Sunday, July 13, 2008

On The Couch

Tonight was good. I stopped taking the ridiculous allergy medicine that was making me feel close to collapsing all the time. I don’t feel like the walking dead anymore, the downside is that my arms are beginning to break out in hives that will most likely make my wrists swell up till I look like the stay puff marshmallow man, only with leprosy.

My co-worker/friend (I’m still not sure what to call them) brought his guitars and drums to work and we worked on some songs he had written. It was a lot of fun. His stuff isn’t really my style at all, but it was great to be playing music nonetheless. We’re probably going to work on it some more on Tuesday so I’m excited for that.

My mom called me last night and asked me if my brother had been drinking and smoking with his friends. I told her it wasn’t any of my, or her business. She told me that I had given her enough of an answer.

My mom is an amazing lady, she really is, but just like every other person, she makes mistakes. When I was in high school my house burned down. The ten of us moved into a tiny trailer, where I shared a room with 4 of my brothers. The stress and bad feelings in that trailer were so unimaginably bad, I think I have an idea of what hell is like. I didn’t want to spend a second more there than I had to, but my mom out of some odd chicken like protection reflex wanted to keep us in the nest, although she did say on more than one occasion “If I have to stay here, so do you.” Which would often be followed by “you little shit.” On top of all my mom’s crazy theatrics and the general stress of having 5 kids under the age of 8 running around, my parents would fight all the time in the trailer, over money and who knows what else. It was hands down the worst period of my life. With all of this going on, something had to give. I couldn’t handle it. So I started sneaking out and going to parties with my friends. I would get really drunk, and have a good time. I would forget about what was waiting for me at the trailer, and hang around people who weren’t crying hellfire and brimstone at me all the time, and she would. She would use these insane guilt tactics to keep us following her rules. Anytime I wasn’t living up to her standards, she would cry and yell things like “I hate you,” or “god is going to send you to hell.” She would always tell me I had made her ashamed, and that she had failed as a mother. Apparently I was a lost cause, which made me figure, “what the hell, I’m past saving anyway, why don’t I have as much fun as I can while I’m still here.” So I would sneak out and get drunk. It sounds like I was this crazy alcoholic drug addict, when in reality I got drunk maybe once a month, the worst I did on a consistent basis was smoke cigarettes. You wouldn’t know this from my mom’s reaction though. When she caught on to what I was doing, there was screaming and crying and basically a lot of “this is the end of the world” nonsense. That’s when she decided she had had enough, and shipped me off to live with my grandmother. I know my parents did this with good intentions, but it’s still hard not to feel the sting of abandonment from the whole situation. I really think it would be okay and I could move on if my Mother could admit to the tiniest amount of wrong doing through the whole thing, but she still feels the same way. She still feels like I am a horrible son, and she has failed me as a parent. I’d like to think that I’m just being sensitive, and that this was all in my head, but the woman still says those kinds of things to me. Whenever I go on a date with a girl here, she tells me not to corrupt her. She says those exact words. It’s insanity.

Anyway, that kind of came out of nowhere, I guess I’m not as over my high school experience as I thought I was. This crap still makes me just as angry and sad and left with this insane guilt as it did when it was happening. I think I know what bothers me about it. She used shame, and guilt to pressure me, and my brothers and sisters into doing what she wanted. She’s a great manipulator, and the guilt she threw on me, the unwarranted guilt (god knows I’ve done things to feel legitimately guilty over) has stuck with me, and I think that’s the reason I keep finding ways to come home, so that I can somehow show my mom that I’m not a lost cause, and that she doesn’t need to be ashamed of me at church anymore. All I know now is that I can’t wait to be far away having a great relationship with her over the phone.

Well, I guess that about does it for my chat with Freud. I’m going to go sleep.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

give it time, parents do come around, eventually. Letting things go to is a step forward too, if you let your past define your future, then your future is going to look pretty much like your past. That's definitely easier said than done, but is a lot better for you and your mother's relationship in the long run. It's good that you epxress your emotions outwards, most people don't do that, which is not healthy. Being sensetive is good, being callous is bad. You are a great person Blake, a true human being, I have only met a few people that are genuine as you. Eventually your mother will come around and see the good that others see, to look past the negative and focus on the positive attributes that define you as a good person. Your smart and a very gifted, I'm sure your mother will be proud of the way you have touched people's lives in a positive manner. Have a great week and take care Blake.