted to females only (a lesbian?) since I was 4.  

ANYWAY!  

So I joined the volleyball team.  I say “joined” because honestly no one was cut from the team after tryouts, even though I probably should’ve been.  

I practiced bumping, serving and spiking this red, white & blue volleyball that I conned my grandpa into buying for me in the back yard non-fucking-stop until my wrists and forearms felt like they were going to fall off.  I still sucked.  I’ve STILL never once served the ball over the net.  But I REALLY tried.  

My mom would go to my games and when it was my turn to serve she would laugh out loud at me in the SILENT GYM every time I failed to knock the ball over the net.  It was enough pressure that everyone else on my team HATED when it was my turn to serve because they knew I would fuck up their entire game.  It was SO embarrassing. 

In addition to that public humiliation, at home she would heckle me about how terrible I was at volleyball in front of her friends/boyfriends that would always be at our house eating all of our food, being weird and making me uncomfortable.  Once that year she told me to watch out because playing volleyball would make me a lesbian. 

Aren’t mothers supposed to encourage their children?  Even if I was terrible at that stupid game she obviously saw me out back practicing and TRYING to get better so I wouldn’t disappoint my teammates so much.  It REALLY hurt my feelings.  I mean, is that normal behavior for a mother? UGH!!!

On the last day of 6th grade my mom punched me in the face and busted my lip, yet again.  It happened when I was walking into our house after I got off of the school bus at the end of the school day.  I was sulking about the fact that my best friend was going to go to a different junior high than I was that next year.

I’ve never made friends very easily.  I’m very guarded and anxious.  Because of this I’ve learned (especially in the last year…) that I can come off as strange, anti-social, conceited or sneaky.  I honestly didn’t understand that until this year but whatever.

People don’t generally seem to like me for one of those reasons above.  So when I make a friend it’s like a magical door has opened to this endless river of complete happiness until for whatever reason I lose them… Most likely because I can be overwhelming & controlling due to the fact that I’m scared they’ll find someone better to spend their time with and abandon me.  That’s what always, always, ALWAYS happens to me.  The person that means everything to me finds out what a terrible person I am then they no longer want to be around me.  

But Lindsey, my 5th and 6th grade best friend, NEVER got tired of me and she also happened to be beautiful so I couldn’t bare that I was going to lose her.  I knew that when she started at the other Jr. High in 7th grade she would find so many new awesome people to hang out with and she would simply forget about me.  Which is exactly what happened, by the way.  My point is that I was EXTREMELY UPSET on my last day of 6th grade.  I had been crying ALL FUCKING DAY.  

I walked into the house and my mom instantly came running & jumping out of her bedroom screaming out gleeful cries of congratulations to me for “graduating” the 6th grade.  I tried to walk around her to go to my room and finish my mournful sobbing but she kept getting in my face like a toddler.  So I tried unsuccessfully, to maneuver around her yet again.  

Then all of a sudden out of the blue, she got so upset that I didn’t want to dance and sing with her about ending my elementary school career so she punched me square in the face and started crying about how I just disrespected her.  Um what!? 

She ran off back into her bedroom & I tried to follow her to explain why I was upset.  She slammed her bedroom door in my face and caught my hand in the door.  I yelled at the top of my lungs for her too please open the door back up but instead she PUSHED the fucking door closed even harder, smashing my hand.  

Finally she let go but then the blood went rushing back into my hand where my circulation had been cut off in the door and that made it hurt even worse. I went to my room by myself with a bloody lip, a broken heart & wounded hand.  Later she came into my room just as cheerful as can be to tell me about something.  She didn’t say anything to acknowledge what had happened just a few hours prior. 

See, I thought this wasn’t bad enough to count as physical abuse like they tell you about in after school specials.  It would only happen once a month or so and it would always be random acts of violence.  She never straight up beat the shit out of me.  She’d just smack me in the face, punch me, throw a huge open box of canned goods my way when I was trapped up against the wall or destroy some material item dear to me in a bizarre and unexpected rage attack.  It wasn’t everyday or anything.  

Actually most of the time it came in sort of a cycle. She would act like an insane cunt for some frivolous reason that wouldn’t usually warrant that kind of a response out of a sane parent.  Then, she would act like nothing happened and be extremely nice to me for a few weeks to try to makeup for whatever she did without taking responsibility for her actions by actually apologizing. And finally, she would slowly get annoyed with me again, dramatically act like a helpless victim because of me not cleaning my room or thinking to help her with groceries, blame for everything wrong with her life while telling me how much of a fuck up I was because of these extremely irrational reasons like the ones I just stated above and then she would do something abusive.  At that point, the cycle would restart. 

