A Mother's Prisoner

Surprise, I'm having a bad day. Woke up and out of no where my mind is in a bad place. No dreams, or event happened. Nothing triggered me, instead it just popped up. This is the worst kind of mental anguish in my opinion, because I don't get a chance to sidetrack it or try to save myself from falling into the pit. Instead, I wake up and there I am. At the bottom of my world looking up from the pitch-darkness.

Today, it seems, is random memory day. My thoughts appear to be focused on random moments in my life that sucked. The first thing that came to mind when I woke up this morning was how nice and cool it was compared to yesterday. Yep, like we thought summer came without spring having anything to do with it, and it's been hot. Hot, hot! We don't have AC, only a window unit we put in when we can no longer stand the temperature. It's far too early to put it in now, and I told myself I could handle the heat.

Growing up we never had AC, well once, but that didn't last long. Instead, if we were lucky, we had window units but for the most part we suffered through it. I was the worst off in the house because my brother and sister got to go to their father's where they had AC. Dani got to go to work where there was AC. Me, I stayed home during the summer in the insanely hot house trying everything to stay cool. I lived too far off in the middle of nowhere to visit friends, so I suffered through the muggy hot summers. Then I remembered how the year after I moved out Dani suddenly decided to splurge on central air.

Yep, she went through the whole process of getting a unit put in, ducks put in, the whole nine yards. Funny considering the summer she had it done was the mildest I ever remembered, but she stated she couldn't handle the heat anymore. We lived in that house for more than 6 years, and suddenly she couldn't stand the summer heat. I know it's reaching and I shouldn't feel like she got it done just because I moved out, but the mind does tend to wander.

Then there is the fact that the second I moved out and was no longer paying for the cable internet, Dani suddenly had the money to pay for the internet. Along with a full cable package she refused to get for more than 15 years. Yes, that's right people. I went through my teenage years with no cable or local access TV because there was no single where we lived. No news, no shows, the only thing I had to fall back on were movies. Ones I often watched on repeat. Her reasoning for never paying for cable was, “if we had cable you would be a lazy bump.”

I guess she didn't want to lose her live-in housekeeper/babysitter/everything.

Okay, maybe I'm reaching with both of those but it still stings a little. I never understood why Dani was against these things when I lived there, but was all for them when I moved out. Odd, right?

Now add in the hornet incident.

I'm allergic to wasps, more so than the average person. wasps have powerful stings anyways, but when I get stung I swell up super bad. Stung in the right spot and I'm in the ER. So when something goes buzz around me, I FREAK!!! (I was stung a lot as a little kid, so irrational fear of intense pain is stuck in my head.)

Taking that into account, both my fear and allergy, when we moved into our big blue house I was given two options. Take the biggest bedroom and share with my sister, or take the smallest room for myself. I took the smallest room. While my sister never slept in her own room, like ever, she tends to let it turn into something that's right out of hoarders. I shared a room with her for years, not going through that aggravation again. Especially not since I was getting ready to go to college and she was only just starting middle school.

Without complaint I took the smallest room, which wasn't even really a room. My bedroom was an upstairs porch the former owners had enclosed for a very small play room. Yep, no insulation in that bad boy, and it slanted to the one side for water run off. My bed barely fit in the small space, but I didn't care. It was better than sharing with my sister. I would have lived in a closet before I shared a room with her again.

Fast-forward a few years, I'm dating the guy that would later be my husband. I'm in the middle of finishing college, working on finals late into the night. Working full-time to pay mine and my mother's bills, and out of no where the largest fucking bee (I classify wasps, bees, ect as bees) I've ever seen starts attacking my overhead light. It was strange for many reasons.

One, it was almost midnight. What bee is out at night? At first I thought it was a big bumble bee, but it was far too big. Yes, it was that freaking BIG! I went to Dani to have her kill it but she refused, so my brother's friend who was staying over killed it for me. After that heart-attack inducing moment I went back to work, and thought nothing more of it. Okay, that's a lie. I thought about it enough to have paranoia for awhile.

Then another one showed up a few days later, and another, and another. Dani would kill one for me, my brother got a few, and finally when my boyfriend killed one he doubted it was a bee. He spent a whole weekend looking for the nest that had to be close by if they kept getting into my room. He found it, in the outer corner of my room in the hollows of the wall. They were going between my wall and the house siding, and had a nice little nest. I told my mom about it, and my fear because I am allergic. Last thing I wanted was to get stung in the middle of the night and have to be rushed to the ER.

