My Actions

Part 2 of My Dear Mom Letter. Pointing out both of our mistakes. If you don't know me, I don't care what you think.

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This is Part 2 of My Dear Mom Letter. This is to point out both of our mistakes, the reasons I think she might've done what she did, and how I influenced those Actions. If you are not close to me, I really don't care what you think. This is part of my healing; showing myself. If you think I'm a terrible daughter, fine. I don't need to satisfy you, and I'm not going to be someone I'm not, or hide who I am anymore. If you who do not know me don't like it, I don't care.

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'During grade 10 (level one) of high school, in October, I started cutting myself for release of emotion. However, that gradually turned into my frustration, upset, and anger toward you, because you were never satisfied with me. It seemed to interest me when I first did it...and I hid that from you because I knew you wouldn't understand. I was right too, huh?'

My mother frustrated me with all of her perfectionist ways. I didn't do very well in school. Part of the reason was because I didn't care, and I didn't feel like being responsible. I just wanted to be happy, and nothing made me happy besides goofing off and going into my own world. Therefore, mom kept telling me I wasn't doing good enough.

I never did the dishes or any kind of cleaning the way she did it, and to her, it was always done wrong. Then, she'd end up doing it all over herself, so I stopped doing it altogether.

'Yes, Mother, telling me that you wouldn't let me see him anymore if we were doing things more than cousins really encouraged me to tell you the truth. You'd think that I really would lie after you threatened to take the only brightness in my life away from me.'

I fell in love with Robert, and we kept it secret from her, but slipped up by accident sometimes, and kept covering it up.

'Well, do you recall when my cat got out one time, and we couldn't find her for a day or so? Do you recall how you told me that she would probably come back and then, five minutes later, you'd come back and tell me not to get my hopes up? Oh yeah, Mom, that was a wonderful way to comfort me when I was worried sick she'd get run over or something, since she wasn't used to the city.'

She kept saying that because she didn't want to get my hopes up only to have my cat not come back...I was worried and cried over my kitty.

'After you found out I was cutting the same year I started, you completely freaked out. I confided in you the horrific visions I had about how I saw myself as a mother, and then went into my daughter's room to see her brutally murdered corpse, and do you remember what you did? You told me I needed help. You looked at me like I was some sort of freak, and told me I needed a counselor.'

I hid my twisted and dark thoughts from her up 'til then.

'You started talking to your counselor, and some guy that ran the teen counselor thing or something...and you told me that if I did not agree to see a counselor, they would send me to a psych ward.'

She said that when I told her about cutting and the visions. That's what I did to cause her to freak out and such, but I think she did it to convince me into seeing a counselor.

'So I started seeing the counselor every week or two. Do you know what I talked about most? You. Do you know why? Because you pretty much made my life a living hell. You were always whining to me; bitching and complaining about how I didn't seem to care about you or anything. I'm not quite sure how the hell I could give a damn after you betrayed me like that. I'm not sure if you knew, but I tend to hold very strong grudges. It didn't help that you kept screaming at me every time I forgot to do the dishes, or whatever. You'd threaten to not let Robert come over, which made me stressed over school because you knew I needed his help. Of course, you didn't give a damn. All that mattered was your precious kitchen.'

She always wanted me doing dishes, and I would rarely do them. And even when I meant to do them, and I forgot, she would freak out and she wouldn't even believe me when I told her I was going to do them. I didn't really pay much attention to her when she was around. I pretty much avoided her to avoid arguments. The truth was, I had stopped caring about her nearly altogether at that point, so she was right there. I just didn't tell her because then it would start another argument I didn't feel like having.

'My counselor decided to put you in a program to teach you how to better bond with your child or something. All it ever did was teach you how to give me 'tough love'. It didn't improve our relationship, because all you did was punish me for the stupidest of things, driving me even farther from your reach. You refused to listen to anything I said during our arguments, and even when you did acknowledge it, you wouldn't admit I was right, you'd just completely change the subject and try to pin guilt on me by saying Robert meant everything to me, and all I cared about was myself.'

