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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 13 of 13. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by trouble on February 12, 2002, at 22:43:29
I don't think I'll drink right now.
No, I think I will. I could drink instead of dealing w/ my feelings. No, I'll write this and then I'll have a drink and that will make me feel better.
I'm mad right now. Dr. Phil was on TV today talking to moms who were maltreating their daughters. I sure wish someone would have intervened like that for me. "Look lady, there's something WRONG w/ the way you treat your daughter. Your behavior is dispicable."It's not like I didn't leave the door wide open from the minute I could walk. I went to my priest, my teachers, relatives, neighbors, strangers, everyone knew what was going on in my house and no one did anything to stop it.
There were interventions, but never any follow-up. And the biggest intervention came when the principal of my school walked into his office at 6:30 one morning and found me sleeping w/ my head on his desk. We can't have that. I broke into the school b/c it was snowing and I didn't have anywhere else to go and tears were sticking to my face in the Minnesota January night.
So they sent us to a Psychologist and my mom presented so well even I believed her. 'Til we got back in the car and she started mimicking and ridiculing the doctor, mocking my sincerety and working herself into a lather over the humiliation of having to jump thru these hoops on my behalf, like it was my fault I'd bleed when she'd cut.Just like that lady today my mom said the exact same thing when I'd be sad- "It doesn't happen every day." Meaning how can I still be holding onto something she long forgot. No, we don't have to drive to the hospital every day to get my ribs taped up, we don't have to visit my brother in the psych ward in 4 point restraints ALL THE TIME and am I still belly-aching about the goddamned eye-patch? That was two years ago! So I want to be mad about things but that makes me feel guilty and life becomes a tiny concentric circle that keeps coming back like a bad penny.
Once my other brother Marky took me into the kitchen and demanded an explanation for my welts and bruises and when she looked I saw the spoon she was stirring pause for a nanosecond, but then being mom she goes "that's the price she pays for defiance." What defiance?! There weren't any rules!! We could do anything we wanted. She'd disappear for days and we'd fend for ouselves (by having pot parties and live music on the front lawn). She'd come home drunk and join in the fun. When she'd had enough she'd get in her car and try to run over the partygoers for being "a bad influence on her children."
Then one day I'd wake up and all of a sudden it would be "This is the kind of family that has dinner together every night at 5:30," like it was a lifelong tradition or something. Afterwards we'd sing around the fireplace and mom would knit a sampler. Two days later she'd make my brother eat a carton of cigarettes and we'd be back to the normal routine.
She was strict though. Not like these moms on Oprah today, more like a sadistic superego that persecutes you into a psychotic break. No rules or nothin, just you suck go die out-of-7-miscarriages-you-had-to-be- the-one-that-lived do the world a favor and kill yourself. And I'd just be like "Oh mom, you always say that stuff."AND?
Last month the ss pdoc asked me where I thought my mom was now. And I go I think she's in heaven, watching filmstrips of the life she led and the wreckage it effected on the people who loved her" and when he put that in the report he made it sound crazy. What a dick! He set it up w/his gentle interrogation about my ghosts from the past and so forth.
For all her sullen monsterishness there was an equal and opposing side-warm, kind, funny, charming, generous, tender, haunted, gracious, vulnerable, impish, and beautiful. When she was good there was always this hint of sadness about her, almost humility, a definite wistfulness. It was the closest I ever saw her come to any kind of self-awareness. A far-away look in her eye. When she was on her deathbed I was telling her how healing it would be when she first sees Jesus and she murmurs "Oh honey, we both know I'm going straight to hell."
And I'm not just waxing poetic about that haunted gaze, I've got pictures of her like that and when I show them to people they get a far away look in their eyes too.HEY Dagnabbit!
I thought I was supposed to be MAD. DOES THIS SOUND MAD TO YOU?Oh well maybe next time. And thanks for listening, wherever you are.
