13 reasons why ‘i-Survived’
Honestly, I don’t have 13 reasons, I would have more, but it would be too long to describe them all here. And if you have watched the show by the same name, you already know how horrifying this is gonna get. So take it slow.
It took me a long time to understand myself and the relationship I had with my dysfunctional family. It took me even longer to realize that the person the closest to me was my biggest bully. My own mom.
Here are some reasons why it could never work and why I had to escape.
Reason 1 - A family should stay united, not go at each others’ throats
In a normal family, two distinct entities come together through a relationship or marriage. In mine, the distinction has always been clear: there is my mom’s family, my dad’s family, and my siblings and I in between. Sure, we had a mom and we had a dad, but they made sure we never know who to trust fully.
My mom, especially, would tell us that our dad was a junky who supposedly stopped messing around a bit after we were born. She would not allow him much in our lives, but enough to keep him around and entertain the idea that we had a dad. Members of her family would confirm horror stories of how he would steal from my mom and neighbors in order to pay for his shoots. Or how he would steal from his own kids—at the time newborn babies. Some of those stories would get confirmed by my dad’s family. I knew he was a junky, though I never saw him take drugs in front of me. He even talked to us about it whenever we would have questions. Other stories though, would often contradict themselves. That made it pretty difficult growing up to know where to place my trust. When family are divided, moments together are rare. We never shared a family dinner with the two sides of the family. Instead, we would either spend Christmas at my maternal grandma’s with my mom or at my paternal grandma’s with my dad. Only big events, that would be exclusively dedicated to us kiddos, would have them all around the table, like our baptism, or later on, our communion.
Reason X - Yelling is never a good idea
I honestly do not have bad memories of my dad. He never was violent to us. We would share emotional moments where he would teach us how to sing or he would fuel our imagination with stories and build costumes and other fantasy equipment we would wear around the house. I would always remember going to that one yearly school carnival on a cardboard horse he built for me. My mom would also spend nights making costumes when we were younger. Thinking about it, it was quite impressive. A skill that she never shared with me.
Yet, my mom was more absent though she would spend a lot of time preparing us for school, sewing some of our equipment herself. Despite living with her and her having full custody, she would work a lot. My dad, so I heard, never wanted nor paid for child support. He kinda never worked and she never legally insisted to have child support enforced. According to her: “she did not want us to hate her for forcing our dad to support us”. Something I could not comprehend at the time and still cannot. Instead, she had to work night shifts in order to support us and we were left in the care of nannies. To be honest, looking back, that was probably the best thing she had ever done for us. We had a lot of fun, dancing, playing, reading stories…
On weekends, my dad would come to our house and replace the nannies. We would do our homework together, watch TV, play various games and go on long walks. My mom would either be at work, or sleeping. She would come home early in the morning and go to bed while we were still asleep. She would then wake up around 4 p.m. and get ready for her next shift at 7 p.m. Two-three hours that would turn the house upside-down. Whenever my mom and my dad would be in the same room, my mom would pick violent fights out of nowhere! Plates and other unidentified flying objects would float around the room and crash at my dad’s feet. The crash would be inaudible, covered by the sounds of my mom’s screams. I remember hiding in a corner covering my ears, crying. Scared and begging for it to stop. I would often run to our room, shut the door behind me and stuff my brother’s head and mine under a pillow to stop hearing them fighting, or mainly her screaming. It was not the only time she would explode. To this day, I still walk on eggs around her, knowing that the clock is ticking, that the next bomb is about to drop.
Reason X - Manipulation destroys lives
If you ended up on this blog, you have probably heard of the term ‘gaslighting’.
Reason X - Life thrives in adaptability and improvisation, life dies when motionless
Motion and change is the essence of life. Nature around and inside us is constantly moving and evolving. Cells transport the necessary ingredients to our survival. The day they stop moving, life ends. That is as simple as that. In order to continue moving, life has to overcome series and series of obstacles, by changing perspective and how it interacts with the world. The day we stop changing, life ends.
However, for some people, it is impossible to adapt. My mom, for instance, has only seen life through one set of lenses: hers. There would only be only one way to do things. One way to tackle problems. One way to put back dishes where they belong. One way to cook. One way to eat. One moment in the day when to do certain tasks. If that plan would crumble, she would crumble with it. Sadly, she would gladly take us down with her.
Reason X: Victims should have each others’ backs
As I mentioned before, I would protect my brother from the abuse. Little did I know that he would contribute and participate in my abuse. I knew he could be quite manipulative as I had seen him feed stories to my mom or my dad, depending on which side would give him the best reward at the time. I always thought it was to stay on their good side, especially my mom’s.
Footnotes
[^1]: Gas-lighting ([derived from the 1944 movie ‘Gaslight’](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting)) is a manipulative behavior in which someone is manipulated into questioning their own perception of reality, their own memories, and even who they are.