My Grievances Against My Mom
I hadn't really realized how much my mom grated on me until I didn't really have to deal with her for a year. Now that I'm back home my mom is constantly driving me nuts.
I cant even count the number of times she yelled at me during the first week I was home, let alone in the over-a-month it's now been. I don't even remember what I was getting in trouble for, but it was most likely nothing at all. Not being productive enough is what I seem to get yelled at for most. That's more my dad's territory than my mom's, but still.
She's so... demeaning, I suppose is the best word as well. One of the biggest moments that sticks out in my head is from a couple years ago. I was checking to see that my ice skating uniform fit, and when I came out of the changing room my mom said, in what context I no longer remember, "You really need to lose at lease 40 pounds," said very loudly in the crowded skate shop in front of not only the staff, customers, people I saw every time I came to free skate to practice, but my entire synchro team of maybe about ten girls aged around 8-12 (I was 16) and my coach. Not only was it incredibly embarrassing, but it made me feel completely horrible about myself. Not long after that, a few days at most, she had this long talk with me about how her mother was obsessed with weight, so my mom always felt fat as a kid, and how she never wanted me to feel the same. Now I have felt fat and hideous for my entire life. Looking back I wasn't fat at all, the body naturally curves so that the stomach sticks out a bit, but I didn't know that so I honestly can't remember a time when I ever felt like my weight was what it could be. Now I really am overweight, not by a lot, I'm chubby at most, and I hate myself more than ever, and a lot of it is because of my mom. Statements like the previous have come up repeatedly over the years, along with her constantly talking about how she never got above 115 pounds until college because of how she biked everywhere and how she can't even imagine being as heavy as I am, and various other statements that seem designed to make me feel like a cow.
She has plenty of other ways of making me feel inadequate as well. One of the biggest is insulting our (that is my brother and I's) lack of independence. One of her favorite things to say is how she would have been utterly appalled and ashamed to have her parents do as much for her as she and my father do for us, and how we should be ashamed to be doing so much nothing. It seems to happen most when I ask a question about how to do something. The other day I wanted to know how much soap to put in the dishwasher because I'd never done it before. This sparked a session of being yelled at starting with something like "Jesus freaking Christ, Aidan Grace Walker," before following the usual lines of how I ought to know already and how she would be ashamed yadda yadda. It drives me fucking nuts when she does that, and I told her so, how I was sorry that I wasn't flawless like she was as a child and I was sorry for being such a disappointment to her but I was sick of her telling me about how independent she was. She responded by crying and then refusing to talk to me for the rest of the day. All for simply asking how much soap to put into the dishwasher (answer: one of the little packets that I didn't know we owned). My dad sort of got in on it, and spent a while before I argued back demeaning my intelligence, with the help of my mother.
In my family you don't argue back at all. It doesn't matter if it's a supposed "discussion" or if you are trying to support your position, you absolutely just keep it bottled up. There have been a couple occasions where I have tried to present my side of things, but that just gets me yelled at for being argumentative, as well as the original offense. When I was little it was usually because of my little brother. He has now pain tolerance so all I had to do was touch him or make a joke and he would start screaming his head off, tell my parents that I had been punching him or kicking him, and then I would start getting yelled at. If I ever tried to present my case, I would get shouted down, punished more severely, and told how my brother absolutely adores me and just wants to be my friend (lies). This continues to today, as my brother's pain tolerance hasn't changed a bit and he's still as much a sack of shit as ever. On the other hand, if you don't respond (you have to agree, that's the only option), you get into even bigger trouble and frequently my mom will start crying.
