Letter to my Abusive Mother
There is a hole in my chest where your love was supposed to reside. I miss a version of you that only existed in flashes. Maybe that's why I spend hours working myself into a state of exhaustion in the kitchen, and leave with a sense of pride for the burns on my arms and aches in my bones. I miss your softness after I broke. My worst moments hold my best memories of you.
Do you remember that conversation in the living room, a week after J got diagnosed, where I cried and begged you to let me rest? I remember how I felt humiliated and degraded and so ashamed that I let myself break under the stress. I remember being relieved because you finally saw the weight that I had been carrying for months. I remember being relieved because you criticized me less for the rest of that day. I remember feeling dirty, knowing that I had earned the reprieve because I disgraced myself in front of you.
I have never been a human being to you, and I'm sorry for trying to pretend I was. I felt safer with your hands around my throat than I do in this house with no threats. I can't sleep because I'm still afraid of the way you'd wake me up. I lay in my bed and shake and see visions of you I thought I'd scrubbed from my brain. I spend a minute in paralyzing fear when I open my eyes in the morning before remembering I don't have to earn my right to my own body here. There is a feeling of loss when I shake the sleep from my brain and look around at my shitty Facebook marketplace furniture. You hated me, but you needed me. No one needs me anymore. The survival skills I learned from living with you don't transfer into any situation I've encountered so far.
I actually can't make myself care about any of this shit because nothing could be worse than what you put me through every day of my life. I don't care about living in poverty and not knowing if I have enough money for food because you sent me to the woods to be starved for months while hiking through the desert. I can't be assed to give a shit about the pain I'm in constantly because you didn't stop when I was in pain, or sick, or grieving, you stopped when it became visible and got worse after because I made you feel bad. I don't care about how other people feel because you used up all of my ability to give a shit. I care about what happens to me because of how other people feel, but if they don't do anything essential for me then I don't give a shit. I don't care about anything if it doesn't benefit me anymore.
I used to be kind. All of my parent-teacher conferences included a part about my empathy and understanding. You didn't just rob me of years of my life, you robbed me of the ability to care about it all. I'm not even angry, I simply feel nothing at all. I'm not suicidal, but I am deeply depressed. I cannot imagine a better life, even one where I don't exist at all. I lay in wait for the next abuser to take your place and give my life color again. Reality is boring when you've spent your whole life in the vibrant colors of black and blue.