Mommy Dearest

It’s not very often anymore that I am able to clear the living room of toys, forget about my daily life and sit down in front of my incredibly outdated computer with a nice warm mug of coffee and a packed bowl…to deal with issues I am struggling to overcome.  I started this blog for multiple reasons.

1. I was kind of hoping to reach people without trying
2. I’m trying to learn how to live my life as a young(er) stroke survivor with newly acquired disabilities and becoming a disabled mother and wife
3. I have a really horrible past full of interesting, Lifetime movie quality drama too  painful or simply embarrassing to share with people I actually know
4. This past contains a lot of events and details I have been hiding from myself and have been recently re-exposed to within the (3) years since my stroke.

I thought I would find myself writing a lot more about my past as I was learning to deal with it but things and schedules changed and I had no time to think about it openly due to the fact my kids are ALWAYS IN THE ROOM! I talk about these things with my husband a lot to help me get through them but only after days, sometimes weeks of analyzing, dwelling and losing control over my thoughts and emotions.  He helps me find the surface so I can breathe again.  Even though he knows more details of my story than anyone else in my life, I can’t bring myself to blog about it in front of him.  It’s very strange since he’s held me for hours upon hours (total) while I cried about everything.  Why can I not open myself up in front of him without becoming so consumed by this pain and anger, hatred and disappointment first?

The point of this post

I have ‘mommy issues.’ Yeah, I have daddy issues, too; I have lots of both.  My dad didn’t raise me, I had two separate step-dads in his place.  My first step-dad had a good enough job for my mom to sit my sister and I down (I was about 4 or so I believe) and ask us bluntly:

Do you know what it means to marry a man for his wallet?

No, I had no idea but I found out.  He wasn’t a bad step-dad.  We moved out of Section 8, got off food stamps and welfare and he taught my mom to drive before buying her a car.  We moved into a house that was broken down into 3 separate apartments.  The front was us, a 2-bedroom.  The back was a small  1-bedroom; the living room was like a work area where my mom built very big puzzles, my step-dad had some weights I’m unsure if he ever used and the kitchen/bathroom area (I know, the same area? It’s gross, right?) was the laundry room.  That extra bedroom was just extra before it became my sister’s room later on. The downstairs was an apartment/basement combo. Before a man moved into it, it was all my sisters and mine.  We had that apartment for ALL OF OUR TOYS! The bedroom had some toys but was mostly for our ENTIRE My Little Pony: Paradise Estate set.It wasn’t that bad of a set-up, really.  But my mom wasn’t happy.  She started to have an affair with this guy she met on the side of the road.  The dude drove a van (hint, hint).  I ran when I first met him ( **Yoda voice** instincts, in this one, strong they are).  I locked myself in the car and pushed the window-up button like crazy, hoping to lock him out and away from me.  He pushed his palm down on the window, broke the mechanism and unlocked the door.  He was forced into my life.  My mom took my sister and me on their ‘dates’ that usually ended with my sister and I in a different bed in the  same motel room with our hands over our ears to block out the sounds of them having sex in the other bed.  It went on for a year or so before the divorce.  We then moved in with Krank Ficken, my second step-dad, into a trailer park (hint, hint) but things were nice.  Not nice like making me eat my vegetables, affording clothes I needed and wanted but nice as in: we were normal people making ends meet.  I’m not sure when it started but around 11/12 he started molesting me.  There’s a super long story with that but for this post I will just say that I buried a lot of things from myself.  I don’t know if these burials were self-preservation or a way of ‘setting aside’ things I knew I was too young to understand/handle or what but I apparently forgot about them…until my stroke recovery was in full effect.
I never forgot the explicit events, Krank Ficken went to prison when I was 14 after one of the many adults told about my predicament finally took action.  He was sentenced to 10 years, served three and was released.  In those 3 years, however, the state removed his cancer, replaced all of his teeth and got him off of drugs…oh, he was also awarded a large sum of money due to a case that was settled on his behalf against a state-run school that ignored abuse done to him as a child in their care.  Lucky him.  He was able to clear up his credit, get a decent job since he lost his right to a CDL in my home state. My mom lives with him, he helps my grandparents take care of their house and he manages two apartment complexes with my mom’s help.  He also gets to hang out with Stilla and her four kids.  See how karma works in all these marvellous ways for terrible people? Oh, his dream to someday own his own Harley?  Totally happened.  He’s also a tattoo artist.  Does he continue to molest little girls?  I don’t know.  Does he continue to drug them just enough to fog up their minds and convince them to ‘find out’ what […] ‘is like’ ? I have no idea.  It makes me crazy and I hope that whoever reads this post, if anyone, can understand without me having to explain in full detail why it makes me so crazy.  I have asked my mom respectfully to explain to me how she can…forgive him, to clarify things and be honest so I can try to understand and accept her decisions.  I cannot tell her what to do, how to live, it is not my place but I can’t help but feel that I deserve some consideration since, after all, I was drugged, raped, molested and manipulated by him in many ways.  He destroyed me as an innocent little person and he destroyed my family.  I think I deserve honesty.  I lashed out at her, perhaps too harshly, but I needed answers.  She offered none, really, but I accepted the hollowness and tried to overlook them so we could rebuild.  Things recently started building up again so…I had to delete her from Facebook.  I can’t take her posts, her face, her pictures, nothing because all I see is lies.  It took a week or two but she finally noticed and asked me why.  So I wrote this incredibly long e-mail I know she will not read because of how long it is and how lazy she is.  So I will post it here.  Strike-through names are nicknames to hide identities of people no one knows.   Why am I posting my evil e-mail?  Because I want to post it to my own Facebook and reveal her as the fraudulent grandmother/mother/woman/person she is but I can’t do that, she is still me mum so it’s better I “put her on blast” in a way that we can all remain anonymous yet I can still get it off my chest.

