Happy New Year 2019

            I know it’s tradition to make resolutions for the New Year, but I’ve learned that doesn’t work for me. I always forget within a matter of days or weeks. If I do remember, I tend to shrug it off because I forgot. So this year, rather than make useless resolutions I decided to make some wishes instead.

            I wish for you, dear reader, abundant good health; physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. For I have learned they are intertwined.

            I wish for you strength and wisdom for the challenges that will come your way this year.

            I wish for you joy, peace, and love.

            I wish that you would live life to the fullest extent you’re capable of; for then you’ll never grow old.

P.S. If you’ve been following my blog, I will resume telling my life story next week. Thank you for reading!

My Favorite Christmas Music

With the holidays just around the corner, I thought it’d be nice to share some of my favorite Christmas carols this week instead of my life story. I hope you enjoy the music and have a wonderful Christmas. So, in no particular order, here are my favorite Christmas songs.

 “Joy to the World”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDmIddF7DfQ

            “Silent Night”

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GUnfLPpjLs

            “Little Drummer Boy”

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT1fA59oH7Q

            “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”

           

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRqq5EeVpRo

            “Oh Holy Night”

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17kiIIxSdC0

            “Carol of the Bells”

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Tr1qCHwq4

            Last, but not least, “Christmas Eve”

           

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHioIlbnS_A

            I found the last one while looking for just the right version of my favorites to share with you. I hope you’ve enjoyed them. I wish you and your families a Very Merry Christmas.

            Thank you for reading my blog.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 39

If time healed all wounds, which it doesn’t, I would have been healed a long time ago. I wouldn’t still feel all the pain and all the rage.

I prayed off and on for years for God to heal me emotionally. I honestly thought He’d just reach in and heal me as a surgeon cuts out a cancer. Boy was I wrong! One day I got to thinking about it and realized that maybe God wanted me to seek human help. So I started praying about that and I said, “Ok Lord. Obviously you’re not going to do this work yourself. So, where do I go? To whom do I turn?”

Every time I prayed, I felt the Lord telling me that David was that person. My initial reaction was “What?! Are You crazy?! Have you lost your marbles and the general universe isn’t aware of it, yet?!”

After all I thought He’d send me to a woman, it hadn’t occurred to me that God would send me to a man and certainly not that one. I could think of other men I’d far rather go to. After going round about this with God a few times, I acquiesced. It wasn’t easy. I still wasn’t too crazy about the idea, but God knows what He’s doing, even when we don’t. I had to learn to trust God’s choice for me even though I wasn’t sure I could trust David as I didn’t really know him that well.

I’d met David and his wife Jan at a church we attended. I babysat their twin boys for them one night, while they went out. I think that was the only time I babysat for them, but I’d see David in church from time to time and we’d say “Hello. How are you?”

That was the extent of our relationship pretty much until God told me that he wanted to use him to help me heal.

A lot of the reason for my not trusting David was that in the past, whenever I saw him, he looked like he had so much of his own pressure, he couldn’t possible handle mine. Not only that but on one occasion he shared something with me regarding his marriage to Jan, which should only have been said to a counselor or minister; certainly not to a former babysitter. Then on top of that he was the person who insisted I repair my relationship with Andrew before going to Canada with him and Patty. No wonder I didn’t think I could learn to trust this man!

I talked to him about what I felt God had told me and he told me he’d felt God leading him to me as well. He’d been helping mother deal with her own crap and had taken her as far as he could. In fact, he tells me that when he told mother that he felt God putting me on his heart, she looked at him and said, “Have fun.”

I started by going to visit him at his house in an effort to get to know him better and learn to trust him. Unfortunately, that didn’t work as well as I hoped. He was impatient with me and my lack of trust. He often gave me what I came to think of as his, “I’m a Man” speech. Basically he’d say, “Honey, I’m a man. As a man, this is the way I am with all my faults. Etc, etc, etc.”

I never really understood how that was supposed to help me trust him, but I persisted in hanging out with him because I was desperate for emotional healing.

There were other problems with hanging out at his house as well. His wife and sons would frequently barge into his study where we were talking. I didn’t mind his boys so much as they often had good reasons for coming in. His wife, on the other hand, seemed to suddenly decide that she needed to work on some art project or other and the supplies were in his study. After the third interruption, I looked at her and yelled, “Don’t you ever knock?”

I think she thought she’d find us locked in an intimate embrace doing God knows what in his tiny study. What she didn’t know was that I had absolutely no desire to do anything physically intimate with him. I was just trying to learn to trust him enough to allow God to use him in my life.

There were other problems, too. At times we’d get in his car and go looking for a place to park where we wouldn’t be disturbed, but in a city like ours, that’s virtually impossible. Hanging out where I lived wasn’t an option either. I lived with mother and her husband, Bill who ran hot and cold about David. Some days he’d think David was okay, others he couldn’t stand him. Then there was mother herself. We’d be in my room as that was the only place in the house we could talk privately and if mother wanted to talk to one of us for some reason, she didn’t hesitate to knock on my door.

During this time, David was taking a bath one day when he felt the Lord telling him to look in Song of Solomon as there was something in there which I needed to hear. He asked the Lord where, but all the Lord would tell him was that there was something in the Song of Solomon he needed to find and give to me. David got out of the tub and went in his study where he started looking through the Song of Solomon. When he came to chapter 4 verses 12-16, he knew he’d found what he was looking for.

12 A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse;

 a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

13 Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates,

 with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,

14 Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all

 trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices      

15 A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters,

and streams from Lebanon.

16 Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south;

blow upon my garden that the spices thereof may flow out.

Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.

David wrote this story in a letter to me and included a copy of these verses, which I later lost. This didn’t crack me open, but it did help me to realize God was in this. It also helped me realize that God understood me.

With the holidays around the corner, I thought it would be nice for the next two weeks to post holiday related blogs. This means that for two weeks, my life story will be on hold. I will resume posting it after the New Year. Thank you for your understanding.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 38

I also learned that despite my being honest with my son about everything, my mother has him confused about some things I’ve told him. He came home one day and asked why he was caught in the middle between the two of us. I took him to lunch and tried to explain. Apparently I’d already told him the main stories of why I feel the way I do about my mother. She denies them and now he doesn’t know who to trust. I also told him that if I had any other choice about how to deal with my mother that wouldn’t put him in the middle of things, I would do so. Unfortunately, diplomatic tactics don’t work with my mother and now she’s managed to undermine the level of honesty I tried to build with my son.