Posted by ST on February 13, 2002, at 3:57:30
In reply to Mother's milk, posted by trouble on February 12, 2002, at 22:43:29
Trouble,
Did your father leave when you were very young? Did your mother ever receive any kind of diagnosis or counseling? (I'm asssuming not!)
ST
Posted by kiddo on February 13, 2002, at 10:27:25
In reply to Mother's milk, posted by trouble on February 12, 2002, at 22:43:29
Your life sounds so much like mine we could be siblings....except it was my stepdad instead of my mom...The exact things of course are different, but I know what you mean....
My chest is hurting, I feel myself pulling away from the present, like a movie camera zoomed in close and then zoomed out extremely fast.
Yes, IT sounds mad to me, however, you do NOT. Do you have the right to be angry? ABSOLUTELY! You have no reason to feel guilty, your feelings are just that. YOUR FEELINGS, they are neither right nor wrong, they just are...
I'm sorry you had to live through that, no one should have to endure that type of life, however, you did, and that shows just how strong you really are.
The saddest part is when people (govt., etc..) know about it, talk to the 'parent' (like they are going to let them see their true side) and then file it away, doing nothing to intervene.
Sorry-your post aroused ALOT of wounds that haven't yet healed, and brought back a lot of feelings I thought I'd dealt with, but guess I haven't...
Sorry, didn't mean to add all my stuff to your post....
Kiddo-> I don't think I'll drink right now.
> No, I think I will. I could drink instead of dealing w/ my feelings. No, I'll write this and then I'll have a drink and that will make me feel better.
> I'm mad right now. Dr. Phil was on TV today talking to moms who were maltreating their daughters. I sure wish someone would have intervened like that for me. "Look lady, there's something WRONG w/ the way you treat your daughter. Your behavior is dispicable."
>
> It's not like I didn't leave the door wide open from the minute I could walk. I went to my priest, my teachers, relatives, neighbors, strangers, everyone knew what was going on in my house and no one did anything to stop it.
>
> There were interventions, but never any follow-up. And the biggest intervention came when the principal of my school walked into his office at 6:30 one morning and found me sleeping w/ my head on his desk. We can't have that. I broke into the school b/c it was snowing and I didn't have anywhere else to go and tears were sticking to my face in the Minnesota January night.
> So they sent us to a Psychologist and my mom presented so well even I believed her. 'Til we got back in the car and she started mimicking and ridiculing the doctor, mocking my sincerety and working herself into a lather over the humiliation of having to jump thru these hoops on my behalf, like it was my fault I'd bleed when she'd cut.
>
> Just like that lady today my mom said the exact same thing when I'd be sad- "It doesn't happen every day." Meaning how can I still be holding onto something she long forgot. No, we don't have to drive to the hospital every day to get my ribs taped up, we don't have to visit my brother in the psych ward in 4 point restraints ALL THE TIME and am I still belly-aching about the goddamned eye-patch? That was two years ago! So I want to be mad about things but that makes me feel guilty and life becomes a tiny concentric circle that keeps coming back like a bad penny.
>
> Once my other brother Marky took me into the kitchen and demanded an explanation for my welts and bruises and when she looked I saw the spoon she was stirring pause for a nanosecond, but then being mom she goes "that's the price she pays for defiance." What defiance?! There weren't any rules!! We could do anything we wanted. She'd disappear for days and we'd fend for ouselves (by having pot parties and live music on the front lawn). She'd come home drunk and join in the fun. When she'd had enough she'd get in her car and try to run over the partygoers for being "a bad influence on her children."
>
> Then one day I'd wake up and all of a sudden it would be "This is the kind of family that has dinner together every night at 5:30," like it was a lifelong tradition or something. Afterwards we'd sing around the fireplace and mom would knit a sampler. Two days later she'd make my brother eat a carton of cigarettes and we'd be back to the normal routine.
> She was strict though. Not like these moms on Oprah today, more like a sadistic superego that persecutes you into a psychotic break. No rules or nothin, just you suck go die out-of-7-miscarriages-you-had-to-be- the-one-that-lived do the world a favor and kill yourself. And I'd just be like "Oh mom, you always say that stuff."