There are actually a few reasons why I deleted you; I think our relationship is less than social.  I am tired of feeling crazy because of you, feeling like I’m the bitch and feeling super left out of your life…by your choices.  I am different now and I have to protect myself from feeling the way I do.

First: I cannot hold you to a different or higher standard than I do Kasper’s mom.  You agreed with me to delete her from Facebook if that was the only way she chose to be a part of her grandchildren’s lives.  Same goes for you.  You make no efforts whatsoever but that’s cool, I’ve resigned myself to being “the other daughter” much the same as you have done between your parents and Violet; I’ve also come to accept that my children are “the other grandchildren” much the same as you have accepted it from your parents and Violet’s kids.  Distance shouldn’t separate you from your grandchildren unless you choose it.  You ask no questions, you don’t take interest, there’s nothing.  But I kind of knew this would happen when you left Skas in the dust just before his birthday to rush off and be by your ailing parents’ sides only to tell me once you got there that you were “taking this time for myself, I’ll tell them I’m here in a week or two.” Never mind the fact that Kasper and I were still adjusting to our ‘new’ life and thought you would be there, with us, for us.  But I guess that was us just being selfish, I mean, it’s not like you PROMISED us or were LYING about your parents.
Secondly, I’m not crazy.  I may be uneven and still learning to cope with A LOT of different things that you will NEVER understand but I am not crazy.  I don’t like reading your posts, seeing your pictures and reading your comments and only seeing/hearing/thinking of Krank Ficken.  Your bike runs, your family whatevers, your apartment with wall art I know HE did, and your reptilian pets, everything comes back to the man who RAPED YOUR DAUGHTER and it makes me sick to my stomach, it gives me anxiety and I am tired of trying and trying to understand and accept and only having one breakdown after the other as a result.  I think of those kids that are around him, the acceptance he has within MY family and it kills me.  And it drives me crazy to be so far away and without answers.  I asked the questions, I offered time for explanation but all you EVER offer is open-ended ‘answers’ that I am left to interpret on my own, leaving me to come to conclusions that offer more questions than answers or straight rage.  I don’t want to ruin your life, that is why I kept him a secret from you for so long, Stilla told me to in order to protect you when I was what, 11? 12?  I don’t want to tell you how to live your life, you’re in your 50’s for God sake but I would have thought you had more respect for your family than to allow him back into your life. It doesn’t matter anymore what you say about him, whether you’re fucking him or not, whether he’s in your life on any level or not because your word no longer holds any truth to me.  I keep going back and back and everything in my memory appears to be a lie derived from some sort of weakness of yours or that you saw in me.  I am not weak.  I am glad you have forgiven the man who cheated on you (that’s how I feel you may think about what he did to me) but maybe you should see the truth: that he molested, manipulated, coerced, raped and drugged your daughter…daughterS. I don’t know what he ever did to Stilla but since I have opened my mind to accepting my past, I realized the only reason she found out about what Krank Ficken was doing to me was because she had said something about not wanting to be alone with him and I told her I understood why and that was when I started going with her to (her friends house) where we discussed it and/or ignored it freely.  All these years you have been telling me you thought she lied about it all and I knew that whole time she hadn’t lied in the beginning but for some twisted reason I sided with you long enough to forget what I knew.  Is that how you feel about me?  Do you think I lied? Do you think I seduced him?  Do you think I asked for it?  Do you think I deserved it?  Let’s ask old childhood friend and old childhood friend if they asked to watch cartoon anime porn with him.  I honestly don’t know if they remember it but I didn’t think it was weird at all to watch cartoon porn with your friends and step dad when you’re only 13.  Of course, I see it now how twisted and fucked it was of me to let it happen, to not say anything but that is how grown men manipulate kids, they abuse their innocent curiosity and use it to amuse their perverted tendencies.  You know I’m not lying because of how he tricked you into watching porn with Stilla and me as a ‘lesson’ to us on sex.   Let’s not play games and let’s stop pretending these things didn’t happen.  What really blows is how much of this I ‘forgot’ then miraculously ‘remembered’ after my stroke…walls were torn down, I cannot express this to you enough.  Maybe you now have a glimpse into what I have been dealing with and trying to understand.
I think you lied about Chuck, I think he was made up for my benefit.  I asked for the truth, you never even replied to that.  Why did he just disappear when you were once so concerned? And right after you told me you were involved with Krank Ficken in whichever way you described then?  What a coincidence!
