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No one could really fully, deeply understand another person. Only partially. When it comes to this I don’t think anyone could fully understand this story unless you’re my brother or my sister or you somehow have the exact same kind of mother that I had.
Her eyes changed it was like the loving mother that was usually always there was thrown away and something totally different replaced her. I think today that the eyes I was staring at were ones of a phantom child that was reliving the pain that went on in her own childhood for years. But in the eyes of my child self, all I could see was a dark, threatening look that felt like a promise of impending pain. A 12 year old couldn’t understand that the fighting between her siblings triggered those eyes all she knew about was the sudden presence of them. I wish I could explain to you in perfect replication the emotions I felt and the huge wave of anxiety and pain that would make my brain bleed along with all the small waves that came after incidents like these. I never remember how fights started maybe with my mom and my brother which was usually the case, maybe between my sister and me or maybe my sister and my mom any kind of combination either way only the big climaxes are what I can remember and what I will always remember even though everything is kind of fuzzy.
Although, I do remember this vividly, at a point of escalation my mom would find herself in the kitchen, always in the kitchen. In fast moments she would grab the biggest knife from the wooden block that always was a centerpiece when it was steak dinner and when the knife was in her hand I knew what was coming. She’s done this many times before, she will do this many times after. She’d hold it up to her stomach and she’d beg. She’d beg for one of us to push it in. She would promise that if I do this one thing it would all be over. She’d promise my sister that if she did this she would get exactly what she wanted. Yelling of No’s and screams of please stop would cause her to change her position. She’d hold the knife balancing the end of the knife against the countertop and use her body weight as pressure to keep the sharp end in perfect position to reach a destination somewhere in between her kidneys and then a new onslaught of begging would continue. Telling all of us that this is what we want and making promises that everything would be better.
In the moment you don’t feel anger for this position she’s put you in. That anger would only come later when you move away. You feel pain, like a deep and achey pain that doesn’t go away with time. You feel fear because although you know your siblings wouldn’t you still feel the weight as they might and you feel the fear that she might do it herself. And you feel guilt because although she makes it seem like you were the one that wants this her desperation tells you that she’s the one that does and you don’t want to disappoint her. Every child wants their mom to be happy right? All you can do is stand and stare even though your brain feels like shutting down because your hands are so cold and your body is shaking but you need to be attentive and alert. Think about your chance to grab the knife and run away. Think. Think about how you can end this moment so you can all move on to the next. Fuzzy memories kick in after that. I think it happened so often that it really just blended together. There’s a few alternate endings like mom throwing the knife into the sink and going up the stairs or throwing it into the sink and continuing to argue or maybe she hands it over or maybe she leaves the house for who knows how long. But the one ending that she asked for never happened.
We all grew out of it, maybe that stopped happening after my sister begged my mom to go to a psych ward and when she left she took me and instead we went to a nice hotel with a pool and it was one of the best weekends I’ve had with my mom. But I think she really stopped because we became more conscious about it and she realized if she kept doing that she might actually end up in a psych ward. I don’t really know. But we did all grow up and different types of fights would start but eventually, I would move away new city, a new country and I would find people and I would start drinking. All of a sudden it seemed like those childhood moments would come for me like her eyes, the memories of them would be like a promise of pain. A few nights it would end with me curled up on the floor yelling to everyone that I didn’t want to kill her and hysterically trying to prove to everyone that that was the truth.
It wasn’t until I had an apartment of my own filled with my thoughts that I realized the true after shock waves those moments caused would continue to make my brain bleed. It comes on like episodes just like hers did. Where I would suddenly be consumed and taken back to that kitchen. Except all my vivid images would replace my mother with me. And this time it was me begging. It was me pleading. It was me promising. My head would be stuck there but my body would be on the floor hyperventilating with my hands on my head trying to stop myself from walking over to my own kitchen. Sometimes I would test to see how much pressure it takes to keep the knife into place. But no one knows that. I know now that the version of her that I saw was not her. But sometimes I wish she knew the effect those moments had on me. How sometimes I still feel that guilt except with a lot more shame mixed in. I still feel the anxiety of the unbalanced relationship that my mom had with life and now I feel the anxiety with the relationship with me and my life.
I wish parents would know that if you beg your children to do something that they don’t want to do that is emotional abuse. And that is abuse. Authority figures around children need to be diligent but it’s hard we all have intricate lives and this is a small part of mine. No one owes me their attention but being who I am now I wish I could protect my child self and be attentive to her because she needed that. It was just hard to tell especially when I was a kid that used to get to eat steak dinners with a wooden knife block in the center of the table.
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