Love, Emotionally Abused
by Anonymous
What happens when the person you care about the most is also the person you hate the most? What happens when the person who loves you causes you the most pain? With an emotionally abusive mother, the contradiction of pain only brought on plights of more confusion, anxiety, and depression.
It took me almost five years to recognize that my mother was being emotionally abusive to me. Her threats were like weeds, growing from a distorted version of “love”. It’s without a fact that I know my mother loves me, however, the ways in which she expressed her anger were permanently damaging. Her care that went into checking in on me every five minutes to make sure I was studying would morph my concentration into anger and frustration because I was constantly being interrupted from my studies. I would look up from my paper and she would immediately accuse me of looking at her with detest. Immediately grabbing the nearest stick-like object so that she could strike me with her anger, somehow believing that refusing to let me eat dinner that night would engrain some message within my brain, filthy curse words seeping out of her frowned mouth and her eyes, lined with black eyeliner would transform into a glare that only spew hatred and anger into my own which were widened in shock.
I realized that there was absolutely no way for me to win a fight with her. I would wish that my parents would get a divorce so I could live with my father, I would wish that I could muster enough courage to fulfill my desires to harm myself. I would wish that the cars on the highway would slam into my body. I wanted my internal pain to be reflected physically.
My mind was a warzone, and some perverted concept of “motherly love” was an unrecognizable monster. “Motherly love” that gifted me with depression and caressed me with suicide. “Motherly love” that baked me anxiety every morning for breakfast and tucked me into panic every night. I began to hate days off from school, because I knew that I would be forced to be confined within my room, a twisted jail cell in which the police officer was my emotionally abusive and control-hungry mother. Mirrors were nailed to my wall, forcing myself to see a reflection of something I was tricked to believe I was – stupid, careless, lazy, and worthless.
One day she would tell me she loved me and the other day she would tell me that I must study because I wasn’t pretty enough to be a prostitute.
My mother who loved me – my mother who always drove two hours every day to pick me up and drop me off at school. My mother who told me that I owe her everything because she had sacrificed so much for me and no one else’s mother would do the same, my mother who told me I didn’t deserve anything because I was giving her attitude and treating her like shit, my mother who told me she regretted giving birth to me.
My life is an endless cycle of pain and rebirth. Tired of being thrown around in a hamster wheel, I wanted to end that cycle of pain, and suicidal thoughts began to grow like mold, an epidemic that occurred at least once every two weeks. To me harming myself provided two situations. I could 1. Escape my current situation, my cycle of constant pain, and 2. I could somehow prove to her how much she had hurt me by having it being reflected physically.
When I attempted to explain that, my school counselor suggested I visit the therapist who worked on our campus, my mother could only ask why. Why did I feel depressed? I had everything she never had. My parents were supportive, we had no financial issues, I had no problems in school. If I was feeling stressed, I could simply talk to her. She would be my “friend”. I couldn’t get myself to admit that she was the cause of my anxiety, stress, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Her methods of “expressing love” to me only caused me so much more pain. Her constant yelling and threats were reasonable in her mind, but when it got to the point at which she seriously threatened to kill me, my mental health deteriorated.
Love is certainly messed up, and without a doubt, my mother cares about me and loves me. The only problem is that her own love, her own care, is tearing me apart.