My abuser died.
She took her last breath a few days ago.
I can only ever understand my emotions by writing them out. So here goes.
I was given the news by someone who was not even blood-related to you, but someone who was there at my birth. The text said “Patty passed away.”, I was in the middle of chopping some trees in Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch we just bought for Melody. I put the Switch down to respond to one of the only people I share genetics with that didn’t cast me into the garbage. I responded to her “Never thought I’d see the day.”, at that moment I also asked myself how I feel about this. My mind went straight to a moment 15 years ago when I still lived with you, while I was laying in bed so depressed I didn’t want to keep going. I had the realization that you would be dead at some point. At that moment I was filled with dread. How was I going to traverse life without you in it? How was I going to do anything without you there? I cried for hours that night, scared of the unknown, coming to terms with mortality, and understanding that this life will end at some point.
Once I pressed send on that text I got up and grabbed a sage bundle and some incense and smudged my apartment. One of the last things you ever said to me was “when I’m dead I am going to haunt you for the rest of your life, you won’t have a moment's peace.”
I wasn’t taking any fucking chances.
The past few days I have been asking myself over and over “how do I feel about this?”, and I’ll be honest with you, I don't have many emotions about it. When I told my partner, they called me and asked me how I was doing. I answered them as honestly as I could. I was smudging the house because I didn’t want an angry ghost haunting us, that I had grieved your death over a decade ago, and that I had some crops to gather in Animal Crossing.
There are so many things I would have said to you if I were ever able to.
The first thing I want to say to you is that I raised myself. You had no hand in that.
I was dealt a bad hand the moment my parents met, but you were supposed to be the one that helped me.
Instead, I can’t look in the mirror without hearing your words from when I was 13 wearing a shirt that was too small, “when’s the baby due?”
Instead of celebrating growing into a young woman I was shamed for using a tampon instead of a pad and was told never to talk about it.
Instead of going to high school parties and figuring out who I was and making lasting friendships, I was locked in my room afraid to make a noise that you deemed too loud.
I have an unhealthy relationship with food because you berated me for leaving a scrap on my plate. Years later and I leave a scrap of food on my plate just to spite you.
I know you set me up for failure so I would have to run back to you. So I would always need you.
I was in an abusive relationship because I watched yours and thought it was normal. Because I believed you when you said “you’ll end up just like your mother, with no one to love you.”
I was raised to believe maggots crawling on the ceiling was normal, and that every family needed a walking path through their house because there was just too much stuff. I was raised to believe that you take in every single animal you can get your hands on.
I was raised to believe depression isn’t real, and the reason why I wouldn’t make eye contact with people at a young age was that I was choosing to be difficult. You taught me that I had to mask in order to not be yelled at. God forbid you would have a neurodivergent grandchild.
You taught me that it was normal to go out for the day when you were coming home from work, then come back home long after you had gone to sleep so I wouldn’t be yelled at just for existing. I remember those nights, the few nights I found peace.
You taught me that in order for a man to find worth in me is with me on my back and that I had nothing else to offer.
You had taught me that my smile wasn’t something other people wanted to see and that my laugh was loud and obnoxious.
You ridiculed me for not having many friends, but would harass me anytime I left the house. You would stalk me at my jobs to make sure I was actually there and not “with some random guy getting pregnant.”
Do you remember the night you tried to beat me with a broom and I stopped you? Do you remember what you did? You spat in my face and told me I was weak.
You taught me that racism behind closed doors was acceptable.
You blocked out someone who loved me and did more for me, because you didn’t like that she was a loving and nurturing person. Ironically, that same person was the one who told me you were dead. Funny how that happened.
When I was 19 I had had enough. I started being resentful towards you, realizing that it was abuse and that I didn’t have to stand by and take it. So I left. The day I left will be burned into my mind until I start to lose it. I grabbed everything that I could. My clothes, my books, and my cat (who's still alive by the way, I said to him after I was done smudging that he outlived the old hag and congratulated him). I had waited for a day you were going to be working so I wouldn’t be physically assaulted while trying to leave, just like you did with my Uncle. But that didn’t stop you from texting me and calling me. Telling me that I am worthless, that I won’t amount to anything, that no one will lower their standards enough to love me, that I was dead to you, that you were going to haunt me when you finally died. Mother was there being your voice, screaming at me, saying the same things you were typing to me. Papa was also screaming at me, saying I did this to myself and I had no one to blame but myself. Then his tune changed quickly when he realized I was leaving because of you. He hugged me for the last time and told me that I need to go as quickly as possible and told me that I was loved. He died two years ago not knowing he had a great-grandchild because you didn’t give him the letter I had sent him on his deathbed.