You shared a picture of youngest niece on a couch; I confronted you about a stupid elbow next to her.  I don’t know –  I saw that damn elbow and my mind went to that sick fuck.  You tell me no, it’s not him.  It’s just some sex addicted heroin addict, yeah…because that’s so much better around your grandchildren, right?  With that, it doesn’t even matter whose damn elbow that was because it goes to show how careless you are with who you allow near you grandchildren.  Do you see how this all comes around?  I am very hurt and you may think this is extreme but you have no idea, NO IDEA and I cannot possibly convey to you the pain and suffering I am going through IN FRONT OF MY CHILDREN and because of that, I had to evacuate you from my daily life like a pre-colonoscopy bowel movement. I have told you most if not all of this before.  You know I am strong-headed though I may not be strong-willed.  I have always been overly protective, especially when it came to you so imagine how I am with my kids.  I went through years of abuse to protect YOU; I will do more, go even farther to protect my kids.  I’m not sorry if this hurt you or you hate me or what the fuck ever.  I can no longer protect you.  I can no longer go on wondering what you’re lying about now and I can no longer contemplate every word that comes out of your mouth.  I asked for honesty and I feel like I got none but I will still offer it to you in this long letter written via Facebook messenger because you act like you or I don’t have a phone.  I have to think of my kids and if that means closing myself off from certain people who create certain storms in me that in turn create a somewhat unstable environment for my children, then I will do that.  I have to teach my kids how to cope with difficult things life with throw at them, how can I do that when every time I try to cope with one of your stupid posts and/or comments that make me think of Krank Ficken brings me to tears or anger?
When you can stop pointing a finger at me, calling me selfish or a bitch or a bridge burner whatever you’re thinking to yourself or will agree with Stilla or a friend later on, then come to me and come to me ready for an open dialogue like I had asked of you before. Tell me you have no time again and that will be it.  If you truly care about family as much as you have always claimed then you would be honest for once in your life.  Are you lonely? Do you think Krank Ficken will be the only one there for you because Stilla will flee when it comes time to be responsible?  Do you think there can possibly be no one else on this planet that could find it within them to love you as a lover, a friend, or a mother? Are you afraid of failing on your own?  Are you afraid of discovering you CAN do things on your own and you will be forced to admit how weak you were in your past?  Even without the molesting, drugging and rape of your daughter/s, he still cheated on you with 2 other women that you knew of and smoked crack while you were cutting corners to pay bills and you still stayed with him?! What else are you willing to settle for out of fear, mom? This is just a Facebook delete but Facebook is a gateway into a person’s personal life as well.  I share pictures of my family and frankly, I never became comfortable with the idea that Krank Ficken could very likely see pictures of my kids.  I don’t like that, not one bit. This is why I never sent Skas’s school pictures to you.  He’s only 6 years old so hopefully when you get your shit together or you can explain to me truthfully what the fuck is going on in your personal life that is none of my goddamned business and we can communicate again, he will forget all the times he’s asked why I was crying and “is it me-me again, mommy?”
I will always love you and respect will be reserved for you simply because you gave me life but….just know there will always be room for you; even if it’s small it can still expand with time and honesty and true loyalty to a relationship.  I have no time for bullshit, drama, petty mind games, lies and disregard for the fact that I am not only your daughter but I am also a fucking human  being. If this hurt you, I’m glad it got through to you but don’t go damning yourself, me or my decisions to choose protecting my family and kids over you.  You are a grown woman… When you choose to respond please think your words through carefully.  I am not typing with anger but with full and complete honesty, please offer the same amount of respect.  And don’t call in response to this letter because I will only cut you off at every sentence with disbelief of the crap you are spewing at me.  I have no time for tears, I think I’ve shed enough today. Or you can choose to not respond since we have little to no contact anyway and things will continue on as they have been since before my beautiful stroke sent me falling gracelessly into a pit of forgotten and non-cherished memories.

And so, that’s it.  My letter to my mother.  I doubt she will read it but it’s out there now! No excuses. I’m scared of hurting her but I think of all the times I have been hurt by her denial, her inaction, her lies and ignorance and I am convinced I am not in the wrong…I think.  I just want answers, not more confusion, hurt, lies and craz