A friend sent me a link to this shockingly spot-on list of the 25 Things You Do as an Adult When You’ve Experienced Childhood Emotional Abuse it made me tear up. It was odd timing on his part to send the link - because while I was doing errands that morning I was thinking about how messed up I am and how parents can really fuck us up. I desperately don't want to be the parent that fucks up my kid and I fear I am becoming her.
My parents fed off each other - both physically abusive, my mother more emotionally abusive than my father. I was the oldest - I was the one who had to hold it all together - I was the target of their mental illness. I longed for the weeks when my mother would be hospitalized for her bipolar issues and my father would go "on a drunk" as we called it. Those times meant no hitting, no having to stay in my room where there were no windows, no lights, no books - nothing - for days at a time - only being allowed to use the restroom. Those times meant my dad was happy and we had breakfast at the tavern not far from our house. A bottle of 7 up and a bag of Lay's potato chips - man we thought we were living large. Then my mother would come home - all better - and things would go back to the normal state of hell.
I was always in trouble and I never knew why. I was always saying I'm sorry and I never knew for what. My mother would always make me the culprit - if my father was mad at me - he wouldn't be mad at her. It's funny how you remember the abuse and don't remember what brought it on - I vividly remember my mother hitting my head over and over with a wire hanger -- and then crying and rinsing the blood out in the kitchen sink - I was ten. I didn't know why - but she promised me a coloring book if I didn't tell my father what she had done.
I remember the constant state of fear - of being called a lesbian by my father because my elderly neighbor Ann was someone I wanted to spend time with. I didn't know what that was but I knew from the way he said it - it was bad. As Andrew has been deteriorating and there is lots of screaming and yelling in our home on the weekend, I am thrown right back into that life - of fear and despair.
I am in a state of melancholy this week, feeling not good enough as a writer, an employee, a wife, a parent, a friend. Andrew has had a hellacious year - with so many medication changes and ups and downs - he just wants to get off this ride as do we. When I dole out his medications - some I have to cut in half, some in quarters - I feel like a pharmacy school drop out - fuck that pill just disintegrated, fuck that pill isn't perfectly in half - nothing is ever good enough. When I think about his fits of rage, as he balls up his fist to hit me and or when he calls me a piece of shit or a fucking cunt - I am ten again having the blood rinsed off of my head.
I don't want to turn into that parent that is screaming and wishing that I had made different choices in my life. I don't want to be the parent that hurts her child even in self-defense - while keeping him from running out the front door or grabbing a knife, I don't want to bruise his arms. I want to be hopeful and positive but the times lately have left little room for hope. I'm tired and mad at the world - angry and upset with everything because I can control nothing.
I know these chains are of my own doing. The things I do as an adult are my defense mechanisms that are deeply ingrained and no matter what I do - I know I will never be good enough.