One of the things that bothers me most about my mother is how utterly unsupportive she is. Thinking back, I can't really remember a time when I was upset and my mom was sympathetic. The only occasions I can think of involve me getting into trouble for being upset. I get yelled at for crying and being upset constantly. Just today I had an interview at 3 at Chipotle but, due to it being near impossible to find, I ended up over half an hour late. I was calling my mom trying to get her to help me find it and, while I did get in some trouble, the yelling was minimal. At the interview, which I was already a half hour late for, I was immediately informed they were looking for people in search of careers, not summer jobs, but then interviewed me anyway and, since I don't give a shit about Chipotle and their food is mediocre at best, I didn't know what they meant when they were talking about their food integrity policy and such (this being my first job interview ever, neither did I know that I was supposed to research the company before hand). I left upset at knowing there was a less than zero percent chance of my getting the job and with that on top of the earlier stress and the disappointment of failing the only interview I've gotten out of over twenty jobs I've applied for over the last month, I was crying on the way home and still doing so when I got home at last. I shut myself in my room to be upset and after a little while my mother knocked and I frankly don't know why she came in at all, because all she did was get angry when I tried to tell her how the interview had gone, get angry when I tried to teller how I was sad, tell me it was all my own fault because I should have known to research the company before hand, but how could I have known when I know nothing about applying for jobs. I said "I love you," as she was leaving as a sort of attempt to apologize, but she just said "thanks," and then closed the door really hard, which is kind of a shit thing to do.
On an unrelated note, I can remember at least one occasion where I was crying because my little brother and his friends were bullying me and calling me a crybaby and my mother came out and told me they were right and I was a crybaby and it was my fault they were calling me that. I had another really good example but I went to eat dinner and forgot it. Oh yes. So I get panicked about grades. Or I used to. I've forced myself to calm down now but in middle and high school it was really bad. It would be the middle of the night, say midnight or one in the morning, and I would be bawling my eyes out and panicking to the point of being physically ill (puking) about having a low a in A class, say a 92%, or god forbid a B. Rather than comfort me and tell me it was fine or something, my mom would absolutely scream at me about how I was being ridiculous and I needed to calm down because I was keeping her up and she had work and I had school. These were not just me being upset about grades these were full blown uncontrollable panic attacks with sobbing, forcing myself not to scream, puking, the whole works, all over the potential of getting an 89 in a class. I kept straight As through my third term of my junior year of high school, starting in 6th grade when I got my first straight A report card ever, so I guess the idea of ruining my record did have some merit, but still the fact that I was so utterly panicked and all my mom did was yell at me for 'being ridiculous' and keeping her awake just seems terrible. There was literally nothing I could do about it- I tried so hard to not care but I just couldn't, and once you start a panic attack stopping isn't really an option.
Now that I think on it, my mom making me feel so worthless all the time may be why I was so obsessed with grades. I have always sucked at sports, other than figure skating which I did from when I was 4 until my mom forced me to quit because, surprisingly, I was grumpy and uncooperative at my 6 am lessons before school. So that was out. I'm going into the humanities, not into science like both of my parents. Whenever one of my friends says they're going into a science my mom goes on about them being her true child. I don't like birding- my parents are obsessed and one of my friends is kind of interested so I just feel like a third wheel sack of shit. I'm not skinny like my mom was. Rather than "good tv" like my parents watched, I like anime (something I'm essentially forbidden to watch in our house- I used to get in trouble for it a lot) and, in a similar vein, enjoy kdramas aka "those stupid Korean soap operas" which is apparently much worse than Keeping up with the Kardashians and the other shit my mom watches. My mom's biggest sticking point now seems to be that I like kpop, rather than some sort of "quality" music she approves of. While these grievances did dissolve into the petty, the point still stands that my mom makes me feel like an inadequate disappointing piece of shit whose whole life is just a massive let down to what she wants. Throughout all of this I still can't defend my self for fear of greater punishment.
When I think about it, I'm honestly incredibly surprised my parents didn't beat or spank us. My dad used to grab our arm hard enough to bruise a bit in order to drag us up the stairs and into our room, and that hurt a lot sure, but he never beat us. Likewise, my mom once locked me in my room for the day without meals (though she vehemently denies it and yells at me for mentioning it) but we weren't spanked. I was just always in trouble and my parents get so angry that now the fact that they didn't smack us seems like a really lucky break.
Anyway, I'm just so tired of my mom today. I had an awful day and then she had to go be awful on top of that. This is actually stuff that's been pissing me off for ages, and putting it all down and expressing it is a huge relief.
