An Abused Child, An IronHyde Woman.

Yesterday was a breaking point for me.

Got a lot of shit I don't talk about, in my personal life, the specifics of my "relationship" with my mother is pretty high on that list.

Sure, people know we don't get along, but, only a few knew why.

Now, I wasn't a saintly child, lord knows for some reason I started lying and couldn't stop. I was messy, and forgetful, gosh I was forgetful.

I don't mind that I got beat, truly, in my generation almost everyone got lashes.

What I do mind (I just fucking started crying) is that I got tortured, because I hadn't learned my lesson from the last beating, or because I didn't cry enough the last time, or because she was so much angrier that this time I did it in front of people, or because it was more creative to find more damaging things to hit a skinny ass little beansprout with to see how far she could be pushed before she gave up and just was exactly the child her mother/tormentor thought she was supposed to be.

Abuse had many forms.

I watched my collection of books burn, being an only child, to a reclusive socially dysfunctional mother, I didn't exactly have a lot of friends (Juliana was there from Infants B, because I spent Infants A at Ch Ch Girls) but I had my books, and because I hadn't washed my undies in the shower and forgot them in my laundry heap, I watched nearly 2000 books burn.

That was one day I would have just let her keep beating me if I knew it would have taken that turn.

I really don't know why I lied, I always knew it would come back to me, I would spend my bus fare buying snacks with the other children, and tell the conductor she didn't give me bus fare, after about 2 weeks of this, the conductor got tired and bawled her out in the road.

The beating that evening, tore skin from my back, ass and thighs, it started when Brave Star started and ended well after the Salem strangler had been standing by Marlena's bed.

She seemed to love my cousins more than she loved me, because all of them could get angry with her, or be rude or forget things, and just get a scolding, and all was well. Me, I got the electric wire, phone cord, window stick, hot saucepan, plugged in iron (that was reflexive, I hadn't washed my school socks and had to wear over a pair and I only told her when she was pressing, she just used whatever was near to lash out). My eldest cousin, beautifully quiet girl, got pregnant at 17 I think, while staying at my mother's house mind you, she was having trouble home with my aunt, but I, was constantly reminded that any boy comes near me, she would kill me.

If I got pregnant, she would kill me.
If I had crushes, she would kill me.
If a boy called my house (which one from secondary school did, and yip, I got beaten although this time I wasn't lying, I hadn't given anyone my number and certainly not a boy, but it was one of my school friends, I think Krystal Henry or one of the other girls, pretending to be a boy, pranking me, after getting my number from a sheet the teacher told me to put my number on) ... I couldn't go to school for 2 days recovering from that beating.

By time I was developing the mentality that there is freedom at 18, I was sexually active, I was discovering that people frowned on abuse, but none of those people had to go home to her so many times I shut up. She had isolated me from my father, and her family saw me as a problem child, and her as a problem, so no one ever came to my defense.

Oh but plenty people loved to tell her how much trouble I was getting into though, my first year of fourth form, I was tired, mentally, I was sick and I was stressed, someone played another prank, and wrote some shit in one of my exercise books that I had had sex with someone named Jeremy (hilariously, there is NO Jeremy who went to school with me) and the beating that evening was epic, my head got slammed into about 4 walls because I kept twisting to avoid the punches to my ribs, then she got tired, and decided to chop off all 14 inches of my hair, this was a Tuesday, my hair had just been done on the Sunday night and was gorgeous, but it was something boys liked so it had to go.

After that money was tight, so I stayed home a lot, she would tell me "You're not learning anything at school so you're not wasting my money to go to school" and her boyfriend would sneer at me, laughing that i was too stupid to know how to be what she wanted. Only as an adult I started wondering why she really kept me home so often, I thought it was a lack of money, but I remember she had a car, and my grand mother lived in Speightstown, so I could have always gotten food, plus there was always food in the house for her and her man, I thought it was because I was behaving badly, but, keeping me home 3 days a week, almost every week, with no phone in the house, and neighbors who realized she was beat killing me, so they hardly reported to her when I would leave the house to go up to Bentham's gas station or over by Helen's. I have no real idea why she did this. Maybe I really was that bad a hellion.

i would draw, if you think you have seen my drawings as an adult and think they are anything, me as a child would have left you stunned. I was pumping out high quality art pieces that would make Marc Silvestri smile, this isn't arrogance, I was that good during those years. and she hated it. another thing to add to the list of things I got beaten for every week. No, I seriously got beaten for drawing every week. I refused to stop. It was my first cognizant rebellion. You can beat me, but I will not stop drawing. Up until the day she tried to break my right hand and had it swollen, I laughed as she beat me.

I didn't hate her, I mean I went on to win about 4 art competitions in school, and still, stupidly, I took home my prizes to show her, and she angrily accused me of stealing money and lying, then threw out my water colors, art pads, pens everything.

I cannot remember what caused me to run away to my dad's house that night I left, I remember her calling home and telling me "when I get home, you gine wish you were never born" and that was the last straw for me. The fear was so real. I packed my clothes, all i owned, my school books, and shoes and I ran.

From Blowers to Holetown, and up to Lower Carlton, looking back praying that the headlights weren't her and Rudolph coming for me. Crying that this time I was going to die.

nah, the abuse didn't stop there but for about a year of my life I was free of the fear of going home to her and I could actually have REAL friends

This is why I cannot stand her today, why I fight to forgive her now that she is trying to be a better human to my own child, see, the abuse isn't tied to her, it's tied to me. My mother don't know how to be anything but abusive to me, and I now understand, we cannot exist together.

I sent my daughter to live with her, after she volunteered to take her until i got back on my feet, knowing that WE would never be that happy mother and daughter I see everyone being, but I wanted to give her the chance to be that mother she dreamed she was before she lost herself as my nightmares.

Yesterday she called me and told me she cannot be in my child's life because MY attitude to her is harmful, lol, to both her and MY child, I told her great job, have no future contact with either of us, just make sure I get my child's documents...

Now I wait.