I finally came to the conclusion that at some level, I hate and resent my mother. Yes, hate and resent. I never thought I would say that about anyone other than her second husband, Don, but it’s true. I hate her and I resent the way she’s treated me over the years. I know part of her behavior stems from jealousy. I know it would be very hard to not be jealous of any woman or child, which her husband had chosen over her sexually as Don did me. I am also sure some of her jealousy stems from my physical build.

When I was about 14 or 15, she allowed me to try on her prom dress. It fit beautifully until we tried to zip it around my chest. The zipper wouldn’t go more than a couple of inches past my waist. I was simply better developed at that age than she had been at 18. However, this doesn’t stop the hurt and anger I feel. Her jealousy is her problem to deal with and taking it out on me was not right.

I’ve also come to realize that my mother is a self-centered, judgmental, legalistic, controlling hypocrite. It’s been hard to face that, but it helps me to deal with her the way I need as the need arises.

I say judgmental because one day long before I got pregnant, she told me to be careful about my walk with God. That if I were lukewarm, He would “spew me out of His mouth.” This came out of nowhere and I was stunned. Not only that, but what I didn’t tell her was that as far my relationship with God was concerned, I was cold. I believed in Him at that time, but that was about it.

Looking back on that later, I realized that there was an attitude of judgment coming from her. To this day, I have no idea why she said what she did to me then.

I have come to a place emotionally where I don’t really care if the breach between mother and I becomes healed. The damage she has done is so great; we might as well be on opposite sides of the Grand Canyon with no way to communicate. I’ve prayed that God would heal that area of my heart and help me forgive her, even if for some reason beyond my control, the breach between us cannot be healed.

           

     Facing how I truly feel about my mother has been very difficult for me. However, it has also been 

very liberating. I’ve come to a better understanding of my emotions and myself as I’ve faced how I 

feel about her. Not only that, I’ve come to understand why I never seem to have any energy 

regardless of how much or how little sleep I get. It’s because all my life people like my mother and 

her second husband and the majority of the men I dated were big emotional energy vacuums sucking 

up all my energy and giving little or nothing back to replace what they took. Eventually that kind of 

drain leaves you with nothing for yourself or anyone else.

      As I’ve healed I’ve learned more about just how toxic to me the relationship with my mother has 

been. For years I thought being abandoned by my biological father and abused by the first stepfather 

I ever had and the relationships with men were what did the majority of the damage. I have finally 

come to the realization that in reality, the worst part of the damage that was done to me was done by 

my own mother. She said it all when she told me that she had me so that “she would have at least one 

person in her life who loved her unconditionally.” 

     Then I read an article online titled, “…When Parents Make Their Children Partners…” by Bo 

Budinksy. As I read the article, which someone had posted into a Facebook group I belong to, it was 

like seeing my relationship with my mother as it really is. I’m supposed to be her emotional support 

system and when I don’t do what she expects in that regard she gets angry and tries to rein me in. It 

wasn’t until I started getting angry at her and fighting back that she backed off. Even then we had 

several loud/yelling disagreements before she finally started showing me the respect I deserve and 

quit trying to run my life. Unfortunately there are still times when she’ll try something as I 

mentioned above, such as she did when her husband died. 

     The more I think about the way she treated me growing up and the way she attempts to treat me 

now, the more I realize that she does not respect my boundaries unless I put up a no holds barred 

fight and force her to respect them. I see a certain irony in all this as she once recommended to me a 

book titled, “Boundaries” by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. It’s about what boundaries are and 

how to set them for yourself. It was informative and helpful. I’m also sure that she read it, but she 

doesn’t apply those ideas to me unless I force her to do so by being unwilling to let her continually 

violate mine. 

     The last time I had contact with her was because her sister, my aunt and uncle were going to be in 

town for a rare visit. I figured I could handle being around her for one evening as my aunt, her 

husband, my brother and his wife would all be there. As it turned out, my brother and his wife 

couldn’t make it as they had other plans for that same night made months in advance.

     Everything went fine at dinner that night. My aunt and uncle did most of the talking about 

Grandmother’s recent death and our hopes that the body of my great uncle who flew rescue in WWII 

would finally be brought home. There were a few minutes when we were left alone at the table while 

my aunt and uncle were making transportation arrangements for themselves as they didn’t have a 

rental car this trip. Mother turned to me and said, “You know I always did love you. I know I made 

some mistakes in the past, but I can’t change the past. The past is the past.”

     I looked at her without saying anything. I just thought, “The past is the past? So that’s it? I’m just 

supposed to let you off the hook without you giving me a real apology or taking any responsibility 

for everything you’ve done?! Yeah, right.” 

     Since that night, I’ve had no contact with her and I have no desire to do so. I simply can’t go on 

being around someone who refuses to take personal responsibility for their actions.

           

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 37

As I’ve written this, I’ve begun to see something else. I wasn’t allowed to be angry or to express that anger when I was growing up. If people did something that hurt me, mother basically told me I was out of line to get angry. Yet if she got angry with us for some reason, heaven help us. No wonder I’m still dealing with anger issues; especially in regards to her!

I know people don’t understand why I don’t just talk these things over with my mother, well as a general rule; one or more of four things happens:

1.                  She makes an excuse.

2.                  She tends to think I shouldn’t let it bother me, especially if she’s given me her “reason” for whatever it was that she did.

3.                  She’ll get defensive and say, “I’m not perfect you know!” I don’t expect perfection. I expect her to take responsibility for her actions, but obviously that’s too much to ask of her.

4.                  Often times, the only way she does listen to me is when I get angry enough to scream at her and I really don’t like to do that. She’s also supposedly enough of an adult that such tactics should not be necessary.

            I’ve been told she loves me and she’s the only mother I’ll ever have. If she loves me so much, why doesn’t she listen to me and respect what I have to say? I know she’s the only mother I’ll ever have, but I didn’t get to choose who my mother was, so why should I let that affect how I feel towards her? I believe parents need to earn their children’s respect just as much as the child needs to earn the trust and respect of their parents. I cannot go on stuffing the feelings down and looking the other way. I’ve done that for too long and in the end all that happened was that I became an emotional volcano just waiting to explode.