>
> AND?
>
> Last month the ss pdoc asked me where I thought my mom was now. And I go I think she's in heaven, watching filmstrips of the life she led and the wreckage it effected on the people who loved her" and when he put that in the report he made it sound crazy. What a dick! He set it up w/his gentle interrogation about my ghosts from the past and so forth.
>
> For all her sullen monsterishness there was an equal and opposing side-warm, kind, funny, charming, generous, tender, haunted, gracious, vulnerable, impish, and beautiful. When she was good there was always this hint of sadness about her, almost humility, a definite wistfulness. It was the closest I ever saw her come to any kind of self-awareness. A far-away look in her eye. When she was on her deathbed I was telling her how healing it would be when she first sees Jesus and she murmurs "Oh honey, we both know I'm going straight to hell."
> And I'm not just waxing poetic about that haunted gaze, I've got pictures of her like that and when I show them to people they get a far away look in their eyes too.
>
> HEY Dagnabbit!
> I thought I was supposed to be MAD. DOES THIS SOUND MAD TO YOU?
>
> Oh well maybe next time. And thanks for listening, wherever you are.
Posted by IsoM on February 13, 2002, at 15:35:01
In reply to Mother's milk, posted by trouble on February 12, 2002, at 22:43:29
Trouble, I don't even know what to say. After reading your post, I sat & stared at the monitor for a long, long time. I still don't know whether to post this as it sounds trite or what. I'm posting it anyways.
I don't ever seem to cry - I hate crying. It makes my head hurt so bad & I feel F***'D up for days afterwards. So much about healing powers of crying. But I type this with my eyes wet & heavy.
How did you survive? What happened to your brother? Why was your Mom so evil, though there was obviously good there too? What made her like that? Could you ever reach her when she was good?
This is so painful. How I wonder do people ever handle life like that? No animal ever inflicts the sheer torture on their offspring as people do. My father hurt us so bad, I was terrified of him when small, (never once did I ever have a friend or cousin sleep over because of what he was like) but he was never that horrible. My Mom gave us unconditional love in buckets except for a brief lapse going through menopause & an affair my father was having.
I resolved when I was a mother never to reject my sons for anything. I didn't always keep my promise but would always tell them afterwards I was sorry & it wasn't their fault I acted like that. It was me. I never had even my loving Mom tell me she was sorry for anything & I knew it has to be done.
Oh, trouble, I hurt for you. I don't always have sympathy for people when I think they brought their pains on themseves & knew it (you DIDN'T bring your pain on), but I always have the empathy still. I can somehow "feel" their pain. It hurts. At least, you've got her "opposing side-warm, kind, funny, charming, generous, tender, haunted, gracious, vulnerable, impish, and beautiful." I truly mean that. Your posts convey so much feelings & emotions. There's so, so much depth in you.
I hope you can heal from all this & despite all this. Horrible, horrible thing to say - but somehow it has made you stronger despite wreaking havoc with your life.
Posted by noa on February 13, 2002, at 17:19:37
In reply to Mother's milk, posted by trouble on February 12, 2002, at 22:43:29
WOW.
Thanks.
If it helps to have reality check---I think it would be incredibly hard to know what normal family life is if you grew up with such crazy (non)parenting and out and out abuse---I can tell you your childhood sounds like it was hellish. Very hellish. Crazy-making on every front.
You write well about it, too.
When you were done, the anger dissipated somewhat it seems, which in a way was frustrating, but maybe also therapeutic? When you started the writing, it seemed like you were trying to fend off incredible out of control impotent rage, triggered by what you saw on tv. And yes, I can relate to that feeling of "why couldn't there have been somebody to help me when I was a kid?"
But,even tho the wind seemed out of your sails a bit at the end, maybe the writing was just what you needed to defuse that impotent rage?
Posted by IsoM on February 13, 2002, at 17:47:26
In reply to Mother's milk, posted by trouble on February 12, 2002, at 22:43:29
> > "... thought I was supposed to be MAD. DOES THIS SOUND MAD TO YOU?"
