Karis : like Paris with a K :: Becoming : Part 1

Emotional abuse.  I was emotionally abused.  I don't say it much, and I don't think I've ever said it out loud.  That's the nature of someone who has been emotionally abused - the decline of self worth, fear, inability to trust other people, and the devaluing of one's own life experiences.  Life is hard for a lot of people.  Why should I complain about what I can't really even prove?  You can't see my scars.  When she hit me, she never left any marks.  Usually when she hit me it was because I was talking back (I'm a little strong willed...) - once it was out of turn.  But no one knows about that.  Emotionally abused children have an obligation to keep most things that happen behind closed doors a secret.

Most people thought my mom and I had a great relationship.  I was generally pretty good at hiding those things that happened at home.  The humiliation in public I tried to brush off, walk away, ignore, smile and nod.  I hated being related to her, to be associated with her.  I'm nothing like her.  In fact, I've spent most of my life trying to be the opposite of her.  I remember being small, around 8 years old, and consciously thinking about what I did and said, how I reacted, and if it was something my mom would do, I would immediately change it.  I was not going to turn into my mother.

My parents divorced when I was ten.  Shocker.  I wouldn't want to be married to her, either.  After that, life had no time for evaluation.  I knew a few things.  I knew that too much was expected out of me as a child, that I was being robbed of a family and of a childhood, that I didn't like my mom, that I had to get out.  But it took an objective view to really understand why.  I didn't realize the reality of what was happening to me, that it existed outside of my realm, that I wasn't alone in this experience, until much later.  I spent a lot of my time going over what went on between my mother and I during college.  I still re-evaluate it.  Habit.

You could say she was a driving force: she was the force against which I drove.  I would like to be rid of her completely, but that, I think, will take a very long time.  Women who have experienced an emotionally abusive relationship are said to be scarred for years.  I was in an emotionally abusive relationship with my mother for a huge portion of my life, the part that I was raised in, which is a very impressionable time.  It seems natural that those scars are still there, and will be there, and that it is okay for them to be there.  (Right?)

I hope you can appreciate that these "Parts" may not come as frequently as some others - I have written and rewritten and erased paragraphs and words and stories of what really happened over and over again.  This is not a thing I talk about.  It is deep and dark and inside me.  There are parts of my past that I hope to never relive.  But it must be worth something to say it, to share it, because it's real.  It happened, and maybe that's the unbelievable part, even for me.

Suddenly I've forgotten how to push the "Submit" button...

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