I cant even count the number of times she yelled at me during the first week I was home, let alone in the over-a-month it's now been. I don't even remember what I was getting in trouble for, but it was most likely nothing at all. Not being productive enough is what I seem to get yelled at for most. That's more my dad's territory than my mom's, but still.
She's so... demeaning, I suppose is the best word as well. One of the biggest moments that sticks out in my head is from a couple years ago. I was checking to see that my ice skating uniform fit, and when I came out of the changing room my mom said, in what context I no longer remember, "You really need to lose at lease 40 pounds," said very loudly in the crowded skate shop in front of not only the staff, customers, people I saw every time I came to free skate to practice, but my entire synchro team of maybe about ten girls aged around 8-12 (I was 16) and my coach. Not only was it incredibly embarrassing, but it made me feel completely horrible about myself. Not long after that, a few days at most, she had this long talk with me about how her mother was obsessed with weight, so my mom always felt fat as a kid, and how she never wanted me to feel the same. Now I have felt fat and hideous for my entire life. Looking back I wasn't fat at all, the body naturally curves so that the stomach sticks out a bit, but I didn't know that so I honestly can't remember a time when I ever felt like my weight was what it could be. Now I really am overweight, not by a lot, I'm chubby at most, and I hate myself more than ever, and a lot of it is because of my mom. Statements like the previous have come up repeatedly over the years, along with her constantly talking about how she never got above 115 pounds until college because of how she biked everywhere and how she can't even imagine being as heavy as I am, and various other statements that seem designed to make me feel like a cow.
She has plenty of other ways of making me feel inadequate as well. One of the biggest is insulting our (that is my brother and I's) lack of independence. One of her favorite things to say is how she would have been utterly appalled and ashamed to have her parents do as much for her as she and my father do for us, and how we should be ashamed to be doing so much nothing. It seems to happen most when I ask a question about how to do something. The other day I wanted to know how much soap to put in the dishwasher because I'd never done it before. This sparked a session of being yelled at starting with something like "Jesus freaking Christ, Aidan Grace Walker," before following the usual lines of how I ought to know already and how she would be ashamed yadda yadda. It drives me fucking nuts when she does that, and I told her so, how I was sorry that I wasn't flawless like she was as a child and I was sorry for being such a disappointment to her but I was sick of her telling me about how independent she was. She responded by crying and then refusing to talk to me for the rest of the day. All for simply asking how much soap to put into the dishwasher (answer: one of the little packets that I didn't know we owned). My dad sort of got in on it, and spent a while before I argued back demeaning my intelligence, with the help of my mother.
In my family you don't argue back at all. It doesn't matter if it's a supposed "discussion" or if you are trying to support your position, you absolutely just keep it bottled up. There have been a couple occasions where I have tried to present my side of things, but that just gets me yelled at for being argumentative, as well as the original offense. When I was little it was usually because of my little brother. He has now pain tolerance so all I had to do was touch him or make a joke and he would start screaming his head off, tell my parents that I had been punching him or kicking him, and then I would start getting yelled at. If I ever tried to present my case, I would get shouted down, punished more severely, and told how my brother absolutely adores me and just wants to be my friend (lies). This continues to today, as my brother's pain tolerance hasn't changed a bit and he's still as much a sack of shit as ever. On the other hand, if you don't respond (you have to agree, that's the only option), you get into even bigger trouble and frequently my mom will start crying.
