5.20.2014

The Strength of a Rockstar....

Sometimes, when I think about my mother, I become conflicted.

Everyone has a mother, yet I don't care to acknowledge mine. Some may see that as me being a horrible person, but I see it as being a person who was scarred again and again...and not wanting to take it anymore.

My mom wasn't always this way. At one point she helped me fight my battles, kissed my boo-boos, and gave me the love that I had craved as a child. But every once in a while, I caught a glimpse of a woman that simmered beneath the surface, who allowed her dark side to come out and rear its ugly head to her own children.

I tried my best to please her. When she asked for something and I delivered, I barely got an acknowledgement of any "good job" that I might have done. Yet, when I couldn't complete something (chalk it up to being a child), I'd get the coldest shoulder. I'd be made to feel like I was worth nothing. And for those who understand how it feels when a parent makes you feel like nothing, it's the worst feeling one can even imagine.

My mother was never physical, merely a slave to the words that she would spit at me from time to time. Useless being the top contender. I'm surprised that with all the times she would call me that, I still have a big heart and a need to share my love with others. I have to thank my father for always wiping away the tears and reminding me that I wasn't useless, I was priceless. 

It wasn't until college that I learned she suffered from bipolar disorder. For so many years she had gone undiagnosed....and it was scary....you know, scary is an understatement. I don't think there's a word to describe the fear that I had of my own parent. She was unpredictable and unaware of the damage she had done. Breaking up our family, destroying my brother's promising career in the Air Force, and trying to destroy whatever sense of happiness I may have had while I tried to thrive in college. It was never enough for her being miserable, everyone else needed to suffer with her. 

After my sophomore year of college ended, rock bottom was reached. Earlier in that year, I had told her to leave me alone. I could not take her continually pushing me to the point of tears, making me feel inadequate because I was trying to make something of myself at college and she was mourning the loss of everything she never had. I couldn't call her enough, I couldn't do enough for her, and in turn I took the brunt of her pain. I cried myself to sleep quite a few nights, knowing that I couldn't be more than myself. Luckily, I had some amazing friends who helped me pick up the pieces when I tried to retreat into myself. 

But in her trying to "respect" my wishes, the mail never ceased, the phone calls came attached with "dire emergency" stipulations (that she put herself into), and even having to answer questions so cruel and painful to someone else that I can't even say them aloud without crying. My mother had found yet another way to try and break me....and she almost succeeded.

I was tired of trying. Tired of giving her the satisfaction that she could do whatever she wanted to me. And very few of my friends understood that. I had to "honor" and "forgive" my mother for all her shortcomings, for every hurtful thing she threw at me. Tell me, how do you forgive someone who forces you to have to attend therapy? How do you forgive someone who tells such horrible lies about your family in an effort to selfishly better themself? How do you forgive a person who you're supposed to trust and love because they brought you into the world, when all they consider you to be when you don't deliver what they want....is useless?

And even years later, after all of that, I tried to make my peace with her, thinking she had changed....and yet again finding myself let down.

I'm grateful that I had mother figures in my life, because they have proven to me that I didn't need a mother to make it through. I just needed guidance from time to time. And where my mother couldn't be there, I had the best dad a girl could ask for. 

And still, after all these years, I forgive my mother....but I won't forget. It's my time to live and get married and start my own family. I can't be living in my past anymore and I refuse to try making sense of it all. Matt deserves better, I deserve better. 

I've written letters I will never send, imagined memories that will never happen, and I'm ok with how my life turned out. Matt sees me as strong, sometimes I'm not sure that I am as strong as he believes. But if he thinks I am, then I'll do my damnedest to prove that he's right. Not just for him, but for me. 

I am more than my darkness. 

It's time I shed some light.

~Jenny Rockstar

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