I actually understood you to mean mad, like crazy-mad, not angry-mad. I always use mad in the first sense. What sense did you mean it in, trouble?
And if you did mean the first sense, you seem far less mad than most sane people I know.
Posted by sar on February 13, 2002, at 17:54:00
In reply to Mother's milk, posted by trouble on February 12, 2002, at 22:43:29
that, trouble, was one of the most compelling posts i have ever read on this board.
i'm sorry that happened to you, all of it--the way you wrote it, though, that was beautiful, amazing!
thank you for writing something so poingantly entertaining.
Posted by Anna Laura on February 13, 2002, at 18:34:01
In reply to Mother's milk, posted by trouble on February 12, 2002, at 22:43:29
I 've been there too. Your mother sounds like my mother a lot even though they're different persons coming from different countries and cultures.
I can definetely relate to what you said about "no rules".
I think what hurts even more then pshysical abuse is mental abuse: i'm talking about invalidation here.
Invalidation it's about shattering your reality and your perceptions every single day.
As a little girl i was constantly fighting to keep myself sane.
Invalidation and denial are both subtle attempts to rob you of your own identity.
It's about a fragile sensitive little mind clashing against an adult one.
As a little girl i had to face this situation without any support whatsoever.
It was rough.Some memories from the past:
My mother used be at home for lunch and watch me eat.
Sometimes she would tell me fairy tales with a sweet gentle voice.
"Come on honey, one more bite" she would say.
But sometimes i'd feel noxious and didn't want to finish.
Then her eyes changed, just like that, within a second: the sweet mamie was gone and another person was taking her place.
She'd grab my wrists and force to me eat.
If i resisted, she'd dragged me to the bathroom, put the dish on toilet and lock me in.
"If i hear the flushing noise i'll kill you " - she shouted.
Other times i was so noxious i'd puke right in the dish and she was forcing me to eat my vomit.
The most horrible thing was that there was no purpose, no rational explanation whatsoever. And no rules, of course.
Since she was moody, she'd get rage outbursts for different reasons: the rules changed every time and i was living all day waiting for that to happen, knowing that i couldn't have done anything to prevent that.
I tried to face her sometimes as i wanted to understand why she was doing that, but she was in denial.
I'd go like :"Mamie why did you beat me with the belt last week? You know, i need to know that because i want to be a good girl, and never disappoint you again"
(It was a lie of course: i wanted to know cause her behaviour was driving me mad; i just hoped to find some reasons for her behaviour).
But it wasn't so easy as she'd look at me as i was crazy and tell me that she never did anything like that.
"Why are you saying such bad things to me honey? To catch my attention?".
Sometimes she was so sweet and gentle (may be too much), other times she looked like Bette Devis in "Who killed Baby Jane".
Nobody believed me cause my mother was a respected, successful judge and none would ever suspect what she was doing to me when she was at home.
She was drinking and was in denial about her drinking problem also.
She'd come home completelly drunk, stumble and fall on the kitchen's floor and say:
"Oh my god i'm sooo tired!! I've been working all day and i have low blood pressure. May be i should work less". ("May be you should drink less", i was about to say, but i was too scared to tell).
Well, to cut it short i left home when i was 18 and met other people like her (as a matter of act i got married with an abuser).
Right now i'm living with a guy who's a "recovering" abuser (i don't think he'll ever "recover" though, even if he's improved a lot).
I haven't been seeing my mom for seven years since i had resolved not to see her again 'cause every time i met her she'd be kind the first days and then go back to the old violent habits once again.
I met her again few months ago at my grandma's funeral. I decided to try one more time, and we're going fine so far: she quit drinking and she's far more "normal", even though i know she'll never change.
If our relationship stays superficial everything goes smooth (you know: Hi mom, what have you done today? Hi mom, can i borrow that book? Hi mom, how's the dog? and so forth).
If i try to get more intimate, like making questions about the past, she gets weird and
gets mad at me (Warning: do not open that door).
