Friends

28 October 2017

MOM.... AND ME!

I always clear up, in fact I am fastidious when it comes to tidiness. The following is probably why I am how I am.
As a child I would be beaten by mother if I hadn’t done my bit towards keeping the house tidy. My mother was someone to fear - permanently. Even my Dad was careful to avoid upsetting her, although it didn’t always work.
I remember one particular occasion when I was attacked for no reason. It wasn’t funny, like an earlier attack which over the years had people laughing fit to burst. Okay, let’s start with that one, although I believe I’ve told this before. Yes, I’m sure I have, nevertheless I’ll launch it again because there is a humorous side to the tale.
At home we had an outside toilet. An internal one came many years later which led to… no, I musn’t relate that one on this post. So, we had an outside toilet which meant that on the many occasions when I came home from school bursting to do a wee I could go straight to the toilet without needing to go into the house.
There I sat, navy knickers round the ankles, enjoying the privilege of urinating, when the door opened (we didn’t lock them in those days) and my mother slapped me HARD across the face, closed the door and went back to the house. Speechless isn’t an adequate enough word and I wasn’t old enough to know any expletives.
I never found out what I had done because Mom went into one of her ‘not-speaking’ moods. 

On another occasion, when I was old enough to work in an office I would go home at lunchtime to break the day up a bit. Sadly, Mom did the same. The two of us sat at the kitchen table doing our own thing, one opposite the other. Suddenly my mother reached across the table, slapped me
hard on the face and accused me of taking something (never found out what!) from her purse. I had done no such thing but trying to tell her that was useless. She was in such a rage that, fortunately for me, instead of a full-blown attack she walked out of the kitchen and out of the house. Yet another occasion I got smacked for no reason.
I now know I was the butt of her frustrations, of which she had many. I suppose if my father hadn’t worked away so much he would have been the butt instead of me. Or perhaps that was the problem… I’ll never know!

29 comments:

  1. Borderline Personality Disorder is what my second wife had (I believe). It is sometimes passed down from Mothers to daughters, through imprinting, not genetics.

    Fear of abandonment

    Unreasonable moments of temper outbursts - forgotten after sometime, but never remorse for the temper...my wife even used to joke about it. If they want to relieve their anxiety or anger, they WILL find something!

    anxiety

    I am not a psychiatrist, but my ex was nuts and I believe her nuttyness was this BPD.

    Did you feel like you were often "walking on egg shells?"

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, my! Was she certifiable? My mom slapped me in the face, once, and I probably had it coming ...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Joeh, yes I definitely walked on egg shells. Later in life I was accused of being unfeeling which, after all the punishments I'd endured, was not surprising. However, I made sure I didn't behave like mother when raising my family.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sharon, my mother was clever, she was also a nurse in her early life.... she knew how cover thinks up.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I always knew that a slap in the face was not right but my thought was that she still had control over me. It bothered here when I just left for college and really rarely went back. Her selfish desires really would have ruined my whole life but I found safety through distance. Sadly she never ever really got it that I was an independent person and she spent her life in competition and sadness because I was successful. I never slapped my kids ever.

    ReplyDelete
  6. How horrible for you! Can't imagine treating a child that way.

    ReplyDelete
  7. No one should be treated like that, let alone their own child. Sounds like your mum was angry at the world and took it out on you. My own mum had a mother like this and like you my mum treated us with nothing but love and kindness.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Joeh, I was always walking on egg shells. Nothing I did would ever please my Mom, she treated my Dad the same way,

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sharon, it was more difficult to prove anything in those days. Later in life, when I was married, she would come begging for things and if I refused she would strike out.... as old as I was I couldn't hit back.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Larry, freedom was your safeguard, I think.

    ReplyDelete
  11. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Janet, children seen to be in more danger now. I am horrified at what I read in the papers.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Denise, I often what she would be like in today's climate.

