Coming to Terms With the Death of My Family

Coming to terms with the death of my family (Part one) Trigger Warning:Family Trauma

This idea has been in play with my life since before I knew what my childhood trauma looked like. During my parent’s divorce, I felt as if my mother handled it poorly. I saw the reaction from my dad and it hurt more than the split. Throughout their divorce process, my mother treated me poorly. Don’t get me wrong, I was absolutely an angsty teenager and like always, I spoke my mind. When I found out about my mother’s affair, it was no secret that I disapproved. I remember one day, during court mandated therapy, I was asked to describe my mom in one word and I chose “home wrecker”. I’m sure this hurt her, but it was an honest description of how I felt. I mention this moment because it marked the beginning of the end for our relationship as mother and daughter. This seemed to be the moment she decided that I was too much trouble and not worth the hassle. Perhaps this sounds a bit dramatic, but this is coming from retrospective and not immediate feelings towards the matter. I remember the day I stopped loving her like a mom. She and I were fighting and to be honest, I don’t even remember what about. As we were walking up the stairs to her apartment door, she stopped me on the narrow stair riddled hallway, and slapped my face so hard that my braces went through my lip. She slapped me. I was a child, having a hard time coping with all of this new information in a short amount of time. Some people may read this and think about how the time was different or perhaps I really was such a pain in the ass and she snapped. To be honest, I don’t know if these were the case. All I know is that I was a child in pain. I was trying to cope with ideas way beyond my understanding and at that moment more than ever, I needed a mom. She started dating the man she cheated on my dad with and as you can imagine, I did not approve or take it lightly. My dismissal of this relationship provoked the first abandonment of me by my mom.

One day, on the beginning of one of her weekends, she picked me up from my dads and drove me to a bank parking lot near her apartment. What was strange is that this random parking lot was out of our way. I look back and as an adult, I still don’t quite understand why this was her approach. She stopped and handed me a piece of paper. It was a list. A list of behaviors that I was obligated to incorporate into my life. She wrote down all of these things such as me being respectful of her while we were in therapy (this one baffled me because on day one of therapy, I was told to be completely honest). How can you work out issues if you don’t express your true feelings? There were things like this on here- about 20 behaviors she wanted me to acquire. The one that got me the most was the one not listed on this paper. She turned to me and said “if you cannot make these changes and be okay with my relationship (with the man she cheated with), then you can no longer live with me.” This is the epitome of my relationship with the same woman who didn’t like to hold my hand in public when I was 5 and at a big store. She made me feel like her choice to abandon me was my fault. I was the problem. She made it clear that her life was of higher value than mine or my emotions. So I did what I thought was best for myself: to avoid any more mental, emotional, and even physical abuse. I told her to take me back to dad’s. I told her I could not comply and I would not be silent on these issues. For those who know me, know that I speak my mind on what I believe to be right and wrong. I fight for things in life that I find unjust. She took me back.

I collapsed once I made it into the house. My heart was broken. I had officially had to deal with the loss of my mom at a very young age. My dad, like always, was there. He picked me up and read the letter. I remember he got me ice cream and stayed up with me watching movies that night. And actually just about every night for the next couple of years. My dad had made an effort up to that point to not speak ill of my mother in front of me. He seemed to make the decision to break that silence because his daughter, a little girl, felt like she was not worth enough for her mom to stick around. Hell, I still feel like that all the time. He has spent everyday since then trying to help me understand my worth. Honestly, I feel bad that he was tasked with such a difficult job. It has taken me 15 years to get to a point that I feel confident in my self worth. I thought that this began once she abandoned me but the truth is that it started long before this.

I remember the first time I realized that my family loved my brother and I significantly less than my other cousins. For the first time, I had a friend in Colorado who actually wanted to spend time with me. Constantly, my cousin was invited to friends houses and leaving me behind. The one time that I did, she got treated like a princess and I got treated like I was in the wrong. They took her shopping, to the movies, got her candy, the works. TO MAKE HER FEEL BETTER FOR SOMETHING SHE CONSTANTLY DID TO ME. It may seem like a small moment, but upon reflection, these things rippled out getting worse as they proceeded. We were shopping one time with a bunch of the cousins and my aunt and I remember we both really wanted these Fourth of July tube tops. They weren’t risqué in any way. No cleavage or midriffs or anything, just strictly a sleeveless top. They bought one for her and my aunt told me that it wouldn’t look right on me to wear. Imagine the strain on my developing of confidence that something like that invoked. I was young.. and already being taught that the blond hair, blue eyed girls were prettier than me. They were worth more than me in my family’s eyes. You know- the people who we are made to believe will love us unconditionally. I was not so lucky.