Sometimes i wonder why i'm doing that.
May be i need to feel "at home", to feel my family support even if i know it's all fake. Sometimes i think i'll walk away again some day, but i'm staying in for now as i feel lonely and i need mother's milk even if it tastes bitter.
Posted by IsoM on February 13, 2002, at 21:46:26
In reply to Re: Mother's milk , posted by Anna Laura on February 13, 2002, at 18:34:01
I phoned my Mom tonight & read her both of your posts & then started crying. I told her that despite the brutal life she had (it WAS horrible), she was the kindest, gentlest mother anyone could have. We had a few rocky years what with my rebellious teens cropping up & my father's affair & menopause effecting her, but she was so good to her children. She adored us & always told us how good we were.
We talked for so long. I wish everyone could've had a Mom like mine. I very much wish you could find someone who loves you like she does me. She's the reason I'm who I am.
Posted by trouble on February 15, 2002, at 10:52:26
In reply to Re: Mother's milk, posted by ST on February 13, 2002, at 3:57:30
ST,
Mom said I was conceived during a rape by my estranged dad, who I met officially when I was 33 and he denied it. She sure acted like I was a product of rape though.
She never had any psych work as far as I know but psychiatrists were part of our lives all along tho we pretended that they weren't. If the word psychiatrist was mentioned in the house it was always whispered and there was always an explanation for it, as in Gramma was schizophrenic b/c she had scarlet fever as a child, Ricky (my bro) was a psychopath b/c he fell down and bumped his head, I was "mental" b/c of a hyperactive thyroid, etc. There was much more law enforcement and jail time in my family than psychology, and we reveled in our status as outlaws, so no one thought it meant anything was seriously amiss. It's still hard to shape this stuff into any kind of cogent reality, but thanks for asking!trouble
Posted by trouble on February 15, 2002, at 11:06:29
In reply to Re: Mother's milk , posted by Anna Laura on February 13, 2002, at 18:34:01
wow.
Where were you when I was a kid? Do you ever wonder about that? How come there were no other insane families around except your own? No reference point, no one to comisserate with? What a difference it would have made to have had one friend who was going thru something similar!Your remark about your mom resembling Bette Davis gave me chills, that's my exact reference for my own mother when she was at her scariest. Try telling that to the high school guidance counselor!
Anyway, I know what it does to your insides to process these memories and I thank you for taking the time and trouble to share your story. How did it affect you afterwards?
>
> trouble
Posted by trouble on February 15, 2002, at 11:27:29
In reply to Mother's milk, posted by trouble on February 12, 2002, at 22:43:29
I've recovered finally after haveing posted mother's milk. Stayed indoors yesterday, w/ my cats and 13 dollars worth of chocolate.
I'm always two different people before and after I process family memories. The person I become afterwards is slow. Slow-moving, slow-thinking, my friend said she can always tell b/c I have this heavy heavy energy, you could walk up and scream my name in my ear and two minutes later I'll go huh? Did someone say something?
All day Wednesday I was preoccupied to a fault like that, but there was nothing on my mind, I mean I couldn't name my thoughts or feelings for a million dollars.
I have to call up Samuel Beckett to referee between the part of me that wants to die and the part of me already dead--
"I Can't Go On; I'll Go On."
That's what went thru my mind all day Wednesday while I tried to conform to consensual reality, which always seems like a JOKE when contrasted to my own reality.
Stop at red lights, proceed thru green, pick up dry cleaning, clean cat box, apply anti-perspirant, make eye-contact, Hello, how are you? Fine, and you? That's what's always made me unstable, not just the trauma, but the need to repress the trauma and get on w/ the day to day business of life.Where does the trauma go? Got me!!
> I'm mad right now. Dr. Phil was on TV today talking to moms who were maltreating their daughters. I sure wish someone would have intervened like that for me. "Look lady, there's something WRONG w/ the way you treat your daughter. Your behavior is dispicable."
