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Putting My Foot Down
After my thoughts of plunging my mother and me into head-on traffic, I knew that I had to find an end to my problem with my mother’s overarching control and manipulation of me. I knew that I could not continue on this way. I was miserable. So, I cut her off, but not without blasting her for everything that I could think of to say. I did so as respectfully as I could, of course.
I began by letting my mother know that I was taking back control of my weekends. I reminded her that I was a grown woman to which she replied that she was still my mother. Despite her rebuttal, I continued on by letting her know that her being my mother did not overstep my ability to live my own life as I chose to do so. I told her that I was no longer putting up with her abuses or her disrespectful behavior towards me.
I reminded my mother that just because she was my mother did not give her full access to my life. Plus, I did not care about other mothers and their daughters’ relationships. I no longer even cared about our relationship. I was tired of her manipulative tactics to monopolize my time. I was taking back control of my time. I taking back control of my life. She was no longer the boss of me. I was my own CEO. She was fired!
No Longer A Child Anymore
I might be her daughter, but I was not a child. I was an adult attempting to navigate my own path. I wanted a healthier path, and as an adult, I did not think that I deserved to be mistreated and verbally abused by her. In fact, on the day that I contemplated taking us into a collision, my mother had slapped me in the face because she felt I had disrespected her when I called her out for manipulating me and monopolizing my entire day so that I could not enjoy it.
Her slap in my face was rather a shock to my system because I was a 25-year-old woman. I felt immediate shame and embarrassment because it was a public slap that happened in my car while I was providing service to her. She slapped me because she literally felt entitled to do so as if to punish me. She wanted me to be quiet and to not express her faults. To her, I was disrespectful in pointing out how she had no respect for me nor my time. That slap told me all that I needed to know about the future of a relationship she and I never had before.
In fact, it was not even a slap. She was in the passenger seat when she backslapped me across the face with her onyx ring that she had worn on her middle finger since I can remember. I first remember that ring when I was three because it was from the same hand that slapped me several times about my body as I huddled into a fetal position within the corner of her and my dad’s bedroom. That ring had seen many offenses at her hands and was a witness to the fact that I had a red mark on my face from the impact and a swollen lip.
Tears formed in my eyes while she sat in silence with a dignified posture. I could tell that she beamed with pride while plastering that hideous narcissistic smirk on her face that I hated seeing so much. That smirk told me that she had accomplished what she wanted by putting me in my supposed place, and that is actually what she stated after a long silence … that “you need to stay in a child’s place!” I was so hurt.
I remember trying to catch my breath from the shock of it all because it happened so fast. I recall looking around in traffic to see if anyone noticed what had happened in that moment, and it was then that the thought occurred to strike back. It was an illogical thought, of course, but I was looking for a wait out of my misery. I was also looking for a way to shut my mother down and end her power over me. I was more than hurt. I was angry. I felt a searing hot fire well up within me. This was the final straw. This was it. I was done. I was not going to end my life. I was not going to end her life. I was going to save my life by leaving her life. It was a great epiphany.
Becoming An Adult
After I decided that her physical abuse towards me was my final straw and had expressed my thoughts about it all to her, I dropped her off to her home and returned to my home. I pondered nothing. I simply stopped contact with her. I stopped speaking to my mother. This was not one of those times where I stopped speaking because I was angry about her mistreatment. This was not one of those times where I remained silent and then called her to apologize because I did not want her to be upset with me about how she actually mistreated me. This time, things were different.
When I stopped contact with my mother, I immediately stopped taking her phone calls. I stopped responding to her at all. I did not visit her. I did not do anything that concerned her. I did not drive anywhere near her neighborhood. I ceased all communication with her to free myself up. I decided to stop being placed in the position of a perpetual child that never grows up. I gained my power. I gained a level of maturity in that moment that I had never known and was afraid to tap into for a long time. I never wanted to rock the boat, but I was born a rebel, and rocking the boat was my thing. I went stopped interacting with my mother, and I felt good.
Not surprisingly, however, my mother inundated me with a multitude of phone calls, tortured me with several telephone messages each day for a while. In her messages, she basically raked me over hot coals of burning sulfur. She called me everything that she could think of that was derogatory in nature. A few of her messages were peppered and salted with her fake crying sounds and a voice that sounded so victimized that I almost forgot for a moment just how manipulative and conniving she could be when she wanted her way. Although I was tempted to give in and pick up the phone, I did not. I knew my mother too well.
In desperation, my mother even came to my apartment. I only opened the door just enough to not let her completely inside while keeping the latch on the door. Because I chose to keep her barred outside, she went ballistic. She screamed obscenities at me. She viciously degraded me with verbal insults. She said things that loving mothers would never dare utter to their daughters for any reason. Yet, I was unmoved by my mother’s toxic behavior. I just stared at her and watched as a black covering enveloped her eyes with rage. This was my mother. This was my narcissistically abusive mother. She had lost control. She had lost her control over me.
Putting my foot down cost me, but it was the price I needed to pay to regain my life and my sanity. I did not want to become the daughter that killed herself or her mother because of intense rage, hatred, and resentment. I did not want to be that person. I did not want to be resentful or hateful towards my mother at all. I loved my mother. Yet, I felt that if I continued in the state of chaotic drama that I was in with her, I would be left no choice but to resort to ways to maintain a level of protection against her mean and wicked attacks. I was clearly fighting attempts to become more unhinged with her. My efforts eventually paid off long enough for her to decide to leave me alone for a while. I knew, however, that this was not enough.
Stay tuned for the continuation of my story to find out what happened in the next post.
My Voice Unchained 