What I Don't Talk About

There are things that are intensely personal to me, so I haven't shared them.  Not because I don't want to, but because I haven't figured them out enough yet to really talk about them.  Today, however, one of those things popped into my head and I thought that maybe I was ready to share it.  It's about my origins in a general sense, but mostly it's why I stopped talking to my mother.

I'm not going to give you the background first, because if most people read that first they might wonder why I was even speaking to my mother at all, during any point in my life.  I'll start with the current situation.  I stopped taking my mother's calls about a year and a half ago.  It wasn't really a conscious decision, but whenever the phone rang and I saw who it was, I just couldn't force myself to answer it.  She was absolutely the last person I wanted to talk to.  I was angry, or irritated, or something.  I was at about the lowest point of my life, particularly financially, and as much money as my mother and step-father might have to spare I just could not stomach the thought of ever asking them for another cent, or them knowing how bad things were (okay that part might have been pride, but if they'd offered I'd have had to refuse and it would've made me angry enough to tell them exactly why I didn't want their money).

You might think it was pride, but it wasn't that at all.  It was disgust, and it wasn't with myself.  I would really rather have been homeless than take money from them, because I knew the attitude that lived behind it.  It was an attitude of a total lack of understanding for anything anyone else in the world went through.  There was a sense of smugness that they weren't afflicted like others in this world, and the opinion that they owed the world absolutely nothing.  A few hundred thousand dollars tucked away, and great benefit plans, along with a house that's completely paid off can, apparently, give you a lot of smugness.

I could no longer run my business when my body started to work against me.  It's not just that I physically can't run it, because with a lot of painkillers I could probably do that.  The problem comes with the painkillers making me sick, and then the load of anti-nauseants I have to take to counteract the painkillers.  Between the two of them, my will and ability to do anything lasts about half an hour before I'm in Neverland again.  So I'm now on disability.

It was shortly after my first surgery that I stopped talking to my mother.  She got all gung-ho about coming out when I had the surgery, which was absolutely the last thing I wanted from her.  (They live pretty much on the other side of the country.)  She hadn't been there for me in the year preceding the surgery, and I wasn't going to be any worse off after the surgery than I had already been, so what was the point?  My daughter was the one who got me through that time, and quite frankly my daughter can't stand my mother or step-father either.  It didn't take much convincing to get my mother to change her mind, either.

I say 'first surgery' because I still require two more, which will entail me being completely unable to walk for about six months after each surgery.  Yippee.  The first surgery was nothing.  They just had to remove my tailbone so I could sit in a chair again.  I still have to have both hips repaired.  There are tears in the joints, as well as misshapen bones, caused by really bad training techniques while I was a competitive figure skater as a child.  Each hip has to be done separately, so I can at least use crutches to get to the bathroom.  Otherwise I will require complete immobilization, and most likely a lovely little catheter or something.  Another yippee.

So, back to the weird situation with my mother.  Shortly after I stopped taking her calls we moved.  It wasn't by choice, really, as the situation had gotten pretty bad.  My ex, who is my friend now, asked us to move in at his mom's place until we got on our feet again.  It took a while, but we're in our own place again and have been for a few months.  Things are still really tight with money, but we're getting by.  The rent is cheaper here, and my daughter and I are somewhat miserly anyway.  Sure, there are things we want, but until the financial landscape improves we're not stupid enough to spend money on them.  We're happy to be able to get a space heater at the end of the month, that kind of thing.

My mother started looking for me, despite my obvious lack of interest in talking to her.  She called the cops, who for some reason felt it was okay to violate my rights as an adult not to contact her.  They weren't intrusive as far as speaking with me, but they did go to my daughter's former place of work to ask regarding her whereabouts.  All that might have been understandable, until she sent a letter to my ex that was more like a thinly-veiled threat.  She must have watched too many shows about ex-husbands killing their formers spouses or something, because she made it clear she was looking for me and had called the cops.

She called the house where I was staying numerous times, asking my ex's mother to get in touch with her to tell her where I am, etc.  Neither my ex, nor my former mother-in-law, was inclined to give her that information, especially after that letter.  Now, if there was any reason whatsoever to suspect that I was in any danger, or had been subjected to homicidal action, the police would have dealt with it accordingly, but the fact that my daughter's former workplace gave them the information that we'd been alive and well long after we discontinued communications with my mother was enough to convince them it was by choice.  I also changed the address on my driver's licence twice.  I wouldn't be doing that if I were dead.

As for the background, well, my mother left me at my grandparents' when I was four.  She said she'd be back to pick me up 'tomorrow', and then I didn't see her for a few years.  Knowing the nature of my grandparents, as she was raised by them, she had no reason to think I would be properly cared for, and would in fact likely be abused, as I was throughout my entire time living there.  Every few years my mother would show up bearing gifts, and I would ask her when she was taking me back to live with her.  I can't remember what her answer was, as it wasn't quite as traumatic as the first leave-taking, but it was basically an answer to the effect that she couldn't. Time after time my mother chose her men over her child.  The first was some idiot running from the cops, and she ran with him rather than look after her own flesh and blood.

At the age of thirteen I was angry, yet still vulnerable to the idea that my mother might want me around.  Her and her husband came to visit, took me shopping, and then they talked about whether or not I could come live with them.  There was some talk of making arrangements to kidnap me, because my mother had apparently signed over custody of me.  I was thrilled at the idea she might want me back that badly, and willfully ignoring the fact that she wanted me so little she'd actually signed legal documents throwing me away.  In the end my grandmother agreed to let me move away, as I'd become quite the handful, and rather hateful toward them.  Since she'd spent a good portion of her time hitting me, and he had been doing nastier things, it wasn't really surprising that I hated them.  I was already experimenting with drugs, and self-hatred had invaded my life, too.

The three (intermittent) years I actually lived with my mother were not exactly sunshine and roses.  I had issues, unsurprisingly, and despite having hoped my whole life to be reunited with my mother, I also had a great deal of unresolved anger toward the one person who should have been the most protective toward me.  She left me with monsters.  She betrayed me unforgivably.  The fact of the matter is, I was never able to trust her again, no matter how much I pretended otherwise.  Nor could I truly love her.  I didn't have to capacity to love anyone as a mother.  I didn't know how, or what it felt like.  I'd only ever known the twisted feelings I'd grown up with, in a childhood fraught with suicidal thoughts and constant physical and psychological danger.  She taught me how to be a mother, because I knew I could never do to any child what she had done to me, and as much as I wanted to give my daughter the security of extended family, the damage was too severe.  It just took time to catch up with me consciously.

I still haven't sent her a letter, or communicated in any way.  What is there to say?  I could tell her everything I've said here, but my intention isn't to hurt her further, assuming she really has those feeling and isn't putting on a show for her husband or her guilty conscience.  I'm not trying to punish her.  Not now.  I wanted to many years ago, deep in my heart, wanting her to suffer for the pain she caused me, but I mostly just want her to forget I exist now, as she did when I was a child.  I want her to not recognize me if she ever runs into me in person, and I'd rather not run into her at all.  She gave away her children (yes, plural), and so she needs to let them go.  You can never get back what you've thrown away.  During one particularly bad fight with her as a teenager, she told me it was my fault she chose men over me.  Well, I guess everyone's got to have an opinion, even if it is the most self-serving one I've ever heard.