🛑Trigger warning: physical abuse🛑
I’m entering a time of year that is notoriously hard for me. It begins with my mother’s birthday and ends with a trauma anniversary. I feel like my mother’s birthday shouldn’t be so hard, but since she’s passed, the emotions intensify yearly, or so it seems. Not only does it remind me that she has passed, but it inevitably also reminds me of what we went through, which leads right into my trauma anniversary.
As a way of coping, I blocked out much of what transpired in the in-between. But even though I can’t actively recall, these memories are stored deep in my body and mind and come back during this time of year.
I’ve been struggling a lot lately with feeling like life has been so unfair. As a parent, it overwhelms me with sadness that my son doesn’t have grandparents. My mom was an awesome grandparent, and I know she would’ve loved my son, but these days, he will only know her through what’s left of her through me.
A huge part of me feels like he’s been robbed of an experience, especially when I witness other kids his age being loved by their grandparents. Why can’t he have that, I wonder.
That thought then opens a can of worms for child me. Ever since I was old enough to realize that my life was different from others, I’ve wanted a “normal life.” That normalcy looked like having a loving, supportive, active mother.
This season transports me back to when my mother’s physical presence was often scarce, her addiction at its worst. Both parents were absent often, and when they were present, they were too high to acknowledge our existence. Arguments ensued over the bathroom. My brother and I argued with my parents because when they spent excessive time there, they came out different people.
Though the same physical being came out, the person inside the shell was different. They didn’t look at us the same, and they didn’t hug us the same. I’d listen to their woe and needs and tried everything in a six-year-old’s power to get them to choose me, my brother, over what was happening in the bathroom. But it didn’t matter; I’d watch every day my mom disappeared into the cityscape, never once acknowledging that she had kids.
My grandmother was my caretaker then but struggled mentally from her traumas, so she let us do whatever we wanted. My brother and I were outside if the weather was good, climbing billboards and stealing milk cartons from nearby stores. Our extensive collection allowed us to use them as life-size Lego’s. The neighborhood kids loved to play with them, too. On rainy days, we would use the first-floor hallway as our playroom and build any and everything we could think of.
Because our parents weren’t often around, well-meaning neighbors stepped in. After getting gum stuck in my hair, a neighbor down the hall tried her best to get it out, but her efforts were futile. My long hair was so knotted from lack of care that the only solution was to cut it. My mom had a thing for long hair, so I didn’t want it cut. It kept me connected to my mother; she wore her hair long, too. I just knew she would disagree when she told my mom it needed to be cut. Only she didn’t, and it became another thing that disconnected us.
If my memory serves me correctly, this neighbor had a son in the building who played with us. He played extra rough with me, usually giving me bruises, but I was brushed off whenever I said anything to an adult. Instead, I was told that his roughness was because he liked me. It made me uncomfortable but if I wanted to play I had to suck it up, so I did but he continued to target me. He seemed to find a way to hurt me in any game we played.
I had severe rug burn on my backside because he dragged me down the hallway. He refused to let me go regardless of how much I screamed out in pain. Because my parents weren’t around that day, I was bathed by his mother to soothe my body from what had happened. I felt exposed and angry, lying in the cloudy water. Though it was only his mom and him that was home, the door to the bathroom remained open. The fear of that bathroom door being wide open as I lay vulnerable in the tub still haunts me.
Once, his aim was so impeccable during burn ball that he got me right in the stomach, knocking the wind right out of me. Burn ball was a game we played against the side of the apartment building with a tennis ball. One person would stand in front of the wall, essentially dodging the tennis balls coming at them. You were only allowed to move so far away from the wall; sometimes, you had a handful of people simultaneously throwing balls at you. I hated this game, but if I opted out, I would get made fun of, and my sensitive self couldn’t risk being ostracized more than I already was…