    ReplyDelete
  14. This is such an incredibly sad story. The cruelty she showed to you is horrifying. It's so hard to understand. I wonder if she was that violent as a child/young adult. And it's hard to imagine someone with this disposition being a nurse!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Ugh! Sounds like my Mom. Dad worked construction out of state for 6-9 months a year sometimes. My Mom would blame him for most things. But there were times she would take her frustrations out on us. ( my brother and I) Is that part of being a Mother? Many times we might have deserved it. But you only remember the ones where you were wrongly accused and punished unjustly. My Brother has more stories than I do. We just thought Mom was crazy. (Still do!) It's funny when I tell those stories as an adult. But as a kid, those moments still haunt us sometimes. Ah well, Parents are human too.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Valerie, I have to chime in on Denise's comment and say exactly just that, I mean your Mom seemed to be angry at the world and took it out on you and those around her. There had to of been something in her life prior to being a wife and mother that caused her to be so furious and physically abusive.

    Don't get me wrong, I too got a smack on the butt from my parents whenever I did something REALLY bad, however, I don't ever remember thinking to myself, "I wonder why I got hit because I KNEW I had done something wrong and was being punished for it. Also, I have never looked back and thought that it was abusive.

    It pains me to think that you had to go through this in your childhood, but I'm so glad to know that you used it to make you a sensitive and wonderful mother to your children than your mother was to you.

    ((((((((((( YOU ))))))))))

    Have a great Sunday, my friend!
    X

    ReplyDelete
  17. Valerie I am at a loss for words truthfully, I hate that you were the victim of your Moms rage. I am proud that you are able to share it.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Jimmy, even though I harp on my mother's attitude towards me, I really can't compare my situation with that of others... parental cruelty has become commonplace now. My mother was over-sexed (as claimed by a doctor) and she had an affair with a Justice of the Peace (don't laugh) which went some way to explaining her taking her frustrations out on me.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Ron, as explained to Jimmy, my mother was guilty if having a sexual affair outside of her marriage to my father which I think affected her mental state. I remember one incident when I was a small girl, mom and dad had a violent row and dad took me out of the house to get away from the ranting woman. Dad took me to the corner of the road where he approached a policeman and told him everything. It was or seemed to be an awful long time before dad risked taking me back home. No wonder he liked working away.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Ethan, seems you know exactly what I went through. You are right, we remember the bad times more than the good. I was an only child and I often wonder if life would have been better if I had a sibling alongside.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Carole, my mother was the oldest of eight children but she didn't get on with most of her siblings. She left home at an early age, became a nurse and married my dad. She had no time for her mother. Comeuppance comes to mind!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Parents aren’t the easiest of people to get on with. Things get better.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Treey, sadly things didn't get better. Mom was even worse after Dad died.

    ReplyDelete
  24. My father was exactly that. Some days we kept quiet and heads down. My father continued that until he was old and had to come to terms about what he had done. He realized 'child abuse' was his history.

    ReplyDelete
  25. What a tragedy that you experienced such. My father was this person. We tiptoed around him on some days. He finally realized this only when he was old and saw a TV program on child abuse.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Sorry to hear that, Susan. I was fortunate to have a loving father even though his work took him far from home for long periods.

    ReplyDelete
  27. My dad was not abusive, but was an alcoholic. Some things we go through can shape us as adults, some better some worse. I too made a vow to be nothing like him. Be proud that the cycle ended with her.

    ReplyDelete
  28. So sorry to read that yiur mother treated you and your father so terribly, Valerie. I wondered for hiw many years this unwarranted anuse took place, and then yiu mentioned having a job, so it seems you were in your late teens or early 20s. How and when were you able to leave this abusive relationship. Sorry to word it that way considering, it’s your mother.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Beatrice, it happened from young childhood right through to the time I got married.

    ReplyDelete

If you're new to A Mixed Bag you might find something to interest you, a bit of mirth, a story or two, or some pictures. I'm so pleased you popped in, do leave a comment if you have time.