Currently not speaking to my mom, here is why, am i right in doing so?

[brown06]

I know its a huge no-no not to speak to your mom, something i dont take lightly but hear me out. Its a really long story so I will break it up into my childhood, early adulthood, and present.

 

Childhood, my earliest memories of my mother are of her long fingernails pushing into my wrists and making them bleed while she slaps me on the bed, i was about 3. She would get on top of me and watch the fingernails go in until she saw blood and then she'd begin to wail on me.

 

I wasnt close to her at all, always was my dads little girl, all I really recall was not wanting to be alone with her. So at age 7 they divorced and somehw....my mom got full custody

 

I think of the next 11 years as basically a prison. The physical and emotional torture...all my sister and i ever heard was how she never wanted to be a mother, how she wished she never had us, what a horrible burden we were, what a waste of life my father was.

 

My sister she cuddled with and lved on, my sister is younger than me, and she told me i was the hateful one, the ugly one, and she would beat me within an inch of my life and then go play nice and loving with my sister and buy my sister things.

 

In the mornings she beat my head with a brush until my head would bleed, once i ran out the apartment when this was happening, she chased me and then got me back, threw me down and kicked and stomped on me until i couldnt walk.

 

She was also never really home, which i loved bc when she was she would hit me always, she was always out at clubs drinking and partying and would cme home and have loud sex with random men.

 

I spent so many nights crying wishing my mom would want to just be with me. We couldnt leave during the day without her and during the day shed sleep the whole time and we couldnt make a peep, i couldnt even watch TV with any volume bc she would come out screaming and hitting me, so I would sit around all day and watch the TV on silent.

 

She rarely fed us, I had to learn how to cook and basically raised my little sister from age 7 on.

 

When i turned 13 I hit a very awkward phase and overheard my aunts talking about my ugliness, and i was an idiot and went to my mom for reassurance....

 

BOMB EXPLOSION. The abuse got 80 times worse. I was the reason she was a failure, i was the reason she was embarrassed to be around her family, etc etc. So we all went to church together (the entire family) and before sundays my mom ritualistically attacked me and spent hours screaming and beating me. It didnt stop at the church in the parking lot she would bang my head over and over into the dashboard and kick me on the pavement as family members looked and did nothing. Then bc i was crying too hard in the church we would leave early, shed kick my ass again and then take me to my dads

 

During that time my dad wasnt a stand up guy either, and so they both would fight about which one DIDNT GET ME. They both screamed and screamed until my mom gave up, took me home, had me pack up some things in a duffel bag and would toss me out in some random part of town and drive off.

 

She would leave me there for a while until she returned saying she needed my child support money and the abuse would continue.

 

This kept going until one night she included my sister in the attack, she wanted my sister to tell me tht i was ugly, she believed if my sister told me then i would finally believe it and finally change somehow into NOT being ugly....my sister....god bless her, wouldnt do it.

 

My mom started in on her, started threatening to hurt her, started grabbing her, durnig all these years my sister had been innocent to all the horrible stuff my mom did to me, she had been spared. NOW she was a target....I couldnt allow that, It was my breaking point.

 

I went to the kitchen and got a knife, i stood there with it, not knowing wht to do when she came in and told me to put it away, i made her promise not to hurt either of us, she did, she left to her room and that was the end so i thought....

 

 

The next day she called her entire family over to say i pulled a knife on her and that she wanted me out of the house, i was relieved someone was going to take me....but no one did, not even my own father, instead they commended her on her patience and shamed me for what?? Holding a knife in a kitchen and not putting it down? ugh i still..ugh

 

So for a while the abuse stopped until a year later she tried it again and i threw her to the ground and said something like "try it, im not that little kid anymre" and she got scared and left me alone

 

 

During HS i was very smart, honors student, editor of the newspaper, yearbook, magazine, and my mom always tried to make me quit, she was convinced i was having sex with boys. WHAT? Luckily my dad stepped in and never allowed her to take it away from me. But one time she arranged for her crazy religious family to perform an exorcism on me to take the devil out....I have no words for how that felt....

 

When i was 16 she met a man and got pregnant to try to keep him. He abused her and wrecked his car in anger when he discovered she was pregnant. During times he was ver my mom wouldnt allow me in the house, she would literally have me wait outside in the dark and call my dad to come get me. When she delivered the baby all I know is my mom didnt come home for 3 days and we were left without food and had to call our dad to get us. she came back with a baby. I thought shed died in a ditch.

 

When i was 18 I got a full scholarship to an ivy league school and came out to my mom as gay. She stopped speaking to me for 5 years but not before beating me and calling me until 4 am and screaming i was a faggot and would burn in hell and then calling my dad to tell him that and then pounding on my dads house screaming faggot and throwing things at the windows.