If I cursed in front of her, even by accident, she would punish me, and I would argue with her about it because it was unfair. I didn't really pay anything she said much attention because she always seemed to want me to live the way she wanted, and she therefore decided that she didn't have to listen to a word I said, even if I had a good reason for my behavior. I got tired of listening to her because she never listened to me, and she wasn't being reasonable. I wanted to live my way, not hers.

I remember one argument where she wouldn't listen to me, even though there was a perfectly good explanation for my actions, and she blatantly told me that she wasn't going to listen to me if I couldn't listen to her. She made me feel powerless and helpless, and that is something I hate more about her than anything else. I didn't like having control of my life ripped from me.

She would also call me selfish and say things like I only care about Robert because I never really seemed to give a damn about her. It was true. I was done giving a damn because of how she treated me. I don't think I really treated her that badly; I didn't do chores all the time when she wanted, I didn't like grocery shopping with her, and spending time with her was like a chore, but I wouldn't mouth off or disrespect her, or treat her like dirt. I'd leave her to her own life...but she would never leave me to mine, so I fought for my rights because I was stubborn. She had no right to control me at sixteen and seventeen years old.

'Eventually, my counselor saw that our once a week or two wasn't working, because I never had anything to talk about, so she moved it to once a month. Again, you freaked out, because you apparently thought that I had a whole lot of problems. Maybe I do, but not things that a counselor could help me with. I remember one time I slept over to a friend's and missed a counselor meeting at my house. You went nuts, filling their answering machine with messages when my own counselor said that being with my friends was what was BEST for me. You've always made things so damn difficult. Why, I will never know, but it made me even more irritated with you.'

She thought the darkness inside could be cured by seeing a counselor often, it seems. She couldn't accept that I am who I am and my closeness to the dark may never stop. Frankly, I never want it to. I like writing dark, and I like my twisted thoughts. She attempted to make me ashamed of them; make me think I was sick because she truly though I was, but I'm not.

'When I was sixteen, Robert and I had sex for the first time. We used a condom, and he thought it broke, so we had to wait at emergency for the morning after pill...for five hours or more. At first, you didn't suspect a thing because we were good at lying...but Robert left the drug bag on the fucking table. My biggest mistake was trying to lie about it. You then found out about our relationship, and you blew up. You kept asking me why I didn't tell you. Thinking about it angers me; thinking about anything to do with you angers me. Do you know why? Because you were stupid enough to believe that I would tell you after you threatened to take him away from me. How could you possibly think I'd tell you a damn thing when your way around things was to threaten me? I'm just glad you didn't ban him....At least I never got pregnant. You have to expect lies when all you do is threaten me.'

She kept bringing up how I lied to her face weeks after this was over...so that's the main action that drove her to freak out over this. The other is clear; we had had sex under her roof, and we'd been intimate for over a year and she had had no idea, and I continuously lied to her about it to keep us safe. She couldn't accept our feelings or our relationship.

'It took you two years to acknowledge the fact that Robert and I were a couple. You didn't want to believe it, and you refused us the right to show our affection to one another. We wouldn't have shown any in front of you, but you went as far as forbidding us to even kiss under your roof. It didn't stop us, but doesn't that show how open-minded you are? You even made me leave my door open so you could 'keep an eye on us', not that it lasted long.'

I remember her calling my counselor, freaking out over Robert and I and continuously telling her 'It's wrong.' All my counselor said was that it was my decision. She acted this way because Robert and I are first cousins, and because she felt she couldn't trust me after lying to her a whole year and a half.

'You weren't even there on my eighteenth birthday. You slept over to a friend's and didn't come home 'til the evening. On my seventeenth birthday, you were over to Lorraine's. Even on Christmas Eve and Day, you weren't there one year. You hate Christmas. Every year, you've managed to ruin it for me somehow since we moved. Not only that, but one year when I was at my grandmother's with Robert, you called and screamed at me to come home and take down the tree. Before I got there, you'd already done it, and you'd broken my favorite Christmas ornament; one my grandparents on my dad's side gave me before we moved.'

