This post deals with child abuse and might be triggering for some readers.
One day, my mother and I were walking into IKEA. She was holding my daughter in a particular way she liked to, sort of a torso chokehold.
“I don’t like the way you’re holding her. I don’t want you to hold them that way anymore,” I told her.
“I held you and your sister like this all the time and you’re fine.”
“We survived. There are things you did that I don’t want done to my children.”
“Like what?”
“You want to go there?” I said, smiling at my own jab.
“Yes,” she snapped.
“Like beating us. I won’t do that to them. Never.”
“You just wait,” she said.
Watch: Women and violence. The hidden numbers. Post continues below.
And there was my fear, hanging out there. My dear mother, that I might become just like you, and my children will have to learn how to survive me too.
Early on in our relationship, my first husband came from behind me with his arms raised. He may have been trying to scare me.
I saw the shadow of his extended arm and dissolved into hysteria.
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I liked the comments below as a show of support but it seems weird to upvote such painful stories. I'm lost for comforting words. I'm just so sorry for your pain.
For me it was extreme hair pulling, hitting with clothes hangers, throwing my stuff around my room, knife throwing at walls and lots of hitting and kicking my body. She would build up into a rant of an afternoon when my dad was away, and try her hardest to get one of us (her kids) to fight back and, I guess, to justify her rage. I always made sure my hair was in a tight ponytail when she began.
There was lots of dramatic attempts to leave the family by her, where the aim was always to beg her to stay. And I did, in so many tears. And the threat of her leaving was always accompanied by an “we’ll have to sell the house, and you’ll have to change schools, and then you’ll have no friends”. I now wish she had left.
Ironically as a grandmother she has calmed down, although still never to be trusted. And sees herself as a role model for parenting.
The upshot of it for me is that I’m now a very sensitive, and highly apologetic adult who hates any confrontation and thinks that deep down everyone hates me. I really wish I knew the feeling of a mothers all encompassing love, I imagine it feels so secure.