 

During the 5 years she would decide when she wanted to speak to me, and when she wanted to re-hate me again and take me out of her life. I always let her come back into my life when she wanted bc my dad told me to and i love him.

 

When my sister turned 16 my mom remarried with some guy from a trailer park who worked part-time at subway and had 3 young kids. After 2 weeks he moved in and they married. He eventually got my sister kicked out and during that time we discvered he was hoarding my sisters underwear and watching porn about stepdaughter incest.

 

She threw my sisters items in a trash bag and left them on the front sidewalk for her to pick up.

 

 

Im sorry i have to walk my dog, be back to write part 2

[Balzac]

Welcome to LS. This is a great place to vent and share. I see you're IVY 06--congrats. Your story thus far is compelling in it's horror and your survival is a miracle. It's an amazingly intimate share, thanks and I await verse 2.

[brown06]

Ok early adulthood,

 

When i was 19 I was home frm college for the summer and noticed my mom was violently abusing my 2/3 year old brother, shaking him, throwing him to the ground, leaving him alone for hours on end while she stalked her ex around town. I was really worried about his well being and angry about all the people that saw my abuse and did nothing, so I called CPS

 

CPS did nothing they determined his bruises couldnt be verified to be from my mom, and not only that the CPS agent told my mom that someone in her immediate family had reported her.

 

My mom stopped speaking to both my sister and I for a while after that and she went on and lived with her new husband and my sister went to college and i was away living on the east coast.I graduated from brown and no one was able to attend. My dad tried and didnt have the cash so he sent my sister to go, my mom didnt even try or call me or care. To work so hard and have no one there except my little sister, well it had always been a dream of mine that people would get together just that once.

I moved to NYC and went to grad school.

I got into a LTR and my mom started a rumor that I had aids. So I emailed her and said until she can fully accept who I am and accept my girlfriend, 2 years later my grandfather (her father) died and she told me she realized life was short and she wanted to make things right between us. She accepted my GF and even had her over for the holidays

 

When i reconnected with her I discovered something HORRIBLE. My mom was really exceedingly loving to me, to the point it made me extremely uncomfortable but I now had 3 step brothers....who were....treated worse than my imagination couldve thought possible....

 

the 3 young boys were treated like prisoners, in every way, they couldnt leave their room, they couldnt eat with my mom or her husband or my little brother, and my mom even hid all the food from them. She put all her nutritional food in her bedroom and had a lock blocking their access. The food the kids had access to was the follwing: Ramen noodles and water. Literally that was all that was in the fridge. All that ive ever seen in years.

 

One christmas we were there and she told me that the boys werent allowed to have christmas that year bc they had attitude with her. So we opened our gifts while they sat in their rooms. They werent allowed dinner. One little boy snuck out and started eating our food from the trash. My mom found him eating out of the trash and began screaming to her husband "HES EATING OUT OF THE TRASH AGAIN" and they sent him away screaming at him and my mom complaining.

 

Now instead of "I never wanted to be a mother" her line is "I never wanted to be a step mother" She often says she doesnt want the kids there, she has tried to get rid of them more than once, even trying to make him give the kids up to the state. Their real mom is a druggie who took off with a trucker and her whereabouts arent known. My mom blames this woman for all her issues with the kids. but they are decent kids...

 

The house: Her house is falling apart....I mean...getting eaten alive by termites. The roof is caved in, the walls are caved in and peeled, u can literally touch apiece of the wall and it will crumble. The place is full of roaches and mice, so much so that my mom had to throw away all her dishes bc they were so laiden with roach poop stains. Then her kitchen stopped working and she had to do dishes out of her bathroom sink.

 

She makes 40k a year and her husband gets some oil checks adding about 20k a year. at 60k in a small texas town....they should be able to do sometihng for the house, but instead they spend the money on going out to eat, her manicures, pedicures, hairstyles, clothes, and his love of video games and all that technology. While he house was eaten alive like this. I kid you not. She went out and bought a new bedroom.

 

 

Whenever we come into town she gets angry we wont stay with her. Her house makes my skin crawl with terror. 1 christmas the lightbulb in her livingroom was broken so we had xmas in the dark. the next xmas that lightbulb hadnt been changed still, so we had another xmas in the dark....

 

 

Since her father has died my mother has been nice to me, shes apologized about things, but she is still a horrible person to her step children. She says she has changed but if anything it seems worse. She is also now very mean to my sister. Now shes nice to ME and mean to my sister.

