“Ann”
“The fiercest anger of all, the most incurable, is that which rages in the place of dearest love.”
Euripides
I found out on Labor Day that my mother passed away earlier that afternoon.
I didn’t know how to feel about it. My mother and I had not been in contact for nine years and all the things I feel are roiling around inside me, mixed together and brawling with each other.
I have been trying to write this piece since then. I have started it and stopped it several times. I spent a long time trying to find a quote that would fit and I settled on one that was very forgiving and kind. Then I could not keep writing and I was stuck. I realized that I was trying to make this piece more palatable for others to read. I don’t know if I wanted others to see me as less angry or if I wanted to spare people discomfort or what, but I couldn’t write because I wasn’t writing the truth.
The truth is that I am full of rage. I am so angry and bitter and I don’t do anger very well. I don’t like how anger feels and when I get angry I get scared. Not only am I angry, but I am angry with myself for being angry so I am all over the place.
When I was in graduate school we did an exercise where we did a family genogram. I dug deep into the stories I had been told and put down on paper the traumas, the addiction, the domestic violence, the sexual abuse and neglect as far back as I could remember. I discovered a pattern of sadness that went back several generations and I cried when I had to present it to the class. My thoughts were a scrambled mess and all I could think was, “this stops here”.
After I came out of rehab the second time, I did extensive step-work and therapy. Forgive me, but at the time I thought I had everything all figured out. That turned out not to be true as I went back to rehab for a third time and have had to do even more trauma work. But at the time I thought I was essentially cured of all things and I was floating along on a fluffy cloud of pretty colors while my ego slowly inflated and I didn’t even notice.
I remember getting a call from my brother one afternoon while I was working and my body started to shake. I asked my therapist why this continued to happen after I had come to a place of forgiveness and relative calm in my life. So why did I panic whenever I heard from my brother or my mother? My therapist explained that even though my mind had reached a place of acceptance, my body still remembered the traumas.
I grew up wanting for nothing in terms of material things. I traveled around the world and went to an expensive boarding school but there was verbal abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and neglect. There are large portions of my childhood I don’t remember and I have to think that may be a blessing in the end.
My mother was mentally ill. I know that she was molested by her older brother. I know that she had OCD and severe anxiety and she could not cope with many things in her life. I know that her mental health or lack thereof, ruled our household. My father never challenged her and stood back and let things unfold around him. My brother had anxiety as well and he molested me. The ripples of sickness had staggering consequences.
I know that I have mental illness as well. I have depression, anxiety and substance use disorder along with severe PTSD. I have not been a model parent either. I have been absent from my own childrens’ lives at times while I have been away trying to get well. What I will give myself grace about however is the fact that I have gone away to try and get well and I have shared with my children what is wrong. I want the cycle to end with me and I want them to have a chance at a life free of the generational abuse and “sweep it under the carpet” mentality that has cast such a large shadow over my family tree.
I am now fifty years old and both my parents are now gone but I would say I haven’t really had them for years now. I want to be able to say forgiving things like “they did the best they could” but I’m not sure that I am there yet and I can’t say that I ever will be. What I can say is that I am grateful that my mother is no longer suffering from the crushing anxiety that plagued her all her life.
There are people who will read this and feel I am being unkind. There is pressure for people like me to remain in the role of the “good daughter”, “good sister” because “society says” we should. Forgive me once again, but fuck that. Just because someone holds the title of family member, that does not mean they are automatically kind and loving. It does not mean that they earned the right to love you the way you deserve to be loved.
And that is just it. I deserve to be loved. I always did and I didn’t get that as a child. Not as a daughter and not as a sister. I was used and abused and belittled and demeaned. I grew up in a fog of despair and secrecy that taught me I had no worth and I acted accordingly. I treated myself abominably for years and sometimes I still do. I have to remind myself of my worthiness often and it is hard and it is counter-intuitive and it shouldn’t be like this - not for anyone.
So my mother died on Labor Day and I am angry. I am angry she did not fight harder to overcome her demons. I am angry she wasn’t capable of being what I needed and deserved. I am angry she lost out on being what she could have been. I am angry my children did not get a grandmother worthy of their love. I am angry that I did not get to resolve these wounds. And I am angry that I am angry. I am also angry that I still love her.
