As a kid, I was deprived of soo much stimulation. What was considered discipline, in the end truly was abuse. When a young boy divulges his problems, he seems more of a brat unless they're under staggering circumstances. As an adult, the empathy seems too late but relieving. I can say my mothers way streamed from her abusive upbringing. To this very day in her 60s, it shows. My father on the other hand, was just a man who had too much to prove with every mistake to show for it. Both were equally abusive, backstory aside. In the end, I had to pay. Out of my mothers kids, I had a better upbringing. My setback was unlike my older brother and sister who could confide in each other, I had none but myself.
I was seriously jealous of other kids with updated video games and watched how smoothly they could have conversations based on what everyone was into. To my parents, it was nothing but a bunch of things I could do later in Life. Those precious youthful moments forever gone, that I had to play emotional catch up. My mother wouldn't care because that's how she came and she's "fine." My father used me as a personal quest to say, "I'm a good father" meanwhile 4 other kids and 3 other baby mothers could say the opposite, my mother included who married the clear scumbag. My mother had terrible character evaluation in people and this spilled over romantically. The worst person you were while being charming, she fell right into their palms if you fucked her good. If you showed her only respect, she took advantage of it or just saw you as weak. She was and is still incredibly emotionally immature. My father simply was a man who lacked integrity. This made him terrible because he knew the right thing to say always but never followed through, knowing he was lying. My mother would just say the wrong thing and basically gave you a middle finger about it. She wouldn't know why she did it but if you bring it up, she never did anything wrong. It stems from her trauma. When she can't explain her toxic behavior, from never questioning her own motives in the first place she would just lash out out of survival of the conversation. It was always extremism with her. Somehow every therapist she's went to is 'stupid' after making some breakthroughs. She hated to be challenged.
In the end, I'm my own man and I'm trying to find my balance. Talking to my brother helped me put some pieces together. I wasn't completely going off the deep end. I had to jump because when I started coming of age, it was either jump or be sheltered in my mothers own tormented world that only knew abuse physically until she was almost 35, from her family and boyfriends and emotionally when she divorced my father at about 46. That's 46 years of abuse and wild abuse, at that. How else was she going to teach? Those fearful ways became very evident in myself as I got older, that I had to shake them almost forcefully. I could end it right here with my father because after the divorce, I only saw or heard from him a limited amount of times. My issues with my father were easy to overcome: you're a piece of shit, who only cares about sex and keeping your "front" up. My issues with my mom are deep rooted and I tried to understand her and talk to her but if you're not completely on her side saying "yes" all the time, you're attacking her. Her extremism. She even thinks my brother hates her, when in reality he just learned to keep his distance from her because she'll never change nor understand where she's ever been wrong. I hate that about traumatized people. Since you were traumatized, there's somehow, in no way, they feel they could possibly hurt anyone because they try to avoid it soo much and try to overbearing force being the good guy, they never realize how much they could still be in others way, despite how much good intentions they may have. You can still be an asshole with good intentions.
I'm breaking soo many old habits in my 30s, I thought I did them in my 20s. Turns out, I have still breakdown other aspects of my youth because, you might've found 1 breakthrough from one day in one year there's still 20something other years to go through with the other 365 days in between them.
