Knitting Pretty

It was at this point that she took to verbally abusing me for hours on end. She would scream, and I mean scream, until she was so hoarse, she could no longer talk. This took about two hours. She would scream at me that moving to this town was the only thing she had ever done for her, and that I couldn't give her that, that I was so selfish. She would tell me that the world didn't revolve around me, that I was a lazy bitch. That I did more around the house when I was five than I did when I was eleven. She did this in front of my friend, one day, and then drove a knife into the chopping block, telling me to get out.

My friend and I walked out of the house - her not even in shoes - and walked the three or so kilometers to my other aunts house, who my mother had of course had a falling out with. I called my mother some time later to tell her where I was, she was angry with me for going there, for letting them know of her dirty little secret. Oh they knew, my uncle would take me to a weekly youth group purely as a means to get me away from her for a few hours a week. Though everyone said it was 'because we needed time away from each other' ... 'we both had very strong personalities'.

That last line makes my stomach do a nauseating flip. Strong personality. Bollocks, that's what that is. When someone screams at you, for hours on end, the one person you have in the world, the one person who is supposed to protect, love, and nurture you... something happens inside. When she would do this, I wouldn't say anything, because on the few occasions that I did, she would use those few words against me over and over. When she did this, I became small inside. I became a shadow, a ghost. I was not whole, not real, not really there. This wasn't really happening... It was surreal... I put all this in a part of my brain, and let it sit there for a very long time.

The only person in this world who knows all of it is my fiance, the only person I trust to lay it all out before and see what really went on. It was abuse. Psychological and verbal abuse. When I finally stood up to her - with much encouragement from my fiance - the backlash was so extreme... she told me at one stage she wished I wasn't her daughter... I havne't spoken with her in about a year and a half, and haven't seen her for more like four.

Some days I forgive her, some days I can't even say out loud that I love her. I am still coming back from all this, and it stopped close to a decade ago. Some days I just want to cry and beat my hand on the ground, other days I feel at peace because I understand that she is a product of her own childhood.

Coming back from being so tiny inside, so unsafe, alone, is a lengthy process. It is a battle, with yourself, to let yourself grow. To not allow the past to dictate what happens in the future. It is hard, to rebuild that which was so felled when I was so young, but with love, warmth, and a sense of safety, it can and will be done.

I feel that something soft and warm is in order, for a pattern tonight, so here, have something nice to snuggle up with. ^-^