Welcome to my life. As an introduction, I would like to say that a lot of my life was not as messed up as these moments that I will be sharing. I will not be using any actual names except mine (I really don't want anyone getting upset with me for writing honestly about them). I will not go through every single moment of my entire 22 years, but I will be pointing out the moments that shaped me into the person I am and who I want to be. So read on if you dare, down the rabbit hole of my life.
****
I don't remember most of my childhood. Not because of how little I was and how hard it is to remember those times, but because my brain chose to block out most of those memories. I did have a great childhood. Most of the memories that I do have are playing barbies with my sister and swinging on the swings in our backyard. My worst memories were retold by either my dad or my sister, whoever remembered them. The only semi-bad memory I have before the age of 7 was when my dad got his new red car. (I don't know names of cars so, to humor my family, it was a small car)
He had just brought the car home and I got in the backseat to check it out. There was a stick between the driver's seat and the passenger seat (a gearshift) but I didn't know what it did. I was in the backseat and I pulled this stick toward me as hard as I could. This shifted the car into reverse which freaked out my mom and caused my dad to run to the car and put it back to park. After that day I was never allowed in the car without being accompanied by an adult. After 7, the worst memory I have before 11 is being spanked by my mother when I was 10. I know it doesn't seem like much, because most kids get spanked, but my mother had promised never to lay a hand on me. She was very upset after she did it but it was such a traumatic memory and, because I was older, I remembered it.
The reason I don't remember most of my childhood, other than being little, was because my mother emotionally abused me. We don't talk anymore, but I'll come back to that later. When my sister and I were children, she would purposely try to make us cry. You know how you love a song on the radio, so you play it a million times until you hate it? Well my mother would play our "favorite" song a million times until we were crying for her to turn it off.
My mother had trained my sister and me to believe that our feelings, wants, and needs didn't matter. Her wants, needs, and feelings were the only things that mattered. The best way to describe this is stories of what happened when my sister and I were kids. One year, we needed new school clothes because we had grown out of our old ones. We asked our mother to take us to buy us new clothes, but she said she didn't have enough money. This was after my parents got divorced so she was getting money from my dad for child support. So our dad bought us new clothes and the next week our mother had a new tv. The same thing happened when I asked her for money to pay for college. She said she couldn't help and then bought a new car.
My dad divorced her when I was 10 and my sister was 8. I knew it was coming, too. I remember it was a summer day and my parents were talking in a corner of the yard. I pulled my sister aside and told her that they were about to tell us they were getting a divorce. I always tried to act strong for my sister since I was the older one. I was technically the mother figure in our house.
My sister was also strongly affected by my mother. My mother and I normally fought all the time, but not my sister and her. My sister had a point in her life where I called her "mommy's little pet", like a teacher's pet. I called her this name because she would agree with everything my mother would say. This made life somewhat easier for her because they never fought, however this had a different mental effect on her in the future because of it.
There were times after the divorce when my mother would ask me what she did wrong. The problem was, my brain blocked out most of the traumatic events in my childhood, so I didn't really had much to go off. I could only remember events that happened recently. I hate to say that these events with her happened so often that I always had at least one example. This relationship that I had with my mother strongly affected my future relationships and is still affecting me today. I suppose I should be glad that my younger self blocked out those traumatic experiences, but sometimes I wonder what happened. If anyone ever comes up with a memory recovery machine like in "Meet the Robinsons", give me a call, I'd love to try it out.
The relationship between my mother and I has been very on and off and at the moment it is off. For now I'll leave that as it is but I will be returning to the ups and downs of this messed up relationship between mother and daughter.