Things I will never quite forgive my mother for*
I was thinking of this in the shower, and wanted to write it down. It's funny; it doesn't look like much when you add it up, but I often think that a fair amount of why I'm so fucked up goes back to her.
~~~
~ When I badly strained my hands playing piano, she assumed nothing was wrong and told me to just keep playing. At the time, I had no independent insurance or transportation; thus I was effectively denied treatment. They've never improved, and have in fact continually gotten worse; I've had to quit a job because of it at least once, for example.
~ When I brought my first serious girlfriend home, she freaked out and told me to my face that I was immoral. It wouldn't have been as frightening if I had expected it, but except for that incident and one offhand comment when I was quite small ("I hope you don't grow up to be a lesbian and pretend to be a man," or something to that effect), she has kept her homophobia in the closet.
~ The family was playing Dictionary once, and I came up with what I thought was one of my best submissions ever--the word, which I now forget, had reminded me of Thermidor, which I knew of courtesy of our friend Mr. Gaiman, and I defined it as a month of the French revolutionary calendar. My mother, being the judge that round, received the submission, recognized my handwriting, and exclaimed aloud that she didn't think I'd know about that. Thus making her low opinion of my intelligence quite clear and blowing an excellent play, all at once.
~ The fact that she's informed me several times that my siblings all receive X amount of money (it involves multiple zeroes) for Chrismukah every year, but I have received nothing close to that amount myself, despite spending several years dangling off the poverty line.
~ Every time she's dissed my writing or my wish to write, blatant or no, for whatever reason.
~ Every time she called me "stupid" or "ding-a-ling" as a small child.
~ I distinctly remember several times, when I was little, when I was crying, usually as a result of her getting angry at me about something, and her response was just to snap "stop feeling sorry for yourself." In fact, I can't think of a time when that wasn't her response, though my memory is so ungodly fuzzy that this doesn't say much. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I never felt comfortable crying around other people; my first serious girlfriend thought this a big deal, as she liked seeing me cry (at least when she wanted to; when she wished to air her own baggage, god help me if I cried or expressed distress); and the parenthetical issue was even worse with Cyn, who would often go into seizures if I was in a bad way. (In fact, the only person, dating or no, who I have ever cried on and felt okay and loved doing so was ineffablewombat. But she now thinks I'm a psycho killer, so that's gone.)
~~~
* Unless she actually, y'know, apologizes** and admits that these things have hurt me. But that's never going to happen. She probably doesn't remember any of this, and probably wouldn't consider it wrong if she did. She's very self-righteous, and hypocritical.
** She did apologize for the Dictionary incident. But that was a good one, damn it!
~~~
~ When I badly strained my hands playing piano, she assumed nothing was wrong and told me to just keep playing. At the time, I had no independent insurance or transportation; thus I was effectively denied treatment. They've never improved, and have in fact continually gotten worse; I've had to quit a job because of it at least once, for example.
~ When I brought my first serious girlfriend home, she freaked out and told me to my face that I was immoral. It wouldn't have been as frightening if I had expected it, but except for that incident and one offhand comment when I was quite small ("I hope you don't grow up to be a lesbian and pretend to be a man," or something to that effect), she has kept her homophobia in the closet.
~ The family was playing Dictionary once, and I came up with what I thought was one of my best submissions ever--the word, which I now forget, had reminded me of Thermidor, which I knew of courtesy of our friend Mr. Gaiman, and I defined it as a month of the French revolutionary calendar. My mother, being the judge that round, received the submission, recognized my handwriting, and exclaimed aloud that she didn't think I'd know about that. Thus making her low opinion of my intelligence quite clear and blowing an excellent play, all at once.
~ The fact that she's informed me several times that my siblings all receive X amount of money (it involves multiple zeroes) for Chrismukah every year, but I have received nothing close to that amount myself, despite spending several years dangling off the poverty line.
~ Every time she's dissed my writing or my wish to write, blatant or no, for whatever reason.
~ Every time she called me "stupid" or "ding-a-ling" as a small child.
~ I distinctly remember several times, when I was little, when I was crying, usually as a result of her getting angry at me about something, and her response was just to snap "stop feeling sorry for yourself." In fact, I can't think of a time when that wasn't her response, though my memory is so ungodly fuzzy that this doesn't say much. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I never felt comfortable crying around other people; my first serious girlfriend thought this a big deal, as she liked seeing me cry (at least when she wanted to; when she wished to air her own baggage, god help me if I cried or expressed distress); and the parenthetical issue was even worse with Cyn, who would often go into seizures if I was in a bad way. (In fact, the only person, dating or no, who I have ever cried on and felt okay and loved doing so was ineffablewombat. But she now thinks I'm a psycho killer, so that's gone.)
~~~
* Unless she actually, y'know, apologizes** and admits that these things have hurt me. But that's never going to happen. She probably doesn't remember any of this, and probably wouldn't consider it wrong if she did. She's very self-righteous, and hypocritical.
** She did apologize for the Dictionary incident. But that was a good one, damn it!