Emtional Abuse

The journey of my life, it all past so quickly that sometimes I don't realize that it is still there, the hate instilled from outside forces that impedes my success. Let me go back 18 of so years when I was born...when mom was caught in a trap that wouldn't stop.

It never occurred to me that she was hurting too. She's my mom. She is supposed to take care of me. When I was a kid, all I could see that my dad was still functioning at 100%, while my mom was unhappy, depressed, and stressed. Not all the time, but she tried. When I was a kid in elementary school, all the kids had cool things, and their lives seemed in such control. I wanted things like that.

Later one, when I was 6 or 7 or so, dad would take us to his shop, and we'd have fun all day, until the weekend was done and we went home back to deprived home. This continued until I was about 10 or so.

Things were fine o.k., dad picking us up at school. Bringing us money. (300 dollars at a time, maybe more or maybe less.) Mom I could see was getting mad, showing it for the first time.
Not mad like through things across the room, but standing up to him, telling him her concern. It was the first time I didn't see him as easy going and fun, but ugly as he looked at mom with...that look. Like a "how-dare-you-defy-me" look. Something like that.

My sisters and I, we began to see and hears things that started to make since to us. Dad's seemed to change for us. He'd be unpleasant when we asked him questions, and not looks at us, guilt trip us when we started asking for things, like more money, or etc. Being angry and saying he is working so hard, not like our mother "staying on her lazy a** all day." Stuff like that. What happened next took it's course over the next few years.

We're teenagers and mom wanted a divorce. He had stopped taking us when he sold the shop for another business, for a restaurant, he'd stop bringing us goodies from there too, when mom said she wanted money, not meals that would last five seconds. It was a cowardly battle, us always being in the fray because he had always support us. Mom would try and try, and finally we got it. Some form of it, Independence. We had to lose a lot of things. One by one by one, it seems. He would draw it out as long as he could, but we prevailed in the end. We prevailed.

So, we were stuck in a woman's shelter. It was horrible. That's one of the things I want to change some day, by the way. Our stay there didn't have to be horrible. So, we came and went, struggling, and in truth it was mom doing all of this. It was all her, and I'm sad to say that I gave up than once. But...this story has a happy ending and is still going.

Mom has a job. Being our sole support. Dad's still hanging out there like a leech, but he doesn't visit us anymore, unless we call for him. Mom is a lot more happy, and we stuck together through that all. I'm glad, because that says something in of itself. Maybe it's not all we can be doing, but we are still trying, and we'll keep on tying until what we get where we want to.

Some day, I'll be 100% again, and be able to accept this part of myself that has shown me that the world can be cruel, but we can prevail. It taught me a side of life I would not like to have experienced, but because of it, I am assured of my place in this, for some very small things, I can withstand hardship, which shows me I am stronger than any abuser.

Usually I don't like to post things like this, but I think the world should know the strength of my mom. Of all mothers and people still trying. Without my mother, I wouldn't have nothing. I wouldn't be the same me that could grow with the watchful eye of my mother guiding me, so I thank her, and wish she could value herself more. That's all.

Oh, and while it's a bit early, I'd like to dedicate this to Mother's Day. Even though a day is a small, small thing to give to mother's since they done much more, and we wouldn't be anywhere without them. See you, and many blessing for you if you are a mother, the strongest woman on Earth. (: