Photo by Rachel Claire on Pexels.com 
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
Attempts To Keep Me A Perpetual Child Failed
By all attempts, my mother sought to keep me a perpetual child. I saw her manipulative plans to restrain my development as a young adult very early on in my teens when I verbally fought against my narcissistic home establishment and stood my ground about getting out of it the first chance that an opportunity presented itself. Despite keeping my plans silent after realizing how vindictive my mother could be, she was relentless in trying to stop my growth. She hated my desire for independence. She hated me.
During my teen years, my mother made countless attempts to sabotage me getting my driver’s license, getting a part-time job (which would ultimately help the household), and going to college. In fact, any time that she sensed that I was attempting to leave the “nest” she would dig in her heels to make my life a living nightmare. Little did she realize that she was basically increasing my ambition and desire to leave and never return. She was not a supportive mother, and as long as I was silent about my future aspirations, she figured that I was going along with the status quo to remain in the household.
During my young adult years after I had moved out on my own, my mother became a thorn in my side. I literally felt the utmost resentment for her. Sometimes I felt that I even hated her. She always found ways to monopolize my time through manipulative means. She had this cunning ability to change her voice to make herself literally sound like a victim. She believed that any free time that I had should be devoted to her and her needs and desire. She was entitled and wanted me to be subservient to her.
Although I worked a full time job and lived on my own, she believed that my weekends should be designated to assisting her. She was also a grown woman with a full time job. She had her own life, but she wanted my life too. She wanted me to be an extension of her, and if I digressed from participating in the plans that she had for me on any given weekend, she would lash out in rage. She did not care about what I wanted or what I need to do with my weekends. She only cared about how my time affected her.
Back then, I was fearful to exert any authority over my time because, after all, she was my mother. I had been conditioned to believe by so many people that behaving in any manner that was contrary to what a parent wanted was total disrespect. Yet, according to my mother, I had disrespected her time and again even though she was always the one who behaved ungratefully for me even giving up my time for her. She did not care about my needs. She did not care that I might be exhausted from a long week at work. She did not care that I might have other plans. She behaved as if my life was meant to be lived for her. She was entitled in her belief of this for as a matter of fact.
During outings with her, she would belittle me, throw disparaging remarks my way, criticize me, antagonize me into arguments for which she would always end up being the victim, and yell at me for not doing something her way. She would talk so disrespectfully to me that I grew angrier with myself for not having a backbone to shut her down. Eventually, responsibilities in my career grew heavier, and I desired to rest up on weekends. I grew tired of devoting all of my weekends to my mother. Any time that I expressed the need to attend to my responsibilities and my rest, she would fume and remind me how I was so unlike all of the other daughters that were so good to their mothers. To express my feelings was an imposition to her, and she did not tolerate it. She did not tolerate me.
My mother never had anything good to say about me unless we were around others in public. Then, she could not give me enough gratitude or accolades for all of the things that I did for her. Yet, in hindsight, she was never satisfied about anything that I did and complained a lot. I was just never good enough for her no matter what I did, and I grew exasperated with being her daughter … so much so that during one outing with her, I considered steering us into oncoming traffic just so I could be done with her incessant rants against me. Of course, this only perpetuated the myth that I was the crazy, mean, and disrespectful daughter.
Clearly, there was no excuse had I attempted my thoughts in this matter. Clearly, I was not thinking about the harm I could have caused others if I had truly acted on my thoughts to harm my mother and me. I did not want to die. I did not want to kill us. I simply wanted out of my misery. I wanted my mother to be quiet. I wanted her incessant noise of control and manipulation over me to stop. Violence was clearly not the answer. Violent acts would not solve my problems; violent acts would only perpetuate more problems instead. I could not have lived with myself if something bad did happen. Yet, in that moment, I knew something I to change. I knew that there was no way that I could live on this way with my mother. I had to do something. I made a decision, and it all became so very clear. It was time for me to grow up from being a perpetual child. I was ready to take control of my life no matter the cost.
Stay tuned for more of the story in my next post.
My Voice Unchained 