This isn’t so much a case of repressed memories as it is a case of looking back and taking off the “rose-colored glasses” I’ve worn where she was concerned. I think the reason I didn’t really see her actions for what they were, was a matter of emotional survival. With feeling abandoned by my father, deceived and abused by her second husband, made to feel too sensitive and as if I cried too easily and too much by her third husband, then used by virtually every man I ever went out with, I desperately needed to believe there was at least one human being in whom I could place my trust. That made it all the harder to confront my real feelings about her.

Mother did come to me once and tell me that the Lord had shown her something about the way she treated me when I was growing up. Apparently she had developed a rapport with a bus driver whose bus she frequently rode. One day the driver told her that it must have been intimidating for me as a daughter to grow up with her as my mother. The Lord used that statement to show her that she had controlled my life when I was growing up. She also said she hoped and prayed that someday I’d find it in my heart to forgive her. I think she knows that in a lot of ways, she did the same thing to me that her mother did to her when she tried to control me while I was growing up.

Even now there are times when she has tried to control me and unfortunately she occasionally succeeded as I had not gotten used to standing up to her. For instance, when I was pregnant and living with her I was on WIC. She asked me one morning if she could use some of the milk WIC supplied me with. I gently explained that it was against the rules and that if anyone found out, I could get in trouble. She had a fit and told me she should be allowed to use it as her tax dollars had paid for it too.

Another time I was at her house for some reason and just before I left, she and I were standing out by my car talking. We were leaving at about the same time as I needed to go and she had to catch a bus to go somewhere. She asked me if she could get a ride to the bus as she was cutting it close time wise. I told her I was sorry but I really needed to be on my way. She got upset with me and cried, “What?! You can’t wait 30 seconds for me to pull myself together and then give me a ride?”

That simple statement and the attitude that came with it, made me feel as if I didn’t have the right to refuse her request, even though it was my car and my time she was asking for and the bus stop was in the opposite direction of where I needed to go. It certainly wasn’t my fault she was cutting it so close to the time the bus was due. She did apologize on the way to the bus for her attitude, but I still felt like I had been manipulated. I wish I had simply driven off without her.

When my nephew graduated high school with his two – year college degree in hand in addition to his high school diploma, my mother and my son were invited to the ceremony, but I was not. Mother told my son, Caleb to not tell me what was happening. When I learned he was going somewhere with his Uncle Mike beyond hanging out their house that night, I asked where they were going. He said he couldn’t tell me. Nothing I said made any difference. So, I called my brother Mike and asked him. He told me about my nephew’s graduation and that he hadn’t told my son to keep it a secret from me. At that point, I knew it had to have been mother who’d told him to keep it from me. I was furious.

I got her on the phone and asked her if she’d told Caleb not to tell me about my nephew’s graduation. She said she may have as she didn’t want me to be upset because I hadn’t been invited. I started yelling at her that it wasn’t her place to tell my son to keep those kinds of things from me and that if she ever did such a thing again I would cut off all contact between her and Caleb – period! I also made it very clear that how I reacted to and dealt with such news was my responsibility, not hers! My brother arrived just before I got mother on the phone and heard my end of the conversation with her. As he was going out the door with Caleb, he told him that the only kind of secrets that should be kept from someone are those related to things like birthday gifts.

Part of what scared me about this was that if this sort of thing had happened when he was younger; he could easily have learned that keeping things from me, such as someone touching him in an inappropriate way was fine. I’ve worked really hard to be sure my son knows it’s okay to talk to me about anything and that if anyone ever touched him in the wrong way or without his permission, it was okay to do something about it and to report it to another adult. It bothers me that with one incident my mother could have undermined what I tried to build.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 36

At one point I went to a counselor. She was a really nice gal who charged me on a sliding fee scale as I was broke and paying for the sessions out of pocket. Someone gave money for me to mother to pay for three sessions of counseling. She started to hand the money to me outright, then took it back, put it in three envelopes, sealed them, then wrote the name of the counselor on the outside before handing them to me. I remember being shocked and annoyed. Shocked because she’d once told me that I handled money better than she did; annoyed because she was behaving as if I couldn’t be trusted to use the money for the purpose it was intended. Looking back on that, if I’d really been intent on doing something else with the money, all I had to do was rip the envelopes open and dispose of them out of her sight.

I realize now that we’re both lucky I moved out of the house when I did. I honestly think had I continued to live there, I would have gotten fatter and smoked more. In addition to that, I probably would have struck out at her physically at some point. Just like I wanted to as a teenager because she seems to think it’s okay to try and control me, even though I’m an adult. At this point, if I’d snapped and hit her, I wouldn’t have stopped till she was seriously wounded or dead. My anger at her would have been beyond my control because I wasn’t allowed any real control over my own life with mother around all the time. In fact, the only thing she seemed to expect me to control was my temper. And that kind of control only lasts so long before something snaps.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to look back and see how much control she’s had in my life. Even more difficult have been my efforts to break free and be my own person. Even now she would control me if I allowed her to. Every time I get near her, she tries to control me, sometimes in small subtle ways. For instance, she once owed me money. I left a message on her machine asking her to leave it in an envelope in my church mailbox. Instead she chased me down at church and gave it to me in person without an envelope.

When her third husband, Bill died, she called me up and the first thing she said to me was, “I want to come over and talk to Caleb and I don’t want you telling him anything before I get there.”

I tried to ask her what was going on but she wouldn’t tell me before I gave my word that I wouldn’t tell Caleb. I realize now that she took control in that situation by demanding to tell my son herself, without even telling me what had happened. She never asked me how I thought it would be best to tell him. I checked with my brother about how she handled it with his children, and he told me that she’d had him tell them.

Not only that, but when she came to my house that afternoon, she brought a good friend, which I didn’t mind, but she also brought along my brother and his wife, without any kind of warning. It was as if for a time she and my brother and his wife walked into my house and took over.

When I chewed her out later, she tried to excuse herself on the basis of the shock of learning about Bill’s death. I told her that she hadn’t been in such a “state of shock” as to make the same demands with my brother and his wife in regards to their children. Shocked or not, it was just a very subtle way to take my place with my son by telling him and comforting him, instead of me. I told her then that if she ever tried to override my parental authority like that again, I’d cut off all contact with Caleb for at least six months.

A few years later at the start of Caleb’s soccer season, the coach decided to limit practice to one day a week as the boys were getting old enough to have other things going on and they’d worked together enough, that they’d be fine with one day week. He chose Wednesday as that’s right in between the weekends when games were played. He let the parents know that if that was a problem, we should contact him to see what could be worked out. None of the parents objected, but mother did. I learned from the coach that she’d e-mailed him a request to change the night of practice as it was on a church night and games were on Sundays, so Caleb couldn’t go to church at all if practice was held on Wednesday. When I learned what she’d done, I was so angry I wanted to run home and send her an e-mail message right away. Instead, I called David on my cell phone and told him what had happened.

