Churning & Frothing

Death doesn't bring with it closure. What it does bring with it, is the finality, the lack of further opportunities to get things right. The fact that, I have to just accept things as they are. Just a note: I haven't gotten to that point in my grief experience yet. 

I have; however!,  gotten in touch with my anger. Everyone thus far has said how funny or sweet or pleasant mom was, and I must bite my tongue because I don’t want to shit all over their memories of who she was to them.

I am angry because of the continued expectation that I participate in the cycle of abuse (EVEN NOW), the expectation that I remain silent about WHO SHE WAS TO ME, the expectation to remain silent because other people’s thoughts or opinions or feelings matter more than mine.

I am angry because I do not know who the REAL PERSON my mom was. We ALL play different roles depending on our audience at the time; however, she was an entirely different person to me, versus how she was to outsiders. Me and my siblings all carry those scars SILENTLY.

Initially, I went through and listened to what voicemails and read what emails I managed not to delete, and then go and read her public facebook comments—each one was SWEET, and the Facebook comments, in particular, are problematic for me, because it only gives the readers one side of who she was.

Now I have progressed to remembering (what memories I have not repressed) every single hateful, emotionally destructive thing she has said to me, and remembering physical abuse—which in addition to my sister’s REGULAR dinner time stabbings, including my own trip to the hospital to get stitches for a laceration on my scalp mom caused. 

All of that churned up from deep within my psyche, all churned up and now frothing on the surface, and unavoidable. I am at least acknowledging the froth. But I cannot even grieve because I still HURT. 

I am angry, thinking of my sister’s C-PTSD and my night terrors, as well as my brother’s bed wetting into his early teens—all of which are outward signs of fucking trauma.

I am angry and sad about how mom pit me and my siblings against each other for decades—and now here we are—fractured/splintered and dysfunctional.

I am angry that mom never got the professional help she needed, so we all could be WHOLE and functional. The idea of meeting her again, if there is such a thing as an afterlife, I want no part of—unless it involves all of us being HEALED AND WHOLE. But really, the idea of nothingness appeals to me. Still. Silent. Darkness. Finally at peace.

And I'm angry at the people who still remain, and whom my silence is still demanded or expected, as they are unwilling or unable, whether immature or not emotionally equipped enough to look upon the past critically, and at least take some measure of responsibility for not protecting me and my siblings at a time when we were too young or vulnerable to fend for ourselves.