Warning, NSFL. Ages 13+ recommended.
Cue the tiny violins folks, we’re off to Pityville, party of me. If you’ve ever been through this─ my intention is to raise awareness for all of us. Though each of our experiences are different, I hope that by sharing my own suffering we can shed some light on what others have experienced.
Warning, this is raw and graphic and my unfiltered experiences. I recommend getting a hug or watching some warm fuzzy shows after this.
Alienation
By the age of nine, I had graduated to getting into minor trouble at school. Nothing major, mostly just talking too much and not paying attention with the occasional petty theft of other kids’ pencils or erasers. This was because I had pretty severe ADHD (not the petty theft, that was just me being an asshole and there was zero excuse for that.) but I really struggled hard in school to focus.
I daydreamed, lost focus, and found it incredibly hard to sit still. I would constantly feel trapped in my skin and irritable, my legs would bounce, and I would fidget. Children back then were just classified as kids, and boys had ADHD, not girls according to most doctors.
This is where my mother would talk about me being a difficult child. I would blurt things out, or correct things I heard that were wrong. (I still do this, embarrassingly enough. I was known as the ‘um, actually’ girl at a few of my jobs.) I would talk over others, or jump around excitedly which would often lead my mother to call out in exasperation, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
It got me thinking recently. Especially with it being mental health awareness week.
No one, not even once, asked me as a child what I was going through at home. Other than a child psychologist I was made to see to build a court case against my father.
Did I mention my mother hated my father?
Let me tell you how much. She wanted him to be out of her life so bad that she convinced herself that he was horrible. Bipolar does that to you. It makes you paranoid (at least the type my mother had) to the point that they feel people conspire against them.
Someone was always out to get my mother, or harm her. She was forever a victim of something.
So for the entirety of my childhood, my mother kept me from my father whenever she could, built up a false court case against him and sent him to prison on circumstantial evidence.
Do you know how long an innocent man got sent to prison over evidence such as, ‘spoke crudely to a child, threatening a child, and inappropriately touching child (this was based off of some redness my mother had found when she was bathing me and something she cooked up in her mind)?
Twelve years. He was originally sentenced to twenty.
For being suspected of doing those things.
The justice system used to take women’s word against men’s (still bias in this department in a lot of states) without solid proof of it ever happening. And while, it’s horrible that things like this exist with the opposite and men get off the hook that have done vile things, this was not the case with me.
My mother had convinced me that these things happened. Had me testify in a court against him. I was a child, with a very impressionable mind.
She thrived on this sort of attention─ everything had to be circled around her.
I can’t stress this next part enough. The only reason my father was able to get all of these charges against him expunged was because I had to go on trial a second time as an adult and explain what really happened.
Even then, my mother said she thought he did it─ After I had repeatedly told her otherwise. I mean that I told her directly after it happened, in tears saying he didn’t do anything. I had no idea what I had done until my grandmother called me in tears and told me I’d never get to see her or my father again. I was six years old.
This all came full circle to her plans of excluding me from others’ life.
While all of those things went on, my grades, much like my social life, slipped from my grasp. I became alienated with very few friends. I wanted desperately to make friends, but had no idea how. My mom would make that more difficult by yelling at me or beating me in front of other children, like neighbors.
Which is key to my next point: Abusers like to alienate their victims and have complete control. My mother would always make excuses to taking me anywhere, especially to sleepovers, or allowing me to have play dates. She didn’t like me being anywhere that she didn’t have complete control over.
They start by making it seem like it is in your best interest, ‘oh so-and-so is a bad influence’ or, ‘I don’t like how they behave.’
I once dated a guy that I never realized did this until he got jealous of me hanging out with friends. That was a huge red flag and I left him immediately.
p.s. he showed up at my house after that and it took calling the police to get him to leave. Watch out for these personality types and don’t be dumb like Grey.
The Day I Accepted Death, I Was 12 Years Old
There are hundreds of times that stick out in my mind, but the biggest one is the day my mother tried to kill me.
I was in seventh grade. My stepfather was working a full time job and going to school. It was a stressful time for all of us.
My mother had come out to tell me to do the dishes and to be quiet because my stepfather was sleeping until his shift. Now, my mother was someone that put the fear of god into you.
Nothing trumps that, except one thing:
Teen angst.
What any doctor that has majored in Biology will tell you, is that the pre-frontal cortex of your brain is not fully developed until your early to mid twenties. This is the part of brain that develops logic and reasoning. I apparently had none of those as I muttered things and put the dishes (softly, but still clanging occasionally and probably on purpose) because I hadn’t had a chance to do anything except clean that day.
I have no idea what she said, or what was yelled at me other than, ‘you ungrateful little bitch’ and suddenly I was bent backwards over the sink. I couldn’t move, but what was going on didn’t fully register until I started getting that famous tunnel vision.
When you’re getting choked out, you don’t necessarily feel that you are being choked. It’s a lot of pressure. Things start to go black, or you start hallucinating.
What I do remember is that as she squeezed and I could no longer make gasping or crying noises, one thing stuck out in my head:
Maybe I won’t wake up this time.
That thought gave me a complete sense of calm and everything felt right.
At the age of twelve, I was ready to die.
My stepdad rounded the corner and pulled her off of me. I remember bolting around the corner and catching my breath as she screamed over and over again that she hated me as he calmed her down.
That day, I learned that mothers really can take the life that they give.
I always thought that somewhere within her was the capacity to love me. After that, I knew she couldn’t.
Get lots of hugs today and hold your children close. Tell them what they mean to you.
❤ Grey
C.A. Greyson 