I didn't do anything for her to choose to not be there on such important days. Truth be told, I didn't care about her being there. Usually parents care about these things though. I don't remember why she hates Christmas. Something to do with her own family or something. She's always ruined Christmas for me by either trying too hard to make it perfect, getting upset for not opening my presents straight away, or not letting me decorate the tree, because I ALWAYS decorated the tree. That was my job. She broke my ornament out of carelessness, because she was pissed with me not being there to take down the tree.

'Another is during April of last year, while I was in grade 12 (level three). I was talking to people online, and you came barging in, screaming about the dishes as usual...and you suddenly pulled the conversation over to Robert part of the way. I don't remember much of the argument, but I remember how you told me to turn off the computer, and that I would not be allowed to use the phone either, for the whole night. I told you that if you did that, I wouldn't have anything to stop me from giving into cutting...because I had given it up, but still got the urge strongly. You told me to go ahead, that you didn't care. You eventually told me to pack my bags and leave.

You told me I had 'til Monday to decide whether I would follow your rules, or whether I would get out. I left again because I couldn't handle it.'

I didn't do the dishes. She got sick of me 'disrespecting' her, so she was beyond caring about if I killed myself that night or whatever. She said so herself. And no matter how cold I am, those words hit me the most. Those are the kind of words I NEVER forget. This is why there is nothing left. In any case, she couldn't get her way with me turning off the computer, and she was sick of not having the kind of authority she wanted, so she told me to leave.

'I was studying for exams that same year, and you'd been away the whole week. When you came home, you screamed at me because we didn't do the dishes. When I was studying for my Biology final exam, you were only worried about your kitchen.'

I didn't do the dishes or any cleaning the whole week because I was spending all of my time studying, so the place was a mess.

'After that year, and I got my final report card, I remember it being the first ever report card where I actually passed every subject. That was one day that I actually expected your approval. I expected you to hug me and tell me you were proud of me, because it was the first year out of three in high school that I actually passed all seven subjects. Robert was proud of me...but when I showed you, you made no reaction whatsoever. You put it down and called someone. You didn't say anything to me, even though you claimed you did when I brought it up. You have a habit of twisting things around to suit you. I don't do that. The most important thing to you was your phone at all times.'

She doesn't have the best memory in the world, but also, she seemed to feel as if the person she wanted to call was more important than my accomplishment. I can't think of anything I could have done for her to act that way.

'It wasn't until the midterms that things really got bad. I hadn't studied for my midterms at all, and do you know why? Because you wouldn't stop screaming at me about house chores the entire time, even though you knew those exams were important. I told you I needed to study, and you told me in return that you didn't care.'

Again with the housework. She screamed at me the entire time because she was fed up with me not helping her around the house, so she didn't care about my midterms.

'Of course, when I told you, you then accused me of blaming ALL of my failures on you. I only blame people for what they have caused. I can't very well STUDY if you are constantly coming in and out of my room, screaming at me.'

Telling her that it was her fault I failed my math exam obviously gets into her head that I blamed all of my failures on her, when I never ever did.

'After that, not even a year's difference, we got into yet another argument, where you threatened to kick me out again. I remember vaguely about you threatening to call the cops and drag me out. I remember saying I had nowhere to go, and you telling me that that wasn't your problem. And you were kicking me out because I wasn't doing chores around the house. You even started to urge me to hurt you, and you told me that if I tried, you would call the cops on me. One time when I shut the door on you, you hurt your arm, and you accused me of abuse.'

This speaks for itself. More not doing chores, more disrespecting, more ignoring, more not listening, more not taking her feelings into consideration, etc...Also, she has said that I'm just like my father, who used to abuse her. She seems to think her hurting her arm because she wouldn't let me shut the door is a hint that I'm going to abuse people in my late thirties.

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This is Part 2 of My Dear Mom Letter. This is to point out both of our mistakes, the reasons I think she might've done what she did, and how I influenced those Actions. If you are not close to me, I really don't care what you think. This is part of my healing; showing myself. If you think I'm a terrible daughter, fine. I don't need to satisfy you, and I'm not going to be someone I'm not, or hide who I am anymore. If you who do not know me don't like it, I don't care.