I left that day and never spoke to you again.
I look at that day as the line of demarcation in my life. The before and after.
I grieved all of your deaths over the next couple of years. I said my goodbyes to the rivers that listened. I screamed at the trees that found no fault within me. I cried on the shoulders of men who didn’t deserve me. I mourned a life that wasn’t meant for me.
My 20s were spent figuring myself out because you didn’t allow me to.
I have lived my life like a rock rolling down a mountain. Not like the song where I eventually stop and start growing moss. I rolled down that hill and hit every boulder. Dings all over me. Other pieces of stone stuck to me.
I found heroin. It was my salvation. It helped me not feel all the feelings you left me with. I got to have a break from reality for a few years which I needed. I also needed to find that part of myself that wanted to be better. I wouldn’t have found that if it wasn’t for you.
I found out I was pregnant at the same age my mother found out. I had my daughter at the same age my mother had me. I sometimes like to envision the two paths our lives went. Melody was and is my purpose to do and be better. I was my mother's excuse to not grow up.
I have built my life around “I want to be a better”
I want to be a better person.
I want to be a better Mother.
I want to be a better friend.
I want to be a better listener.
I want to be a better activist.
I want to be a better ally.
I want to just be better than the version of myself you thought I was.
Now I don’t blame my mother for her neglect. Abuse can affect people in any number of ways. She just happened to check out of reality, a bad case of severe dissociation. You did that to her. You broke her in ways many people can’t imagine. I feel pity towards her, and maybe even some compassion. You destroyed every single person who was unfortunate enough to spend any time around you.
But I also don’t blame you either. See, throughout this decade of having no contact with you and being able to process everything and heal I have learned quite a bit. Generational abuse is real, financial abuse is real, capitalism is the root of many of these issues and society sucks as a whole. You did what you could with what you had. You grew up in a much more abusive environment than I did, and you probably even thought that you weren’t that bad. Your parents were probably just as abused as you were, and that goes back for as long as you can imagine. Not only were they abusive, but you were also left to take care of your many siblings. The era you were from didn’t offer many services, and mental health wasn’t even a concept let alone easily accessible. You got pregnant young and married the father of your child. The marriage wasn’t one of love, but of duty and finances. Your life was one of pain and suffering, that is one of the few things I am glad that you no longer have to experience.
The day that I was disowned, I took the torch from you and did my work to make sure the abuse stopped with me. Did it take a while? Absolutely. But Melody doesn’t puke from anxiety from the thought of me coming home from work. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be shaken and screamed at just because she exists. She knows that it’s ok that she fidgets, talks a lot, and can’t sit still to save her life. When she gets in trouble and after her time-outs, she crawls into my arms and holds me as she’s crying. We don’t talk about why she got in trouble until she’s been able to calm down, and when she feels safe enough to do so. She gets a say in family decisions, and her opinion not only matters but holds weight. She doesn’t get a close-fisted punch to her temple when she’s just being a kid and I am feeling overwhelmed. She gets “bub, gimme a minute I gotta poop”, which gives me the 5-10 min of decompression I need. She has never gotten left on the side of the road in a city she’s never been in because I get angry at her, to then just come back 2 hours later after she’s “learned her lesson”. She will never be touched by your abuse.
I will never forgive you for the things you did. I will have scars on my body and my mind that I had gotten from you that will still be there when the earth reclaims me. I will never fully heal, and I will never truly feel safe.
But I can say that I understand why it happened.
I am not sad that you’re dead. I grieved you over a decade ago. You have been dead to me longer than you’ve actually been dead. I am glad that you’re no longer in pain, that you’re no longer suffering. No one should have to experience that in their final hours. I am glad that you can no longer hurt another living person. I just cannot say that I’m sad.
I’m doing a lot better than you expected. Your great-grandchild is as smart as you would have hoped and more beautiful than you would have expected coming from me. She is happy and healthy. I got my license, own a car, have been with an amazing man for many years, and I even went back to college. So I can help other people who were raised just like me know that there is an “after” and it can be as beautiful as they can imagine.
May your rest be more peaceful than the life you lived.
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