The end result when I did e-mail her was the usual. She apologized for the trouble she caused, but not for what she did. It didn’t matter that I pointed out to her that she was not responsible for taking Caleb to and from practices and games. That she was not responsible for anything to do with soccer. That as his parent, those decisions were up to me, not her. By the end of our correspondence on this issue, I had called her a “Bitch” more than once and told her that she was not allowed to have contact with him for at least six months. The only reason I didn’t make it longer was that I felt like I was punishing him for her misdeeds, even though it wasn’t his fault. I hated that, but I honestly felt like that might be the only way I’d get her to back off and respect my parental authority. This also resulted in her name being taken off the coach’s e-mail list for soccer and not being allowed to attend any of the games for that season.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 35

One night I received a phone call from a friend, Rick M. inviting me to his apartment to play backgammon. I stopped long enough to brush my hair and be on my way. As I went down the driveway to my car, mother poked her head out the door and called to me. I stopped and looked around. She looked at me and said, “Ok.”

When I asked what that was all about, she said that she just wanted to be sure I hadn’t dressed up like I was going on a date. She claimed she was protecting Rick M. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but it wasn’t her place to tell me how to dress for anything. Not only that, but he’s an adult and I’m sure he would tell her that he was capable of taking care of himself.

I dated a man, Frank, who happened to live on a houseboat. I usually stayed overnight with him. The first time I came home after sleeping on his boat, she asked me where I’d slept. Although I didn’t say it at the time, my first thought was, “What the hell makes it your business where I sleep when I stay with him?”

I told her I slept on his couch, although the truth was that I slept in his bed with him. I still don’t understand why she thought she had any business asking me that question. I wish I’d had the courage to tell her it was none of her business.

In fact, she seems to make it a habit to poke her nose in my life. I remember house sitting for some friends of ours when I was around 20. A male friend stayed with me one night and left early the next morning, which caught a neighbor’s attention. Our friend asked me about it in front of mother. The friend didn’t have a problem with it as long as it was someone I knew. Mother on the other hand asked me if we’d had sex. I realize now that was none of her business. My life as an adult is mine to live as I please. She has no business poking her nose in it.

I learned in more recent years that mother interfered in other relationships I had as well. A friend of mine was in a jewelry story looking at diamond earrings when mother saw him. Apparently he told her he was considering buying me a pair. She told him I didn’t need them.

Another man I dated was seriously considering asking me to marry him. He came to the house one day when I wasn’t there and mother told him I wasn’t ready for that kind of relationship.

Then there was Al. A man I dated in my early 20’s. The church I was attending forced me to break it off with him as he was a very new, immature Christian. I didn’t like it, but I felt that I had no choice in the matter. I learned several years later that he thought mother had forced me to break it off.

She never told me that she cheated on my father with other men and therefore my brother, Mike had a different father. It’s one thing to not tell me as a child; it’s another to not tell me as an adult. Especially after she told me she had left my father because he beat her once. I had to learn the truth of this matter from my father. It wasn’t fair to him or me, to tell me the bad things he did, but leave out the rotten things she did. She didn’t even hint that he had as much reason to leave her as she did him.

Not only that, when I confronted her with it and asked why she hadn’t said something, she told me that she wasn’t sure until then that Mike had a different father. How could she not be sure? Michael looks nothing like Von. I saw the difference the first time I saw a picture of Von but was unwilling to believe it. I know she told me she was no angel, but she never told me he had just as much cause to divorce her, as she had to divorce him. As far as I’m concerned, this is a case of “the pot calling the kettle black.”

As I’ve written this I’ve begun to see motives. She wanted to keep me tied to her so that she could use me as her emotional fuel tank, which is why whenever possible she chased guys away or interfered in my relationship with them. She also wanted what I had, from my clothes to my figure and even the relationships with some of my boyfriends, in particular Andrew. That’s why she borrowed or tried on my clothes without my permission. It also explains her interference in my relationship with Andrew. This also explains why she was so late for my wedding. She wanted the attention I was getting that day. She simply couldn’t let me enjoy what I had, because she wanted it too.

Even now, I see signs that mother would control Caleb and me if allowed to. There was an incident at Caleb’s after school group, which required stern measures and affected his being there the next day. As she was going to be affected by this, I called her to let her know what was going on. As we talked, I also told her how I planned to handle the situation. She told me that she thought I was being a little harsh in the matter. Even after I told her I’d had similar trouble with him in the past and this one just happened to be the most serious. I finally told her that my decision wasn’t open for discussion. She said she’d say one more thing and then shut up. I let her say her thing, then I started to restate my position. She tried to say something else. I told her to “shut up and listen!”

I finished what I had to say, then told her that she wanted to control the situation and I was tired of it. She’d done it to me more than once and I had had enough. Then I hung up on her.

She called and apologized for how she made me feel, but she didn’t apologize for her actions. She has a bad habit of avoiding her responsibility to apologize to me for her actions unless I really make a huge fuss and I’m tired of that too.

Then to make matters worse my mother has had the nerve to tell me about respecting Caleb when he says “no” to something.  Considering that she has not always respected me when I say something, where does she get off telling me to respect my son’s “no’s?” I do a far better job of that with him than she ever did with me!

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 34

After Tracy took Jacob home that evening, he came to me and wanted to make it up to me by taking me out the next night. I was so angry and hurt by his refusal to put me first earlier in the evening, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go out with him. I screamed at him to leave me alone.  That I would think about it, as I didn’t know right then if I wanted to go. Mother came in a few minutes later and told me it wasn’t fair to Andrew for me to leave him hanging like that. Then she demanded that I make up my mind and give him a decision. I didn’t care at that point what was fair to him; after all he hadn’t been fair to me by agreeing to care for Jacob without asking me first.

I only agreed to go to dinner with him the next night because I was pushed into a decision and did not want to miss a chance to eat out. I hate to say this, but I didn’t really enjoy anything about our date. I didn’t go out with him that evening because of a true free will desire to be with him.