One of the things that bothers me most about my mother is how utterly unsupportive she is. Thinking back, I can't really remember a time when I was upset and my mom was sympathetic. The only occasions I can think of involve me getting into trouble for being upset. I get yelled at for crying and being upset constantly. Just today I had an interview at 3 at Chipotle but, due to it being near impossible to find, I ended up over half an hour late. I was calling my mom trying to get her to help me find it and, while I did get in some trouble, the yelling was minimal. At the interview, which I was already a half hour late for, I was immediately informed they were looking for people in search of careers, not summer jobs, but then interviewed me anyway and, since I don't give a shit about Chipotle and their food is mediocre at best, I didn't know what they meant when they were talking about their food integrity policy and such (this being my first job interview ever, neither did I know that I was supposed to research the company before hand). I left upset at knowing there was a less than zero percent chance of my getting the job and with that on top of the earlier stress and the disappointment of failing the only interview I've gotten out of over twenty jobs I've applied for over the last month, I was crying on the way home and still doing so when I got home at last. I shut myself in my room to be upset and after a little while my mother knocked and I frankly don't know why she came in at all, because all she did was get angry when I tried to tell her how the interview had gone, get angry when I tried to teller how I was sad, tell me it was all my own fault because I should have known to research the company before hand, but how could I have known when I know nothing about applying for jobs. I said "I love you," as she was leaving as a sort of attempt to apologize, but she just said "thanks," and then closed the door really hard, which is kind of a shit thing to do.
On an unrelated note, I can remember at least one occasion where I was crying because my little brother and his friends were bullying me and calling me a crybaby and my mother came out and told me they were right and I was a crybaby and it was my fault they were calling me that. I had another really good example but I went to eat dinner and forgot it. Oh yes. So I get panicked about grades. Or I used to. I've forced myself to calm down now but in middle and high school it was really bad. It would be the middle of the night, say midnight or one in the morning, and I would be bawling my eyes out and panicking to the point of being physically ill (puking) about having a low a in A class, say a 92%, or god forbid a B. Rather than comfort me and tell me it was fine or something, my mom would absolutely scream at me about how I was being ridiculous and I needed to calm down because I was keeping her up and she had work and I had school. These were not just me being upset about grades these were full blown uncontrollable panic attacks with sobbing, forcing myself not to scream, puking, the whole works, all over the potential of getting an 89 in a class. I kept straight As through my third term of my junior year of high school, starting in 6th grade when I got my first straight A report card ever, so I guess the idea of ruining my record did have some merit, but still the fact that I was so utterly panicked and all my mom did was yell at me for 'being ridiculous' and keeping her awake just seems terrible. There was literally nothing I could do about it- I tried so hard to not care but I just couldn't, and once you start a panic attack stopping isn't really an option.
Now that I think on it, my mom making me feel so worthless all the time may be why I was so obsessed with grades. I have always sucked at sports, other than figure skating which I did from when I was 4 until my mom forced me to quit because, surprisingly, I was grumpy and uncooperative at my 6 am lessons before school. So that was out. I'm going into the humanities, not into science like both of my parents. Whenever one of my friends says they're going into a science my mom goes on about them being her true child. I don't like birding- my parents are obsessed and one of my friends is kind of interested so I just feel like a third wheel sack of shit. I'm not skinny like my mom was. Rather than "good tv" like my parents watched, I like anime (something I'm essentially forbidden to watch in our house- I used to get in trouble for it a lot) and, in a similar vein, enjoy kdramas aka "those stupid Korean soap operas" which is apparently much worse than Keeping up with the Kardashians and the other shit my mom watches. My mom's biggest sticking point now seems to be that I like kpop, rather than some sort of "quality" music she approves of. While these grievances did dissolve into the petty, the point still stands that my mom makes me feel like an inadequate disappointing piece of shit whose whole life is just a massive let down to what she wants. Throughout all of this I still can't defend my self for fear of greater punishment.
When I think about it, I'm honestly incredibly surprised my parents didn't beat or spank us. My dad used to grab our arm hard enough to bruise a bit in order to drag us up the stairs and into our room, and that hurt a lot sure, but he never beat us. Likewise, my mom once locked me in my room for the day without meals (though she vehemently denies it and yells at me for mentioning it) but we weren't spanked. I was just always in trouble and my parents get so angry that now the fact that they didn't smack us seems like a really lucky break.
Anyway, I'm just so tired of my mom today. I had an awful day and then she had to go be awful on top of that. This is actually stuff that's been pissing me off for ages, and putting it all down and expressing it is a huge relief.