14.
“I started realizing how wrong it all was when I started spending time with my girlfriend’s family: Not having to walk on eggshells, watching your tongue and your posture. Dressing nice, etc. I could actually breathe. A selection of the things that happened: My entire family, especially on my mother’s side, is all a bit off. A lot of religion and a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ mentality. When I, at the age of eight, was diagnosed with a chronic illness, that was all that mattered. As long as my illness was well-managed, everything was fine. At one point in my teens, I started cutting myself. Bad. When she found out, all she did was give me a lotion that supposedly helped with scar tissue reduction. Whenever we did something vaguely wrong, she would cry and ask why we did it to hurt her. She was manipulative like that.”
“I would hurry home after school to clean the house, just to give her fewer reasons to be mad. When I was accepted into university, I called her excitedly, and she proceeded to call people she knew who worked in the field 30+ years ago and did tons of research, concluding with her giving me a 30-minute lecture on why I should drop out.
I moved out when I was 16; I couldn’t take it anymore. My older sister asked our mum why, and she told her it was because I despised them, and being with the family made me physically ill. She didn’t talk to me for a very long time, and I didn’t understand why… Until a few years ago when we sat down and talked about it. She now realizes how toxic our mom is. It just took her a bit longer.
In general, we don’t talk about things. Everything is perfect, and we don’t break that perfection by voicing our opinions. Politics is off the table at the house. Negative feelings and experiences are a no-go — unless you’re my mum. She is allowed to talk about how she’s now seeing a therapist, how she’s depressed and been diagnosed, etc. (Note: Her children have nothing to do with this. According to her, she did a great job).”