Andrew and I have since talked things out. He understands that what he did that evening was wrong and hurt me abominably. Yet this incident continued to bother me, but I couldn’t figure out why until someone told me I needed to forgive Andrew for what happened. That’s when I realized it wasn’t his part in this, which still bothered me. It was mother’s. I resented her interference in what should have been strictly between Andrew and me.

Another time Andrew got upset over something someone said to him on the phone. He went outside and I started to follow him out, but mother motioned for me to stay inside. Then she went out and talked to him about what was bothering him. I got so angry; I took it out on him for not refusing to talk to her. I realize now I was angry with her for doing what I should have been doing. She pushed her way into the situation. To this day, pushes herself forward.

One day we went to Nordstrom’s with her mother, Grandma Mary to me, to go shopping for some new clothes. We all stopped to listen to the piano player on duty. I wanted to talk to him as I thought he was kind of cute, but I could barely get a word in. Mother did most of the talking and would not allow Grandmother or me to say much of anything. I was so frustrated. I finally realized that she’d done it again. Pushed herself in front of everyone and hogged the stage.

I was around 19 years old when I got my first job with which I might support myself: I worked afternoons. I remember being afraid to leave for work early just because I wanted to. I was afraid she would tell me I shouldn’t leave early unless I had a reason.

When I married my now ex-husband, mother had about six months’ notice for our planned date. She decided to make her own outfit. Two weeks before our wedding, she hadn’t even cut the fabric for her outfit, but she went on vacation to Montana for a week.

The day of our wedding, everyone was on time, except for mother. She was not only late for the photographer who was taking photos before the ceremony, she was 20 minutes late for the ceremony. Because she hadn’t finished her outfit in time.

When I confronted her about it later, she said, “Well, I knew a week was enough time to make it, but because I stayed late at your bridal shower. . .”

I started screaming at her. We were in a Sear’s parking lot and I just cut loose. I screamed that that was the only time I ever planned to get married and she should have been on time. That’s when I got a genuine apology.

Looking back at my wedding day, I see that mother being late wasn’t the only way she had a hand in my wedding. The unity candle wasn’t my idea; it was hers. I told her I didn’t care about having a unity candle. It simply wasn’t important to me. She pushed the idea until I gave in on the condition that she purchased the candle, regardless of cost. I searched for several weeks before I found one I liked and the price tag raised my eyebrows. It was $13, but mother paid it as promised. I realize now that I could have just blown off looking for a candle and told her I couldn’t find one.

She also tried to insist that I go to a particular bakery, which she liked. I didn’t want to go there. In the end, I simply didn’t. It bothered me that she was so insistent on having her way in regards to planning things for my wedding.

Later, at a child’s birthday party, I did try the cake from the bakery she insisted I go try. I wasn’t impressed. I’m glad I didn’t waste my time going there.

One weekend while living with mother as a rent paying adult, I left without telling her in person that I was going. I usually had Sunday and Monday off, but had made arrangements with my boss to change that for the one weekend, so I could go on a road trip. I left a note saying I would be back Sunday evening. When I came home, she read me the riot act because I had not told her in person that I had taken that Saturday off. She found out by calling my work and embarrassing herself by asking for me. I was so shocked I couldn’t say a word. I wrote her a letter telling her that I had every right to do as I chose. That she had no right to make me feel like a teenager who had snuck out in the middle of the night to do something wrong. Especially not when I supported myself without any help from her. She never apologized.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 33

Mother seems to have an odd attitude towards gifts. One year at Christmas she gave me a video that at one time I would have been delighted to receive. I took one look at it and quietly said, “Uh, oh.”

Danice heard me and asked me what was wrong. I quietly explained my feelings about it to her and mother overheard me. She wanted to know what was wrong. When I explained it to her, she held out her hand and demanded that I give it back to her. That she would find something else to do with it. She didn’t offer to replace it with something else or exchange it for me. She simply took it back.  Had the situation been reversed, I would have either told her where I got it so she could exchange it or offered to exchange it for her. I certainly would not have demanded that she give it back.

She once bought a children’s worship cd for Caleb. When I told her that I wouldn’t be able to play it for him, as we didn’t have a cd player in the living room, she asked me to give it back to her. She would then see if she could exchange it for something else.

She also made a lampshade for a crayon shaped lamp and gave it to Caleb. He later got it taken away from him as he broke the bulb in it by knocking it over. Mother happened to come over and ask why it was in the living room, instead of the bedroom. When I told her, she said if we were going to give it away, she’d like to have it back. At this point I told her that she had no choice in the matter as she’d given it away.

She doesn’t understand me and has never really tried. I’ve quit trying to force her to. It doesn’t work anyway.

I know I was rebellious as a teenager. I realize now that it was largely the result of mother’s efforts to control me. I was not free to choose what I wanted to wear or what I read. When I was a teenager, bib overalls, spaghetti straps, halter tops, tube tops, two piece bathing suits, and short shorts were not clothing options for me, nor was anything strapless. All my bathing suits had to have a skirt or a little fold of fabric to hide my “jutting” pelvic bone. She even asked our pediatrician about my pelvic bone and received his assurance that there was nothing abnormal or “jutting” about it. Didn’t make any difference in the kinds of bathing suits I was allowed to wear.

Even as an adult living in her house, there were things such as the comics in the Sunday paper that I enjoyed reading, but that wasn’t allowed. Then there was a book called, “The Last Starfighter,” which she not only wouldn’t allow me to read, when she did catch me reading it, she took it away and destroyed it. The book didn’t even belong to me. It belonged to Andrew.

I have two regrets about my rebellion. One, I didn’t know then why I felt so rebellious and therefore didn’t understand it. Two, I was sneaky about it. I honestly wish I’d had the courage to tell my mother to “go to hell!” That I was going to explore who I was and what I wanted from life regardless of what anyone thought.

There was an evening when I was about nineteen or twenty and Andrew took me to his apartment so we could watch a movie on TV together. Mother insisted on coming and picking me up by a certain time, period. Despite our objections and telling her that Andrew would bring me home. I really resented that. She made me feel like I was a child who couldn’t be trusted on a date by herself. That wasn’t the only time she meddled in my relationship with Andrew.

One day he invited me out to dinner. Later he came and told me that he’d told a friend, Tracy he would take care of her son, Jacob, for the evening. I got upset with him, as he hadn’t consulted me despite the fact we already had a date for the evening. I told him that if he was going to take care of Jacob, I wasn’t going to dinner with him. He wouldn’t change his mind so mother went to dinner with him in my place. When they came back, she had the nerve to tell me she didn’t understand why I wouldn’t go to dinner with him and Jacob, as Jacob had been a well-behaved little boy. How well Jacob did or did not behave was not the issue. The issue was his refusal to consider my feelings and put me first in the matter.

