On some level I felt that Garp cared about me, whether he was willing to admit it or not. And at that time, I thought I could drag his true feelings out of him. I have this mental picture of me, trying to physically stretch the love right out of him, like silly putty. I thought if I pulled it slow, the piece would just surrender, give in, to my forcefully drawing it toward me, and wouldn't snap. That was my hook. I had an uncanny ability to be attracted to men who could love me on the inside, but could never expose that love, in a way that convinced me I was worth it. I know now that I was just carrying out the program. I was still sick from the neglect and abuse that infected me as a child. I wish I could have saved myself a lot of pain and strife by perhaps being an entirely different person to begin with.
At the age of sixteen, I was so devastatingly lonely in that house. There was no family anymore. The two bedroom condo, in a well groomed complex, where I lived with my mother and brother, was simply a place where we kept our stuff and slept. Like a motel room that we paid for with our emotional welfare. My mom was often gone until seven or eight at night. We made dinner for ourselves. She was gone in more ways than one. My brother spent all his time in the basement (which was his room), anesthetizing himself with bags of Dorittos. When my mom would come home, she’d take him to Wendy's. He was over 250 pounds at the age of fourteen. I would hang out in my room and listen to music, write, and pretend that I was in a different world from hers. I could find a way of being content and quiet until there came the knock on the door. My stomach would knot up and I knew my peaceful disposition was saying goodnight for the evening. That was her chance to drag me into her disfunction, like a circus animal that was paraded around for her sick entertainment. If I forgot to flush the toilet she would harass me until I got up and flushed it, shaming me telling me I was a slob, and inconsiderate. When I had just gotten comfortable again she would find something else for me to do. Put a dish in the sink. Move my backpack, or she would continuously try to interrupt and talk to me about nonsense. It wasn't about the simplicity of keeping up with my chores. It was a way for her to control and belittle me. I always felt worth less. I felt like I was a big waste of space. Like if only could just disappear into thin air, she wouldn't have anyone to pull around by their heart dragging me, until I would completely leave my body and go through the motions. After hours of getting up and down I would cry myself to sleep. Thinking someday I could leave and be free of her. During one particular episode, she was going on about god knows what, and I tried leaving my room, she followed me to the living room. Then she followed me into the basement. Continuing to yell and cut me into little pieces with her words. When I finally tried to leave the house she said she would call the police and have me arrested. I knew that they might not really arrest me, but I was sure that that kind of incident would fuel her insane antics for longer than I was willing to endure, so I went back into the house defeated, trapped. I was to young to be out on my own. I had made pros and cons lists of running away, but I had no where to go, and I figured if I could just hold out until I was 18, I’d have a much better chance of survival. There were times when she would accuse me of being a slut just because I had a boyfriend, accusing me of having sex on the kitchen table because, she had found a scratch in the varnish. She was a monster. I tried my best to do the right things, but it was never enough. No matter what I did I would never get a connection with my mother. She was either jealous of me for having friends, taking credit for my achievements, or accusing me of being too wild. I never had the kind of mother I could trust. I know there where times when she said she loved me, but how could I believe her when she did what she did. She stayed with my dad for way too long. She continued to expose us to violence, verbal and physical abuse and never once did she try and protect us. She could never acknowledge the light, inside of me. She was obsessed with herself, and her all consuming self-image and ego. My mother was the kind of person who could look me straight in the eye while I was talking, and never hear a word I was saying. It didn't matter if I was talking about homework, sports events that I was involved with at school, my friends, youth group, whatever she didn't care. What she did care about, was herself.
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