>
> It's not like I didn't leave the door wide open from the minute I could walk. I went to my priest, my teachers, relatives, neighbors, strangers, everyone knew what was going on in my house and no one did anything to stop it.
>
> There were interventions, but never any follow-up. And the biggest intervention came when the principal of my school walked into his office at 6:30 one morning and found me sleeping w/ my head on his desk. We can't have that. I broke into the school b/c it was snowing and I didn't have anywhere else to go and tears were sticking to my face in the Minnesota January night.
> So they sent us to a Psychologist and my mom presented so well even I believed her. 'Til we got back in the car and she started mimicking and ridiculing the doctor, mocking my sincerety and working herself into a lather over the humiliation of having to jump thru these hoops on my behalf, like it was my fault I'd bleed when she'd cut.
>
> Just like that lady today my mom said the exact same thing when I'd be sad- "It doesn't happen every day." Meaning how can I still be holding onto something she long forgot. No, we don't have to drive to the hospital every day to get my ribs taped up, we don't have to visit my brother in the psych ward in 4 point restraints ALL THE TIME and am I still belly-aching about the goddamned eye-patch? That was two years ago! So I want to be mad about things but that makes me feel guilty and life becomes a tiny concentric circle that keeps coming back like a bad penny.
>
> Once my other brother Marky took me into the kitchen and demanded an explanation for my welts and bruises and when she looked I saw the spoon she was stirring pause for a nanosecond, but then being mom she goes "that's the price she pays for defiance." What defiance?! There weren't any rules!! We could do anything we wanted. She'd disappear for days and we'd fend for ouselves (by having pot parties and live music on the front lawn). She'd come home drunk and join in the fun. When she'd had enough she'd get in her car and try to run over the partygoers for being "a bad influence on her children."
>
> Then one day I'd wake up and all of a sudden it would be "This is the kind of family that has dinner together every night at 5:30," like it was a lifelong tradition or something. Afterwards we'd sing around the fireplace and mom would knit a sampler. Two days later she'd make my brother eat a carton of cigarettes and we'd be back to the normal routine.
> She was strict though. Not like these moms on Oprah today, more like a sadistic superego that persecutes you into a psychotic break. No rules or nothin, just you suck go die out-of-7-miscarriages-you-had-to-be- the-one-that-lived do the world a favor and kill yourself. And I'd just be like "Oh mom, you always say that stuff."
>
> AND?
>
> Last month the ss pdoc asked me where I thought my mom was now. And I go I think she's in heaven, watching filmstrips of the life she led and the wreckage it effected on the people who loved her" and when he put that in the report he made it sound crazy. What a dick! He set it up w/his gentle interrogation about my ghosts from the past and so forth.
>
> For all her sullen monsterishness there was an equal and opposing side-warm, kind, funny, charming, generous, tender, haunted, gracious, vulnerable, impish, and beautiful. When she was good there was always this hint of sadness about her, almost humility, a definite wistfulness. It was the closest I ever saw her come to any kind of self-awareness. A far-away look in her eye. When she was on her deathbed I was telling her how healing it would be when she first sees Jesus and she murmurs "Oh honey, we both know I'm going straight to hell."
> And I'm not just waxing poetic about that haunted gaze, I've got pictures of her like that and when I show them to people they get a far away look in their eyes too.
>
> HEY Dagnabbit!
> I thought I was supposed to be MAD. DOES THIS SOUND MAD TO YOU?
>
> Oh well maybe next time. And thanks for listening, wherever you are.
Posted by noa on February 16, 2002, at 13:42:32
In reply to Calling Samuel Beckett, stat!, posted by trouble on February 15, 2002, at 11:27:29
Remembering does seem to take a lot out of you. It sounds like it is still raw enough that after you recall the trauma, in order to recover, you go into a kind of autopilot function. But you stay with your consciousness it seems. I think the key is to know how much you can stand or how much you want to stand and have ways to pull back from the memories if you don't want to go in so deep.
I think your writing is amazing, and your having shared what you have with us is a gift. Thank you.
This is the end of the thread.
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