 After Tracy took Jacob home that evening, he came to me and wanted to make it up to me by taking me out the next night. I was so angry and hurt by his refusal to put me first earlier in the evening, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go out with him. I screamed at him to leave me alone.  That I would think about it, as I didn’t know right then if I wanted to go. Mother came in a few minutes later and told me it wasn’t fair to Andrew for me to leave him hanging like that. Then she demanded that I make up my mind and give him a decision as I wasn’t being fair to him. I didn’t care at that point what was fair to him; after all he hadn’t been fair to me by agreeing to care for Jacob without asking me first.

I only agreed to go to dinner with him the next night because I was pushed into a decision and did not want to miss a chance to eat out. I hate to say this, but I didn’t really enjoy anything about our date. I didn’t go out with him that evening because of a true free will desire to be with him.

Andrew and I have since talked things out. He understands that what he did that evening was wrong and hurt me abominably. Yet this incident continued to bother me, but I couldn’t figure out why until someone told me I needed to forgive Andrew for what happened. That’s when I realized it wasn’t his part in this, which still bothered me. It was mother’s. I resented her interference in what should have been strictly between Andrew and me.

Another time Andrew got upset over something someone said to him on the phone He went outside and I started to follow him out but mother motioned for me to stay inside. Then she went out and talked to him about what was bothering him. I got so angry; I took it out on him for not refusing to talk to her. I realize now I was angry with her for doing what I should have been doing. She pushed her way into the situation. And she still, to this day, pushes herself forward.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 32

Another time there was to be a family portrait in which mother arranged for me and Mike and Danice to get together with her and Bill and Wayne. At the last minute she didn’t feel good so the session was cancelled. I was under the impression at the time that she was going to arrange another time for all of us to get together for a family photo.

Instead, several weeks later, I received a photo of her with Bill and Wayne. When I asked her about the fact that she didn’t try to arrange for the rest of us to be there, she said it was “too much trouble” to try to get us all together a second time.

I don’t think she has any idea how that made me feel. I don’t know what Mike and Danice thought, but I know I felt like even though I’m her daughter, I didn’t matter enough for her to try to arrange for me to be part of a “family” photo. I don’t put that photo on display either. It reminds me that it was “too much trouble” to try to get us all together a second time.

There was another incident involving Grandma Mary that happened when I was in my teens, if I remember correctly. Grandma had written to me and offered me a table, which, if memory serves, had once belonged to Grandma Jensen. A day or two after I received the letter, mother was talking to her on the phone and Grandma Mary offered her the same table. I happened to overhear her. I got her attention and told her that I thought I had been offered the same table. She mentioned it to Grandma Mary and learned that she had indeed offered me the same table, but forgotten that she had done so. When I said that I hadn’t had a chance to write her back to tell her that I wanted that table, mother in essence told me, “Tough! She wanted the table and she was going to keep it.”

It didn’t matter that I had been offered the table first and in writing and therefore, technically had the right of first acceptance or refusal. She didn’t care that I wanted the table. All she cared about was herself.

Mother also stole some money from me. Before I went to see my Father for the first time, I gave her a check. It was made out to her and she was to use the money to buy some fabric, which would be on sale while I was gone. During that time, she made a mistake balancing her checkbook and found herself in danger of bouncing a check or two. She took my money and used it to cover her mistake. When I confronted her about it, she told me she couldn’t call me, as I didn’t leave a phone number for her. So what was she supposed to do? Bounce a check and pay the fees? I told her it was her mistake and therefore her problem and that by taking my money like she had, she’d made it my problem.

I don’t remember ever receiving an apology, although she did buy the fabric, at full price. The only good thing I can say about this is that she pulled a similar stunt on Wayne. She’s lucky neither of us pressed charges on her for stealing.

As my 33^rd birthday approached, mother asked me for a list of things I wanted for my birthday. When I opened my present from her, it had nothing to do with what I had put on my list. If I remember correctly I had asked for a few music cassette tapes I really wanted. Instead she gave me a sheet of Looney tunes cartoon stamps and a pair of silver beaded earrings, which she had made. When I asked her why, she said she’d decided to do what she wanted to do. It made me wonder why she bothered getting a list from me.

Although I enjoy watching Looney tunes cartoons, I had no desire to collect anything to do with Looney tunes. As for the earrings, yes they were nice they just weren’t anything I wanted. I never used the stamps because they were collector’s items. I sold them for a profit at a yard sale. As for the earrings, I eventually gave them to a cross-dressing friend of mine who fell in love with them the instant he saw them.

There have been a couple of years when I told her I didn’t want my birthday acknowledged in any way, yet she persisted in doing something for me anyway. Because she wanted to do something for me on my birthday. One year I even told her the only way I would allow her to have a party for me was if she could guarantee a particular person’s presence. I knew she couldn’t do that, but it didn’t stop her from doing what she wanted anyway.

Then there was my 38^th birthday. Mother offered to take me to one of my favorite restaurants for dessert. She was supposed to pick up Caleb and me at 2:00 p.m. on my birthday. I was in the garage helping David with something when I heard her car, a VW Beetle. I walked out to go upstairs and wash my hands just in time to watch her drive up the hill past our house. I knew she had to be going to the hardware store up the street, but I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she got lost in thought and missed the turn. I told David that if she wasn’t back within five minutes, I wouldn’t go with her. Approximately 15 minutes later she came up the drive. When I asked her where she’d gone, she told me I’d see. I told her I wasn’t going with her.

She got upset with me and said she was only five minutes late until I informed her that she was more than five minutes late. Then she handed me my birthday card with a lump in it saying that when I looked inside, I’d understand why she did it. I opened it and glanced at her idea of a gift. I thanked her and said it was cute. However, I don’t understand why she thinks giving a gift is more important than keeping her commitment to be where she says she will on time. Then to make matter worse, she excused herself by saying she wasn’t perfect. That seems to be one of her favorite excuses for her behavior even though I have never asked her to be perfect.

