Mom

Mom
bey

bey

Registrant
I didn't grow up with a lovie
No baby blanket
No pacifier
No night light no superheroes no teddies
Instead I curled your hair around my fingers
Pressed my forehead into your chest
Or lay my ear on your back
Listening to the lullaby of lub-dubs
Matching my breathing to yours

At night you would sing me songs in a language I didn't understand
And tell me how much you loved me
Your fingers traced circles on my palms
Numi numi chemdati
Abba halach la-avodah
Your lips on my forehead on my nose on my lips

I never knew who I was to you
Who you wanted me to be
But I needed to be something
So I was everything

I never had a lovie growing up
No blanket no stuffed something or other
Nothing to hold on to for comfort
Instead I bit my lip until it bled
Clenched my fists
Pressed myself into you until I couldn't see where you ended and I began

I loved you like an electrical storm
Like holding my breath
Like pushing a boulder uphill
Like being held underwater
Like losing a fight
It was big and difficult and scary and everything
I'm still gasping for breath. My ears are still ringing.

You were not a good mother.
But there was a moment in our life where you lay beside me and read me the Chronicles of Narnia and I wrapped my fingers up in your hair and smiled at you, and you sang to me and kissed my forehead and told me how much you loved me and how happy you were that I was your son. There were moments where we were okay.

Letting you go has been really hard
But I am going to be okay.

Happy Mother's Day.

Love,
Benny
 
I can't say I ever really hated my Father.
When I was young and vied for his attention I was lucky to get a smile,
and overjoyed when he would poke little jibes at me and include me in his jokes.
I can't remember him ever touching me ... ever.
He was a gentle, kind and humorous man who was liked by all, and he had a knack for
engaging others ... adults and children alike ... and his enjoyment in such cases was clearly evident.
He was kind to me in that he never yelled or scolded me ...
and it wasn't in him to hit his children.
Sounds pretty good doesn't it.

I was a lamp. He turned me on and off at his discretion ... and I mostly lived in the dark.
It was a small town ... how he didn't know what a hell of bullying I endured from the age of
7 to when I escaped at 18 ... simply is impossible.
He had the means to change that.
I don't think he cared one way or the other.

After I had left home and would be away for a while and returned to visit I would hug My Mom as usual, and eventually, I started extending my hand for him to shake.
He did so ... uncomfortable at first, and then with a little warmth ... whether he did so because he had no choice or came to enjoy it ... I'll never know.
I'm certain he would have preferred that I didn't do that ... but what could he do ?
I had trapped him into a social nicety ... but I never felt he meant it.
Then ... the very first in my family to EVER say those words to each other ...
when leaving ... I began to say ... " I love you ".
The first few times my mother was .... bewildered ... but soon came to say it back ... and meant it.
My father never did respond ... not once. I got a pained smile ... but that was it.

I didn't know for a very long time how I felt about him ... some emotions common to most I grew up lacking.
When I was 36 I started seeing a shrink who began to slowly pull out things in me I felt ...
and didn't know existed in me.
My shrink gave me a word for how I felt about him.
Of course ... I'm not stupid ... I knew what the word meant, but none the less
it hit me like a ton of bricks ...
Resent.

When I was 26 I picked up the phone and heard his voice... and was shocked.
He wanted me to go to a certain place to see if they had a spring for an antique watch he was fixing.
That is the one and only time my father ever phoned me.

On his death bed he called for my older Brother, and then my Sister to come to his bedside.
They were each in there for at least a half hour.
Then he called for me.
I sat on the side of the bed and a frail and withered hand reached out to take mine,
and he said ...
" I know I haven't been a very good Father ... "
and I cut him off saying ... " It's ok, it's ok " ... and fled the house,
and broke down and cried for a long time.

That act is one I carry with regret and shame.
I did to him what he had done to me.
He reached out and I rejected him as if it wasn't meaningful ...
as if it wasn't a Father trying to touch his son.

I know this should be a response to 'Father's Day', but I'm diving in to make a point.
He was ... by definition of the time and place in which we lived, a better Father to me than
many kids had ...
but in my circumstances ... he was not.

Active emotional neglect does a lot of damage to a child when he feels he's the only one
around him who's being treated that way.
My siblings are totally puzzled by my version of him compared to their recollections.

Active over-emotional abuse is much the same.
A sexual component ...

At 36 I suffered 3 huge emotional/physical losses at the same time,
and it destroyed my world as I had known it ... and it triggered my dormant Bipolar disorder ... big time.
After starting therapy I began to get a clearer picture of my father.
In many ways ... I began to see my father in myself.
I was horrified at first ... I had turned out just like him.
Slowly ... things began to make some sense.
I'm absolutely convinced he too was Bipolar ...
(half his family were bat-ass loony ... victims of a lunatic Catholic Mother and a cold, distant Father)
and so ...
now I give him a break because I understand that ... just like me ...
he did the best he could ... just the same as I was trying to do.

Now ... when I think of him ... I still feel all the hurtful emotions I have always had,
but I also recognize the things that he did do for me ... and that I was completely unaware of.
until long after his passing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that ... yes ... I was a victim of many things.
Exactly what the sexual abuse has to do with all this is up to great debate.
Perhaps it would have been different if I had been a different boy ...
one not scarred by his fate ...
but I could also have been tall, could have had blue eyes ... could have been smart.

Some things have nothing to do with who you are ...
but when and where you are ...
and with who.

I know from all of our sharing ... you and I ... that your Mother loved you.

Today ... treat yourself ... and think only of that.
 
... some context ...
my extended family was very very different than my immediate family ...
warm, loving , touchy-feely ... undeniably real emotional and physical affection everywhere.
I knew what it was to be accepted and loved ...
but it was not like that at home ... or anywhere else.

Sorry this is so long ... but you know me.
I can't distill things ... it just all pours out as it floods my mind.
 
Thanks guys
Mothers day was fine, had lunch with my mother-in-law and the rest of the inlaws. They are starting to feel like family, I suppose. My family was so messed up I dont really know what real family feels like.
Spent the rest of the day on my own in the woods
Walked to the lake
Felt a bit sad but its nice to feel sad on your own in the woods
One might say its poetic, even ;)
I am getting better at holding two contradictory truths at the same time
I love my mom / I hate her
I miss her / thank god shes dead
She loved me / she used me
I hate what she did to me / I miss my old life
I feel both
It doesnt scare me any more. Its complex, and complicated, and it is what it is.
Thanks again
 
A year has passed and im still stuck
Still feeling like a pathetic fuck
Still sinking deep in dark depression
Still holding on to this obsession
Still missing what I never had
Still trying to contain the mad
Still worrying what others think
Still dissapearing with a blink
Still learning how to be a man
Still hanging on the best I can
 
(((bey)))
 
(((((Benny)))))

"Still hanging on the best I can"
You are the best that you are.
Keep your head up. Vi ain yeush laolam (Never give to failure, never give up on your self). It's apparent that you haven't.
Bluesky
 
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