“Family isn’t always blood, it’s the people in your life who want you in theirs: the ones who accept you for who you are, the ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.”
Scapegoat Gibberish
Dysfunction
The experience of living in abuse is one of the constant feelings of being left out. You’re left out of your own family, you don’t feel like you’re one of them, or like everything that’s theirs is yours, or like they want you around. You feel like you’re the extra, the burden, someone who is only a complication to their life. Like everything would be better if only you weren’t around. Abusive parents will often reinforce this feeling and try to convince you that everyone else sees you as a burden as well. Friend’s parents giving you a ride? How could you inconvenience them like that? Being invited to a party? How are you going to make up to them for feeding you? Going to hang out at a friend’s house? They’re probably tired of you and don’t want you around. It keeps happening until you feel like you’re a burden everywhere you go.
And then you’re always thinking of how to be useful enough, how to do enough to not be considered a hindrance, how to be good enough for something, how to deserve to exist and to be a part of something. Even your appearance, your tone of voice, your clothing, your manners, everything seems to be exposed to criticism, and not good enough. In your group of friends, you keep analyzing if you do enough to make up for the fact they’re keeping you company, you try to not have any needs or desires that would take up their time and energy. You’re always focused on how you might be dragging someone down or slowing them down, or being in their way of something. Makeup reasons why you’re not good enough, or why people would probably be happier if only you weren’t in their life.
And there’s always something, maybe you said something that wasn’t the best possible thing to say in that situation, maybe you couldn’t do your best at something because you felt too depressed or anxious or struggled with executive dysfunction, maybe you didn’t give enough attention when someone asked it of you, maybe you were focused on your own problems for a bit and called selfish for it. It felt dreadful. Like every single rejection, abandonment, betrayal and hurt you experienced could be blamed on you, and you deserved that.
It’s not really the truth. We’re all humans, and we sometimes do things that inconvenience others. It doesn’t mean we’re burdens, or that we don’t deserve friends and company and love and all good things that come from socializing with others. People who would have us believe that every single thing we do wrong means it’s better if we didn’t exist, are people who don’t mind hurting us horribly, in order for us to be more useful to them. Abusers who make us incredibly self-conscious about how much we give to others are those who want us spending our every minute of the day trying to be more useful to them – trying to make us live our lives for them, and not ourselves. It doesn’t really matter if you sometimes inconvenience others. People are like that. And people are also warm and clumsy and sometimes funny looking and they’re impossible to live without. You are one of those too.
Warning label attached
She is difficult to love, but only in the sense that she has high standards. She is unwilling to settle for one-sided love. If you are going to enter a relationship with her, you need to commit. She is not interested in holding half of your heart or half of your attention. She wants all or nothing.
She knows what she deserves, which is why you should expect her to speak up whenever you disrespect her. She will not allow anyone to walk over her heels. If you hurt her, you are going to hear about it. She refuses to bottle up her emotions because being authentic is in her blood. She doesn’t know any other way to conduct herself.
She has a fire within her that she is unafraid of releasing. When she is angry, she will spend hours ranting about whatever is on her mind. When she is upset, she will cry buckets in front of you. She won’t pretend everything is okay when she feels like her world is falling apart. She will be real with you, even when you would rather hear pretty lies.
If you want her, you are going to have to fight for the relationship. She will do the same, but she won’t do it alone. She won’t be the only person putting effort into your love.
She is not easy to love because she will do what is right, not what is comfortable. She won’t let you get away with murder. When you screw up, she won’t forgive you if it seems like your apologies are inauthentic. She won’t give you a third chance if you have proven you cannot be trusted. She won’t put you before herself because she loves herself.
The thought of being single does not scare her — and that’s what makes her such a force to be reckoned with. If you hurt her, she will not hesitate to leave you. It doesn’t matter how much she cares about you. If you stop treating her well, she will stop coming around. She will drop you the second she gets reduced to your second choice.
Because of her high standards, you might consider her difficult to love, but she is also difficult to forget.
She is the kind of person who will stay stuck on your mind years after leaving. You will struggle to get over her. You won’t be able to find anyone else like her.
After she leaves, you will miss the way she looked at you like you were the only person she saw. The way she told the truth even when a lie would be easier. The way she never let anyone else stop her from speaking her mind.
Long after she leaves, you will still be trying to figure out a way to get her back, because you won’t want to live without her.
Even though you felt like she was difficult to love while you still had her, you are going to realize how much more difficult it is to forget her
“She’s like broken
a glass.
Dangerous
with sharp
edges;
but beautifully
complex.”
Reflection
My tears streamed down my face, desperately grasping at narratives to try and justify her absence from my entire life. Forgetting that I am now grown, I think for a moment that I can start again and give her everything she never gave me. Sometimes I wish that impossibility could be true. Then again, is it naive to assume just because someone grew you in your womb that your presence would have a positive impact on your life?
It started with a physically absent biological mother and ended with an emotionally absent soul. Both are broken in different ways, they are full of anger and sadness that flow from their neglected inner worlds, and in turn, they can only see their external world through half-empty glasses.
Sometimes people can do bad things for good reasons and good things for bad reasons, and sometimes it’s both. But mostly, they are just lost in a kaleidoscope of emotion, unknowingly casting people around them under the same spell. The only way this can be lifted is by looking deep into the anger and pain while catching your own reflection.
I like to think I can break this legacy of trauma by trying to understand my own demons so equally I can try and understand yours. The most healing thing is to try and see the mirror image in our emotional experiences because this allows room for empathy and forgiveness.
I wish I could have seen myself reflected in the mirror of my mother’s sadness, but I didn’t.
When you are confused
Miss Crabby Ass 