All I was asking her to do was keep her commitment to me or accept responsibility for her failure to do so. If she had stopped and said that she wanted to run up to the hardware store for a quick minute, I would have said ok. But to watch her drive by without so much as a “by your leave” was too much. Then to really top things off, she reminded me I had a lid for a bin I had given her. When I went in to get it for her, she followed me and proceeded to sit down and make an unwelcome guest of herself for the next hour and a half or so. The only reason I didn’t throw her out was I didn’t want to make a scene in front of Caleb. After all, he doesn’t know her the way I do and he adores his grandma. Sometimes I wish I could disown her completely. My life would be easier.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 31

I started breaking out with acne at an early age. Unfortunately she would pinch the pimples, even when they hurt. I finally learned to do it myself to keep her from doing it. I realize now that was abusive on her part.

When I was about 15 she had me make a special trip downtown to look at a dress that was on sale. It was white with small blue and red flowers and a ruffle on the bottom that had larger versions of the flowers printed on it. I loved the dress, so she bought it for me. When we got home, she asked me if she could try it on. I said “no” and put it away.

When I left the room, she stayed instead of following me out. I went back to my room a few minutes later. I was puzzled to see the door was closed because I remembered leaving it open. As I opened the door, she shut it in my face, but not before I had seen her wearing my dress. I never felt like the dress was “mine” after that. Somewhere in my photo album I have pictures of each of us wearing the dress. I remember looking at the one of her and asking myself, “Why on earth did I allow mother to have her picture taken in my dress?”

Then I remembered that not only had I allowed her to have her picture taken in that dress, I had insisted on it. That’s when I realized why I had insisted she have her picture taken in my dress. It wasn’t really my dress.

There was also my favorite cream-colored blouse that mother borrowed without my permission. Wore it, washed it and wore it again. By the time I went looking for it, it was in her dirty clothes hamper for the second time. If I had done something similar to her, she would have read me the riot act over it. I don’t think she ever apologized to me for this. In fact, she asked me once if I was ever going to let her live that down. Maybe if she apologizes for borrowing the blouse without my knowledge, much less my permission. I suspect it’ll be a cold day in hell before that happens, though.

We once bought matching skirts. They were navy with little flowers printed on them and had a white eyelet ruffle on the bottom. They had buttons down the front with two on the waistband, one set immediately below the waistband and the rest set two inches or so apart. You could leave the skirt unbuttoned from the waist down as there was an eyelet panel in it or you could button it however you wanted to. I wore my skirt to church one day and I had only the top two buttons on the waistband buttoned as I always did. Mother walked up to me while I was talking to someone, reached over and buttoned the next button down in front of the other person.

When I asked her why she’d done that, she told me that it made me looked more like I was dressed. I was so embarrassed and humiliated that I walked as quickly as I could to the ladies room. I cried as I undid the button she had just buttoned up. A sweet lady, who saw me, stopped and asked me what was wrong. I told her what had happened. She reassured me that I looked fine and then prayed for me. She prayed specifically that I would feel no shame because of mother’s actions.

Several years later I wore a short black skirt to church. I was out in the lobby talking to a friend when she walked up and said, “Don’t you think your skirt’s a little short?”

I said, “You can’t see my underwear, can you?”

Once she answered my personal cell phone when it rang, as I happened to be outside. I had it set up to be hands free, but she took it apart so that she could answer. When I said something, she asked me if I expected her to let it ring. I said, “Yes.”

I never did put it back together after that and I lost the earpiece I had chosen. She took something that belonged to me and infringed on it without my knowledge, much less my permission.

During one of my Grandmother Mary’s visits, someone decided it would be a good idea for the family to get together and have a four-generation picture taken. No one asked me if I wanted to do such a thing and if that day was convenient for me. Everyone assumed I would just go along with the program.

Well, in so doing, they took something precious from me. They took my time with Grandma when we were to go shopping together. Mother got to go and chose a garment for me. I never wore the garment because every time I looked at, I resented what it represented. Not that I was truly inclined to wear it anyway as I probably would not have chosen what she did, had I been allowed to go shopping as originally planned. I resented not being able to go shopping with Grandma because someone decided to do a family portrait that day without asking me how I felt about it. IF they’d asked, I wouldn’t have been thrilled about giving up my time with my grandmother, but it wouldn’t have bothered me so much either.

Then my mother had the nerve to tell me only a day or two before hand and expect me to be nice about it. On top of that she tried to lay the blame for lack of notice at Danice’s feet when she also knew well ahead of time about the photo. The only reason I showed up was that I was giving Grandma a ride to the studio. I keep the photo packed away because I can’t look at it without remembering I didn’t get a choice about the picture.

During the session, the photographer asked those of us in the back row to move over one direction. I happened to be next to mother, so when she moved, I did. As I moved towards her, she reached out to grab my sleeve to move me over. I glared at her and she put her hand down.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part #30

Mother loved to go to a bead shop in a town that was a couple of hours away to buy beads, but didn’t have a car. On one of the trips we took to that town for the sole purpose of going to the bead shop for her, she bought some heart shaped beads in exchange for my gas and my time in making a special trip down there. I decided early on about the basic shape and color, but I didn’t come up with a final design for them right away, So, she decided that because there were more than enough for the kind of earrings I wanted, that it would be okay to use some of them for a pair of earrings for her friend, Annie. She never asked me if I would mind if she made earrings for Annie with my beads. In fact, when I first said something to her about it, she was smug as she told me that I hadn’t finished designing mine yet and that she knew she had enough to do both pairs. We were at a friend’s house, so I didn’t say anything further right then.

Later that evening, when we were back home, I tried to talk to her about how I felt. She dismissed me, so I started yelling and screaming. She tried to walk away from me, saying she’d come back when I calmed down. The only reason she stayed was because I told her that how I felt wasn’t going to change.

When I was pregnant, I expressed my concerns to my mother about the jungle we called a yard. She said by the time my child was ready for a yard, she was sure the yard would be ready for my child. It wasn’t.

Mother said the extra room in the house would be ready for my child when it was born. It wasn’t ready till he was a couple of months old.

She also said she’d make drapes for my child’s room; she didn’t until a few months after we’d moved out of her house.

There have also been times when she’s gone against my wishes regarding Caleb. Despite my telling her before he was born that where my baby was concerned, my word was LAW!

One time when he wanted a ball. I told him “no” as he already had two of the same kind at her house so he didn’t need a third one. Mother came along, saw him crying then asked what happened. When I explained to her that I had told him “no” to having a new ball as he already had two at her house, she turned to him and said, “I will buy you a new ball.”

I don’t think she realized what kind of lesson that was teaching my son. She basically told him that if mommy wouldn’t buy him something, grandma would.

