During my grade-school years, I was never a good student. I would zone out in class, forget to turn in homework, and keep very unorganized workspaces. My parents took me to all kinds of professionals to try and figure out what was wrong with me.
During all standardized tests and evaluations I took, I would always score in the top 5%. I was medicated and talked to more therapists then I could count.
Sounds like a supportive parent right? Here's the problem.
My mother was prouder of the help she was getting me rather than my progress and intelligence.
Steadily, I improved; assignments got turned in, my test score rose. But every once and awhile, I would forget an assignment or do poorly on a test. For every accomplishment I had, my conversation with my mother would go like this:
R: Hey mom! I got an A on my geometry test!
M: You should be getting As on every test.
I became afraid to share any of my failures with her, but she searched my backpack while I slept, and I would wake up to her screaming at me about how I was costing her money for dealing with "my problem." And how I would likely work at a gas station for the rest of my life.
The worst was the bragging.
My mother loved to entertain guests and tell them all about me. You know how normal parents put good tests and art on the refrigerator? Well, every time we had guests, my mother would take out one of my failed tests and put it right there on the refrigerator door. Her favorite topic was herself, talking about how much of a problem child I was, and all of the help she was getting for me because she was such a "good mother" and a martyr. She would almost proudly tell her friends that I was the worst student, and that I was the dumbest child in the whole school. Not once did I hear her tell her friends anything about my accomplishments, like my high achievement scores for my age, or any of the good grades I made. It was always about what test I failed, or what assignment I missed.
Eventually it got worse; when I would miss an assignment, she would throw things at me and scream at me. Although the frequency of my failures were decreasing, her reaction to them was increasing. She broke my computer games by throwing the floppy disks at my head. I would dodge them, and they would break against the wall. (I'm probably giving away my age here)
One day, she crossed the line. I had made a 73 on a Government test. I came home, and she told me that my brain was full of shit, and that I would probably die unhappy and unemployed. This was the first time I retaliated. I tried to walk out the door and around the block to cool off, but she got in my way, not done screaming at me yet. I pushed her into the wall, grabbed her car keys off of the hook by the door, and stole her car.
I drove to a nearby Church and slept in her car. I tried to call my Edad, but he was in another time zone. He was/is a journalist and traveled a lot for a living, leaving me with my Nmom.
I drove to school every day for a week, and parked at a different Church. I would check local Church announcements and crash wedding receptions and christenings and steal food for myself. Every day, my Nmom would demand I come home, and how she was SO SORRY she had hurt me. Fortunately, my dad left his car at home, so my mother didn't prioritize getting her car back. immediately. She still threatened to call the police on me, but she never did.
At the end of the week, when my dad returned, he convinced me to come back. He forced my mother to get a psycological evaluation. She was diagnosed with CBD (Corticobasal degeneration). Three years later, she passed away.
Right now, I'm at a top 20 university, studying what interests me. Every once and awhile, I miss an assignment or don't do too well, but I'm only offered encouragement and support. I still have nightmares about my mother yelling at me, but I know that I am succeeding despite what she told me.
Submitted February 20, 2015 at 12:29AM by Redsnork http://ift.tt/1Dwsas0 raisedbynarcissists
No comments:
Post a Comment