She didn't care. Told me I was being over-dramatic about the situation. She also wouldn't let me sleep downstairs on the couch, even though my brother and sister did all the time. I was trapped in a HUGE bee infested room. It got so bad that I started having night-terrors. Yes, at 22 I was having night-terrors due to stress. Still Dani didn't give two shits.

It wasn't until one of them got into her room that she called someone to come look at the nest. You know, because what if one stung my sixteen year old sister's baby. Can't have the baby getting stung. Didn't matter that I had been living in fear for weeks.

The pest guy came out, looked at the nest and said, “Those aren't bees they are European Hornets, which are a cross between a yellow jacket and a hornet.” In general, nasty fuckers. They are nocturnal hence me not being able to work on class work at night because my light attracts them. They eat other bugs that swam lights during the night. They are also hot tempered and they not only sting but bite like a mother.

Yes, the girl that has a serve reaction to stings is living with a large nest of some of the nastiest bastards in the world in the corner of her room. Dani still thinks to this day I over-reacted about the whole thing. My husband assures me that wasn't the case, that I was valid in my stress and even diminished how much this event affected me. Needless to say after that Dani began a summer long campaign to rid the house of these jerks. Not for me, no. It was to protect her grandson. That hurts, more than words can say.

There are other situations much the same. Like for the longest time the roof leaked into my bedroom. It got so bad that my one wall would turn into a waterfall if it rained just right. I told my mom and she brushed it off. So I took matters into my own hands and put buckets up in the attic above my room. Problem was it would leak from a new spot every rainstorm, so I had to keep going up and adjusting the buckets. Dani would yell at me when I did that, told me I was making a big deal out of nothing. I guess it didn't bother her that the wall that the water was running down was the same one my computer cables were at. Since my room only had one electrical plug it wasn't like I could move it. Instead I went to work or class worrying about ran, and if my room would catch fire or short-out because of the leaks. Once Dani's room started leaking she pushed to have the whole thing replaced.

The windows in my room were old, heavy wood, with glass that didn't fit right into the frame. They were tricky to open, tricky to keep open, and even worse to close. Couldn't slam them closed because the glass might break so you had to push from the top while supporting it from the bottom to ease them down. One morning the window slipped and my finger got wedged. I was stuck and everyone had left the house for the day. The windows were too heavy to push open with one hand, and even if I could my finger being wedged made the window close tighter than ever. It was with a boost of adrenaline caused by pure pain that allowed me to open the thing. Luckily my finger wasn't broken, but my nail and finger were badly hurt. I had to take care of it myself, and when I suggested some of the contractors I worked with at the local hardware store could replace my windows for a few cases of beer, she said no. I even offered to pay for it out of my small earnings.

Two months later she let a salesman talk her into replacing the downstairs windows for an insane price. Then she got her own bedroom windows replaced. The summer after I moved out (I moved out in December) she replaced the windows in my room, even though no one was currently using the room. She did plan to turn it into a sowing room for herself though.

There are so many more moments like this in my life. I can't begin to count the times Dani has called me overly dramatic. I often thought there was something wrong with me, that I was too emotional for the world—defective. I believed I was a drama queen, overacting at every turn. It's only now I'm learning I wasn't, still I struggle with it. When I get upset I wonder if I'm justified in my feelings or if I'm overacting. I question my own emotions every damn day, and it sucks.

I'm even questioning myself right now, as I write this. Thinking over the past, am I overacting? Am I letting something that is nothing get to me? Am I just being pathetic or am I justified in feeling emotionally shitty? Did I do the right thing cutting my mom out of my life?

I struggle with that one most of all, especially this time of the year.

It was drilled into me we never turn our backs on family. Family is blood, blood is everything. It doesn't matter what family does, you stick with them. Is that the right mentality to have, though?

Am I being a low-life daughter for breaking free?

Am I being selfish for thinking of my own mental health?

The healing part—the rational part—of me says, no. I have every right to feel and do the things I've done. That I'm better for cutting ties and accepting Dani is no mother, but the other part that has been held captive by a woman that should have never had children. Tells me I'm an awful human being. That I'm an awful daughter. Evil. Hateful. . . The lowest form of life in the world. A disgrace, undeserving of my life, and from there I begin to hate myself. I loath each breath I take, because I was taught to—I was trained to—by a monster of a woman that still holds my mind prisoner.

#Prisoner #ChildAbuse #Neglect #SelfHate

~Jax~