Then there was time I tried to teach Caleb to sit at his table for meals with his own plate instead of in her lap sharing hers; she looked at me and told me that he was only going to be this age for so long, etc.

 I also tried to discourage Caleb from joining her or me in the shower because I felt he was getting too old for such things and she gave me the same “he’s only this old for so long speech.”  I didn’t feel strong enough to stand up to her on either occasion.

On one occasion I was getting him ready to have his picture taken at a local department store. I started to brush his hair and part it on one side.  Mother walked into the room and told me not to brush his hair as it made him look older than he was. I don’t know what made her think she had the right to say that, but it wasn’t her place to tell me what to do with my son’s hair.

She’s not his mother and she should never have argued with me any in way, shape or form when I tried to set limits for him or do things with him. I’m sure that had someone done that to her, she would have resented it, just as I do.

In fact, remember a story about my Great Grandmother Jensen doing something similar to her. Mother told me a story about how she offered me some lunch before I went to afternoon kindergarten. I told her I wasn’t hungry. She told me that if I didn’t eat then, she wasn’t going to let me have anything later. I came home that afternoon and announced I was hungry. She told me I couldn’t have anything to eat. Grandma Jensen, who happened to be visiting, told mother she should give me something. She refused because she’d told me before I left that she wouldn’t feed me when I got home. She said it was the only time she ever saw Grandma Jensen cry.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part #29

There have been times when we’ve gone shopping together. I find something I like and she’ll look at it and say, “Oh, Danice would like that.”

When she does that I feel as if she’d buy it for her, but not me. It took an incident at a fabric store to
make me realize why her saying Danice, my sister-in-law would like something I chose, bothered me
so much and how it showed mother’s favoritism of her over me.

We’d gone to the fabric store where mother used to work to get some foam for a couch David, my roommate had bought. While we were there, I found a cross stitch kit showing a golden retriever with a “welcome” sign hanging from his mouth on a piece of string. I thought it was cute. She looked at and promptly told me that Mike would like it. That hurt.

We were unable to buy the foam, as it wasn’t in, due to a mix-up. By the time we went back, I had talked to David about the kit and decided to buy it. When we went back, I got it and put it on the foam table face down, where she was working. She immediately reached over, picked it up and looked at it. Then she told me that if I hadn’t bought it, she would have. The faintest of hopes flickered in my breast as I asked for whom she would have bought it. She promptly said, “Mike.”

That told me all over again that Mike and Danice are still her favorites. Not only that, but I learned later that she wouldn’t have given it to him in kit form. She would have done the project herself and then presented it to him.

I can only recall a couple of times when mother put me ahead of Mike and Wayne in any way.

Mike had a Hot Wheels tricycle when we were young and he created a parking space in the garage for it with a large piece of cardboard. He proudly showed it to me and I told him it was nice, but it was in the path for me to put my bicycle away. He said, “Tough!”

I was surprised, but didn’t argue with him. Instead, I went and found mother then told her what happened. She got after him and made it very clear that he was not to treat me that way again.

The other time was on a road trip. We were driving to Montana in the old pick up with a homemade camper and we kids had to ride in the back. There was one long bed and one short one. She allowed me to have the long one to myself throughout the trip, as I was the tallest. The boys had to share the short one.

When she moved from her house to an apartment before moving to the condo she was buying, Mike and I spent time out of our busy schedules helping her pack and sort for the move as well as hauling away unwanted household items and garbage.

I went to the apartment one night after the first move to pick up Caleb. I used mother’s computer to go online and noticed a cellophane wrapped ceramic planter with chocolates nearly overflowing out of the top sitting next to it. When I asked her about it, she said it was a gift for Mike and Danice to thank them for all the hours they had put in helping her move. She gave no indication of having bought something for me for all the hours I put in helping her. Sure, I received some household things she no longer wanted, but Mike received a lot of Bill’s tools, which he no longer needed.

When I confronted her about it several days later, she conceded that she should have done something for me too, but only after trying to get out of doing something for me as well.

Mother told me later that the buyer of the house had graciously allowed her an extra day to move out, because despite the help from my brother and me and even some people from our church, she had been unable to be packed up and moved out on the appointed day. He even allowed her to leave new fixtures in their boxes where he could find them so that she didn’t need to take time to replace the ones she was taking. At 5:00 p.m. on the day mother should have been out, the new owner came to the house. He found mother and a few people still there standing around talking. At that point he said that if they didn’t get out of the house immediately, he was going to get a lawyer. Mother told me he was a “jerk” for saying it. I remember being surprised and thinking, “He had every right to expect her to be out of the house and to threaten to call a lawyer when he found her and her friends there at 5:00 p.m. that day.”

 Looking back on this, I realized that at some level my mother expects the world to revolve around her.

Another example of her expectations happened when she called me one night and wanted to buy an ornate brass music stand that I’d bought several years earlier. She told me she thought it would be a nice birthday gift for a friend of hers. The amount she offered me was approximately one fourth of what I’d paid for it originally and probably less than I could have gotten selling the metal for scrap. When I told her the bare minimum I was willing to accept; she snapped that she didn’t have that kind of money. It was as if I was supposed to be willing to sell her what she wanted at the price she offered because she wanted to give it as a gift to someone else.

Mother’s husband Bill used to tell me that I was too sensitive and that I cried too easily and too much. If I complained to her, she sided with him. I realize now that what I was feeling then was natural and normal. It was the result of the pain I still felt from being abused, the hurt from her favoritism of everyone else and being an adolescent young girl turning into a woman with all the hormonal and mood fluctuations that come with such changes.

When I was growing up, mother would occasionally call me “Sis.” One day I asked her why she called me that. She told me it was just a nickname. I knew at the time it wasn’t just a nickname. She thought of me as a sister instead of her daughter and expected me to be mature enough to lean on. No one calls anyone “Sis” unless they think of the other person as a sister. In fact, I realize now that she wanted me to be mature enough for her to lean on, but not mature enough to walk away from her.

I also remember her telling me once that one reason she had me was so that she would have someone who would love her unconditionally.

When we were growing up I had a tendency to beat on my brothers at the slightest provocation. Mother would get angry with me for beating up on them and tell me not to do it anymore. I realize now that the reason I used any excuse to beat up on them was that I resented them and her. I resented them because she favored them over me. I resented her for favoring them. I couldn’t strike out at mother, so I hit Mike and Wayne instead.