29 january 2023
my anger was systematically stolen from me.
my entire adolescence, my anger has been stolen from me. never allowed to be real.
(vriska says that's what happens when you grow up with a spider lusus 8itch as manipulative as that woman was)
i remember being so fucking angry at her, all the time, having to parent her. having to shush her fucking nuclear temper tantrums. i lived through hell. i lived through fucking hell growing up. and i was always so fucking angry at her but i could never express it because every spare forgotten moment without conflict with her was a fucking treasure. it was so rare. so i wouldn't cause conflict myself even though i fucking hated her and i was so angry at her because i wanted every moment without yelling and bitching to go on for as long as it possibly could.
i remember one night. after school practice. i was 15. there was this other guy that we had agreed to give a ride home since he lived nearby and his parents didn't get off work til like, 9pm, and practice was over at 6:30. so my mom was supposed to show up at 6:30 to pick me up. my friends were leaving practice, a couple of them saw that i was still there at school, they offered me a ride, i said no, my mom's coming, i also have to give a ride back to this guy so no thank you. the folks at practiced dwindled. my mom didn't show up. 6:45, 7pm, 7:15, she wasn't there. i was calling her, over and over again. both phones. using the other guy's phone. my band director came to sit outside with us. she wasn't going to leave until we had a ride home. i used her phone to call my mom, too. voicemail. voicemail. voicemail. voicemail box is full. 7:30, 7:45, 8:00. i didn't even know this guy that well. we were on good terms but we never really talked as friends or anything. he just looked at his phone to pass the time. did i have a phone at this point? i don't think i did. i was calling her off of his phone, off of my band director's phone. 8:15. me and my band director get to talking about classes. i had done engineering last year, but they put me in the beginner section again since they were reworking the program. i thought i might like to do engineering as a career, but i didn't like the new teacher. she asked me if i only liked the class because of the teacher. it was a good question. 8:30, 8:45. called her again. again. voicemail box is full. i didn't have any other family i could think to call. (she hated our family, she isolated me from them so much, she made me think that they didn't care about me because they hated her for being a bitch.) (i probably could have called my aunt.) (i wish i had.) (i felt so alone.) 9:00. the other guy calls his parents. they're on their way.
9:15, and we were sitting out in the dark for nearly 3 hours, and they drop me off at my house. it's night but the door is wide open and the living room lights are on.
my first thought was wondering if she had committed suicide.
i walk in, terrified, i find her lying on the couch unconscious, i wait and see her breathe and i'm relieved and then i am so, so fucking angry.
i take the phone and go out on the porch and call my girlfriend and tell her everything. and i am steaming mad. i'm fucking furious. and she's furious with me. she supported me, she knew how fucking awful it was, yes, that woman was so fucking terrible. my girlfriend and i talked for a while about it. i was so angry. it felt so good to have someone see me and be angry with me.
i went back to my room. after a bit she was roused from her fucking slumber and came in my room. she asked me how i got home. the fucking AUDACITY to have THAT be the FIRST FUCKING THING SHE ASKS ME. She asked me as if she was fucking ACCUSING me. She did not ask with concern, remorse, with regret. She said it like a fucking threat.
She abused me for my ENTIRE CHILDHOOD.
So she shows up in my room and asks me how i got home and i tell her the guy that i was supposed to get home, his parents showed up and brought me home. And I told her first that I didn't want to talk about it that night. That we would talk tomorrow. Nope. She made me talk about it that night. And i was so FUCKING angry and when i tried to express that she shut me down. She was always louder. Always. And she told me she had taken an anxiety pill (a klonopin) and that's why she was asleep.
SHE FUCKING TOOK A SLEEPING PILL BEFORE NEEDING TO PICK ME UP FROM SCHOOL. She KNEW it wasn't just me, but also another guy too. She didn't even have to pick me up every day. 3 days out of 5 I took the bus. But on the rare fucking occasion that it was embarrassing and shameful for me to be left in the dirt, cause it wasn't just me, but another guy caught in the crossfire, THATS when she fucking really ups the ante on how fucking shitty of a parent she always was. SHE WAS A TERRIBLE MOTHER.
I was so angry and she did not fucking APOLOGIZE or take ANY accountability. Nothing. There might have been a sarcastic sorry but there was NO remorse, she was pissed off that I had the audacity to be upset at her.
And my grandma had died. And my grandma was gone. And we had all lived together, the three of us, for my entire childhood, and she was gone, and I think that she would have noticed that I wasn't home. I think she would have woken my mom up and told her to go get me. But she wasn't there. I miss her so much. It's very nearly almost 6 years since she died.
I'm so angry. I'm so angry still. I'm so fucking angry.
The next day my band director asked what had happened. I told her my mom had taken a sleeping pill.
For a long time I was only able to access my anger because it had fucked over that other guy. I was so used to her being shitty, so used to her abuse, that I had lost the ability to be angry for myself. It just wasn't tenable. If I had been angry every time I had the right to be angry I would have been consumed every day by rage. I was powerless. I couldn't spend that much energy. But she had fucked over someone unrelated. I wanted to say innocent, but I WAS INNOCENT TOO. And I deserved a mother. I had a lusus.
And since she had done that I could access my anger, because I was angry for someone else. Same thing about a couple of years back, my friends were in the back seat with me, I "ordered pizza wrong" (hung up and called again), she nearly crashed the car while screaming at me. I was crying. My friends were holding me, we were all terrified. I could be angry at her for that, because she had hurt my friends. But I deserve to be angry for myself.
So for a long time too, honestly only until thinking about it now, I felt so guilty and ashamed. As if I should have known how much of a flake she was and I should have known better than to trust her with responsibility. And I felt ashamed and like that kid's parents would have hated me, or he would have hated me, or as if ANY of it was my fault at ALL. I dunno how he felt (probably not great about the situation) but I was a victim of my mom and I was a victim in the situation, sitting out in the dark for 3 hours, not knowing if she had fucking killed herself, not knowing whether she would come get me. And those parents probably didn't -- no, there's no way they blamed me. It wasn't my fault. They would have known, hey, that kid's mother is not reliable at all, but they saw I was left there too.
But a little part of me had really thought they would have blamed me until I thought through it now.
I'm angry at her for being a terrible abusive scumbag. I'm angry at her for ruining my childhood. I'm angry at her for not giving me a safe stable loving supportive or at least predictable environment to grow up in. I'm so angry.
I have to learn to access my anger more. I think I wrote a year ago about how anger is so hard for me to access, but I have a lot to be angry about. I have to let myself be angry. I deserve it. I deserved so much more than what I got.
I used to really regret that that night was a night where someone was relying on me (no, my mom) for a ride, but today... I'm so fucking grateful I wasn't alone. I don't think my band director could have given me a ride, since she was a school official. I think if she could have given us rides she would have about 2 hours in at least, yknow? But if that other guy wasn't there, I would have had no-one. I didn't remember anyone else's number except for my mom's, anyway, and I didn't have my own phone, no contacts, no way to call friends who may have helped me out. And she was out out out asleep. Door wide open for hours, I guess. I think if I hadn't come home she would have stayed asleep through the night. I would have been stranded. I don't know what would have happened but today, knowing it wasn't my fault, knowing nobody blamed me, knowing it was entirely my mom's fault, I'm glad the other guy's parents showed up and helped me home that night. I'm glad I wasn't alone.
It's hard to admit that I'm glad I wasn't alone, because he was also stranded, but... I needed someone to help me out. It's okay that I needed help. With a mother like her, I needed a lot of help. I still need a lot of help. God that's hard to admit.