When my parents got married, my family either asked why my mom was marrying or asked her not to marry “a black man”. For reference, let me just explain how racist that was. There shouldn’t have been any conditions to the race of my moms husband, but because of their small, white, hodunk town, my family saw my middle-eastern Jewish father as less than. Not even taking their time to direct their racism at the correct race. I am not saying here that any race deserves this. I am simply stating that there was an extra layer here meant to completely ignore and belittle my father’s identity. My brother and I were always made to feel like the “others”. Comments about my cousins hair and eye color being more valuable that ours echoed in our heads. My cousins got everything they wanted, we only got things if it conveniently fit with their desires. If you need an example of how bad this got, I have a perfect one. It was so awful to the point that when I remembered being molested, I questioned whether or not they would have looked at me as worth molesting. Please read that again, me, a victim of sexual start confirmed to be as early as 7, but most likely sooner, I didn’t think I was “worth molesting”. WHAT THE FUCK??? How little do you have to think of yourself to see being molested as something you are worthy of.

The family was fucked up.

Delusional.

To the point where they still do not think anything they did was wrong.

Here’s what’s worse:

Even after all of this, I still desperately fought for their approval. I still tried to be as good of a granddaughter, cousin, niece, daughter as I could. After my parents divorce/separation, I went to Colorado for the summer and it was one of the first moments I noticed that the entire family was looking down on me completely. Not in a hidden, racist way, but in a way that they seemed to feel justified looking down on a TWELVE YEAR OLD. My cousin was so mad at me and told me that I was acting like a brat. Nobody even bothered asking me what happened. They believed that I abandoned my mom (yeah, sure, because that is an option for a child). She told them that I used her for money. (Absofuckinglutely not, the most she bought me during her QUARTERLY visits was a drink and MAYBEEEEEEEE lunch at sonic.) You know, things that parents inherently do for their children.

It felt suffocating.

It was like I was having an argument with my mouth glued shut. Nothing I said mattered, the fact that I was a child in a newly broken home didn’t matter. They decided the blame was on me. I remember just desperately wanting someone to even just listen to my side before telling me I was wrong. I just wanted to be heard. When I wasn’t, it affected my relationships with paternal family members. I was taught that I was other, worth less than other members, that what I said didn’t matter. So I did not reach out to my dad’s family for support. Hell, sometimes it was even difficult for me to reach out to my dad. Not because of anything they ever have or would do to me, but because I had learned a very fucked up lesson about people: shitty packs stick together without taking time to analyze why.

This notion stayed with me for external relationships.

Maintaining friendships where I was always the third wheel or made fun of for my differences. Whether that be my hair, olive tone, lips, and sometimes even my nose or “smell”. To the point that I was showering like 5 times a day because my best friends told me I was stinky and drew caricatures of me with spiders in my hair. But this is what I was taught was my worth.

My romantic relationships were horrible. I dated the shittiest of people. You may hear your friends say this all of the time, but I mean it. People who made me feel like their being with me was a favor I could never repay but one that kept me in their debt.

Even with as much as I love and appreciate myself today, I still struggle to think that I am worthy of a good partner.

I still question why someone could care about me or love me. Its not a conscious effort on my behalf. I try really hard to get away from this. Desperately clinging to the aspects of myself that I love. I find myself constantly trying to justify my actions and feelings. When in reality, its okay for you to feel something negative, even if somehow it isn’t reasonable. You can have bad feelings and still react in a fair way, it is possible.

But I find myself angry and disappointed in myself a lot. There is so much closure that I will never get to see. So many memories I will never be able to pry from my brain. Even memories I have yet to see that are going to hurt me. And while my logical mind tells me that none of these things affect my worth, my emotional and inherent reactions tell me otherwise.

I am still trying everyday to change this and I have made significant progress. The way I see it, in my race of life, I was tasked already being a loop behind. I am catching up to what a “normal” life should be.

I do not write these things for sympathy, or pity, or any type of response from those who read it. I write these things because I know for a fact that this story is not solely mine. Not one doubt has crossed my mind that someone who comes across this will relate to it more than any person should ever have to. I write these things almost as a map of my emotions and how I have landed where I am and where I want to go. In hopes that my map can help someone else find their way. I am truly sorry for anyone who feels like this.

I know firsthand that the idea of loving yourself and appreciating who you are doesn’t come naturally or easily to everyone. It takes time. For every one time someone has told me that I am not worthy of love, someone actually loving me and saying so 50 times is what it takes for me to start believing it. Not to any fault of the person, but to the fault of my upbringing and the way my mind has been trained.

I hope recognizing this about myself helps me change it. I hope helping some of you identify the specifics of this issue brings some form of closure or progress. More than anything I hope that we can all learn to love and appreciate ourselves and maintain relationships that add to our lives rather than hinder it.