My first memories are basically watching a wooden door, hearing my mother screaming in pain from being abused by my brother and sister's father or her boyfriend, Reggie. I had to watch that door on Beach 54th St, apt 5H until I was about 7 years old. My first 7 years was filled with me crying for my mothers pain. To her, that's pain I should just get over. To me, that's my initial starting point of Life. I tried talking to her about it before but it went as far as "So what? What about it?" Making it clear that she never broke down how any of her abuse affected her kids in the process. To her, the abuse was only affecting her. We were just viewers in her world. Then she got back with my father who basically took away my childhood and I had to be a man at 8 years old. Gave my toys away, could barely play games or watch TV because if I did anything that remotely resembled being a kid, that required "discipline." Again, I was just a pawn in my fathers journey to prove himself. I can't no longer say she didn't know about any of his ways. How the hell couldn't she know? You're right downstairs or across the hall for a lot of these moments. My mother agreed to some degree or found his abuse acceptable because it wasn't how she came up. My mother was definitely on the side of "it wasn't like how I had it." Being deprived of childhood joy has long term effects. My fathers man-to-man moments was never playing catch, it was showing me pornography, several times. One time, I walked in on him naked jerking off and he didn't stop, he just turned it "educational." I can say by questioning as I got older, he truly believed in his sick ways. His discipline of me, just meant I was being a kid. My mother stuck with him for over 5 years. There's no way she saw nothing. It took the situation with Bina finally make her have enough. Then I was alone with just her. I had to lash out or else I was going to be another version of her. Hell, I remember many moments of her just waking me up from my sleep just beating my ass for nothing. I would ask, "why?" Which meant she would go harder. As I got older and beatings couldn't work, she would walk in the house and verbally terrorize me about nothing and ramble her thoughts of nothing. When you're a teen saying, "My mom be wilding over nothing." You sound like a brat. When you get older saying the same thing with proof from my sister when she lived with her in her late 30s/early 40s, I know for a fact I wasn't a brat. That's who my mom is and I feel sorry for Desmond at times thinking about it. She definitely goes off on him because he's soo passive and tried with my sister because she can be very passive as well. My sister has a limit. Desmond might be stuck and too timid to let her go because dude is soooooooo fucking nice. She emotionally abuses that man and Tammy proved it.
Here I am, a grown man trying to find help and therapy of some kind. Money won't allow it right now but I'd want a family therapy too so we all can bring it to the table. I'd want my family connected but we can't mainly because my mother will not acknowledge her wrongdoing but all 3 of her kids of 2 different generations have to same outlook on her, so in her extremist traumatized world, we hate her and would only be attacking her. We don't, we just have our own boundaries as people. Her putting up a boundary is never talking to us again which is just as toxic, if not more. We just matured as our own people. That's just who my mother is though.
I would love to call my mother but I can't. In order for me to have a healthy conversation with her I need to talk to her about everything over time but that's not she operates. She's ok and almost prefers sweeping everything under the rug and if you try to pull the rug, she gets defensive. Her and my older sister are similar. My sister is a blind optimist, while my mother is a blind pessimist. At least, my sister is learning to adapt away from that for now. My mother is who she is and you can't correct her.
So now I'm a grown man trying to find tranquility while having to break down my Life in the process to find answers and mental blocks in my psyche. Perservere, persevere but goddamn this shit is tiring. I'm considered the strong friend which has it's setbacks because "I'll get over it." I'm tired of just getting over it. I want help. I want stability. I've been aching over this for some years now. Now it's starting to spill over physically in my habits. I have to push away from diving into destructive habits everyday right now. The pandemic gave me a mental break but I broke a lot of good habits just to do nothing but I kept up enough just to keep my wheels turning. Still, I BROKE GOOD HABITS JUST TO HAVE A MENTAL BREAK. I was tired and exhausted. My Life just came crashing around me and I couldn't care less. I wanted to get back on unemployment for years just for that moment of ease. I was relieved to just sleep. Was I progressing? Yes. Could I still have done better? Absol-fucking-lutely, but my mind and body had enough. That break could've been WAY more progressive but writing this now is showing how much I was aching in that time. I was truly in pain. Now I'm still jobless and in between gigs and may get evicted.
I'm trying to get restabilized. I'm trying to find tranquility. In the meantime, it's forcing me to look deep into my Life. Who's positive around me and who do I need to cut off? I don't want to have to say my own mother but if it has to be, it's going to hurt like hell. She definitely disconnected from her own mother but if I did the same towards her, removing the small olive branch I have left, she would be soo hurt and I'm trying to be ok with that, so I can move on but I can't. I'm still attached to her and her toxic ways. I'm grateful for her but being flawed can still destroy us. I love her but I'm finding my healthy distance from her. My father, ehh, who the fuck cares? A piece of shit is just that. To him, all his kids were (in his own words) mind warped by our mothers. But it was ok for me to have him to convince me flirting with my cousin Stephanie was ok, which he doubled down on 10 years later when my mom questioned her. I was watched by him to make my move and I definitely know he shot his own shot at her. A piece of shit is real easy to move on from. My mom means well, but to say "no" to her is the worst thing I can say to her as her seed. I'm a grown man, yeah, I'm going to have my own ways.
I'm working own my own. I'd like some help but I can't look forward to it. I just got to keep moving forward with my head held high. I would just like my head to be held sincerely, instead of persevering.