 

The last straw was when my sister came into town for thanksgiving and bc my sister hadnt texted her until the day before thanksgiving to see what the plans were, my mom blew her off, told her not to bother coming over as they werent having thanksgiving and then told her that they were "Canceling" xmas this year. Then my mom emailed me and told me that my sister had ignored her during thanksgiving and my sister has emotional problems.

 

So i emailed her and i told her that she hasnt changed, i cant be around her for a while and she needs intensive therapy, and that she cannot expect to be nice to me and horrible to everyone else and just get away with it.

 

She then called all of us (sister, dad, me, my girlfriend) on aloop leaving angry voicemails. Then a week later she texted me like nothing was wrong and told me that her house has gaping holes in it and that for xmas they are just going to take wrapping paper over the holes and have xmas anyway.

 

I told her she couldnt act like nothing was wrong and reiterated she needs therapy and she was too toxic to be around.

 

I asked my dad to please not make me speak to my mother anymore and he agreed but i can tell it still bothers him that im not speaking to her. His mother died when he was 18 and the day before she died she had asked him to pray with him bc she had a bad feeling abut the next day, everyone prayed with her but him and he told her she was crazy. So i think alot of that is guilt, he told me he never said he loved his mother until her funeral.

[brown06]

Im 28, I work with kids nw as my job and my mom always seems amazed at my patience and loving attitude for children and thats what gets me more than anything....

 

She knows VERY well that she tried to ruin me, that she tried to turn my heart black.

 

For a long time I told myself well she just had a tough life, she had a bad marriage break up, she was broke, she was stressed, no one is perfect...

 

but lately I relived it all for the first time recently and i was horrified by the manipulation, the consistent immorality of it, none of this was just a hasty reaction to stress, instead some of it even seemed plotted.

 

I dont want to wake up one day and wish Id worked things out with my mom, and If i truly believed she could be a person who isnt icky on every level, then Id stay around. I want to help her but I honestly dont see any way to change her, she is 50 years old and seems set in her really disgusting ways.

 

I dnt know how I survived any of it and didnt end up on drugs or some prison block but truly seeing for the first time my life story with her....all I know is I dnt ever want someone like that around me again and that breaks my heart to realize she will never be anywhere near the person I hoped shed be.

[Balzac]

Have you had and continue in therapy?

[brown06]

Yes ive been in therapy often, my last counselor who knew both my parents, told me to never come back to my hometown bc the love my mother had for me was only hatred and there was nothing for me to gain from her. She literally said "never come back here"

 

I live in LA now but I do go home for the holidays, mostly to be with my dad who has changed quite a bit and is wonderful.

 

Since ive moved to LA i havent been in counseling, money has been tight but i want to start again very soon.

[Balzac]

In all honesty, after reading this 3X, save yourself. Do whatever you must to heal, hope for enough healing to have a healthy intimate relationship and career.

 

You cannot change your mom. Send her a birthday card & gift, Mothers Day, Christmas and call it good enough.

 

I cannot imagine your return visits to TX.

I pray that Brown educated you for free or very low cost. My father is Brown '66. The fervent hope of every alum contributor to scholarship funds is to read a story like your's. A smart kid, needing an opportunity, who repays society by working with kids.

 

Listen to your previous therapist.

[brown06]

Thank you so much for your words and kind ear. I was educated for very nearly free by Brown, 4 years 12k debt the rest paid by scholarship, they were very generous and are even more so now. Now when a kid enters in my income level, they get to graduate debt free!! I love Brown, it saved my life in so many ways, I can never repay the generosity they showed me. My regards to alums and friends like you

[Balzac]

Short answer to your question: You are right in doing so.

 

I'm only suggesting cards/gift IF you feel compelled. I would not accept calls, voice mails nor other contact from her.

[Balzac]

Thank you so much for your words and kind ear. I was educated for very nearly free by Brown, 4 years 12k debt the rest paid by scholarship, they were very generous and are even more so now. Now when a kid enters in my income level, they get to graduate debt free!! I love Brown, it saved my life in so many ways, I can never repay the generosity they showed me. My regards to alums and friends like you

 

Great to hear but 12 Grand is still a burden if working in the public interest. I'm aware of the new debt policies. It's heartwarming to hear you attribute such accolades to Brown.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Balzac
Almost wasn't going to here but I'm IVY three degrees.

[shoesies05]

The only people that deserve to be in your life are the one's that have earned it.

 

Your mother did not earn it- and you are making the right choice by not contacting her.

[shoesies05]

Also- while it may not seem like the easiest option: have you considered reporting her abuse to your step-brothers? I think that's something you should consider as well. They could have a shot at a better life (although IDK how old they are now)