I have much more to say about this topic and how, in my opinion, my wrecked childhood has put my entire life off course but it’s 4:24am and I’d like to get back to reading my immature Fear Street novel by R.L. Stine.  So I’ll leave you with this really positive video about how you can better enjoy your days to the fullest.  I really need to take this guys advice but my negativity as of late seems to be standing in my way and crippling my progress.  I hope it works for you though, better than it has so far for me? :)

5 comments:

DPhZ said...

I'm sure I can draw parallels between your mother and mine if I wanted to, I FEEL there may be some, but it would be unfair to mine for not punching me if I ever WAS acting like a jerk, which I might occasionally do. In fact, she would never punch me like that no matter how jerky I believe she's being.

Many parents draw some moral line between spanking and other sorts of hitting... (I don't believe in the legitimacy of said line. I think it's morally equivalent.) But I think it works from the principle of "drawing blood from children" = abuse.

Thing about children I'm realizing... you shouldn't have children primarily to fulfill one's own emotional needs. Children as quiet accessories. As a repository for adoration. Or as something to have "just because." Or just because of circumstances beyond control. (Which is why I think women should have access to abortions, if necessary.... but good contraception is preferable.)

I wonder if one of these may have been the case for you and your mom... but I don't know her.

Primarily, "bringing a person into the world"(not "having kids." that makes it sound very trivial.) ...should be considered an ambitious undertaking to bring a human being into the world from the ground-up. From belief in something worth passing on and the desire and ability to holistically do good by someone.

You're wise to not have one already. Especially if you don't want to, or don't believe you're ready. It makes most other people irresponsible, not you.

Luke Cage said...

I'm new to your site and blog but I just want to say how brave I think it is for you to open up and share your inner self with us as you do your outer self.

I can understand the no friends situation as I am much the same in that I have many casual acquaintances but no real close friends. It mostly stems from my being raised in a cult-y religion and never really learning the right skills to connect with people. This also explains my dating issues :(

Definitely don't have kids until you are in the right situation. I wish you had had a better childhood yourself but I guess the old saying, "What doesnt kill you makes you stronger" applies here. Stay the course, know you're beautiful and bright and don't worry about growing up. I'm a 40yr old "kid" who still reads comics, plays video games and enjoys a good game of chess, scrabble and board games galore. Be who you are :)

Anonymous said...

If this is a true representation of your inner self, you definitely don't want to have kids yet.

So your mom was abusive to you when you were a child, and you're angry about it. That's unfortunate. But now you have to think of it as your problem, not hers. You are now at a point where she can't hurt you anymore, but all that pent-up anger is still wounding you, likely as much as your mother did. It is within your power to change this, if you decide you want to. It's best to let it go, when you can.

(aka "UndressJess") said...

I'm not sure how to directly to reply to any of your individual comments on here so I'll do it all in one post.

DPhZ: Yes my mom had been very young at 17 however she wasn't interested in having an abortion at all. She was very excited to have me from what I understand. Sometimes I wish she would have had an abortion but then again I wouldn't be here so if nothing else, I have to thank her for at least doing that.

Yeah I'm glad I haven't had kids yet but I want to have at least one, one of these days.

Luke: Thank you for saying that! :) I however don't believe in the saying, "what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger." When we experience trauma like abuse it changes the way our brain functions and if it happens when we're still developing it actually can cause brain damage (because the changes it makes in our brain can change how it develops over all) that will/can lead to personality or mood disorders in adulthood. I don't want to ever cause that for my future children. :(

Johnny: I really don't like how your tone sounds so dismissive. It's insulting to me. :( It's not something that you can just snap your fingers and let go of. What I've been through in my life (and not just as a child, mind you) has been extremely damaging. I've worked through quite a bit of it and writing about it is another way I am working through it. It's not an instant process. Also I'm not sure what you mean by, "If this is a true representation of your inner self, you definitely don't want to have kids yet." That sounds really fucking shitty, dude.

Luke Cage said...

With your explanation I can see how the "what doesn't kill you: saying would be erroneous but the rest of my statement still applies :)