Page 9 - Relationships101 A Guide To Building Healthy Relationships Final 1

I am convinced that my mother was on a mission from my childhood to destroy my my confidence and
my gifts. She did a great job at trying to. She told me on many occasions, “I wait until I see you are in
pain to hurt you and I know I need to stop.” She did not just start that when I became an adult. I
remember her purposefully undermining me and putting me down as a child. She would have a look of
satisfaction on her face whenever she did it. As a child, I did not understand it. And it took me a long
time to accept the truth of her behavior as an adult. I kept coming back for more because I love my
parents. I believed in always honoring them. No matter what they did to me, I always did. I did not
know I was being abused and that freeing myself from the abuse meant that I needed to accept the truth
of who they were and protect myself. It was obvious they had no intentions of stopping the abuse.

I do not think my siblings understand how my life was impacted by the intentional abuse and sabotage I
endured through the hands of my mother or the psychological damage I incurred from having to watch
my siblings be beaten for two decades. Or maybe they experienced it too. But I do not think they know
what I experienced. One could never imagine the degree of the emotional and psychological trauma of
the intentional and methodical abuse my mother inflicted on me as a child and adult.

Believe it or not, I was my father’s favorite child. I am told that he thought I was smarter than all my
siblings. My siblings are unaware of the root of the dynamic between my mother and I, which stems
from her insecurities about the way my father saw me. They are also unaware of how their behavior
enabled this dysfunction or the effect that it has had on my life; so much so that it brought me to the
point of writing a book about it. You read about what I experienced at the pre-kindergarten age. Now
fast forward. Here is an example of what I experienced as a young adult just starting out in life. If you
think this is something, imagine the abuse that happened in between.

I left home and started to build my own family. My mother took a trip and left her car at home. My
younger siblings, ages 14 and 17 were driving the car. None of them had a license. And even if they had
a permit, which they didn’t, it would have required a licensed adult to be in the car.

For their safety and the safety of others, I took the car. My sister was angry with me for taking the car
and told me that I better be glad I did not come into the house because she had called my father and he
told her to kick me in my stomach knowing that I was 8 months pregnant. Imagine what that could have
done to me and my unborn child.

I realized at a young age that the dysfunction in my family was generational. My father was passing this
down to my siblings and me from childhood up to this writing. And he perpetuated it on to my nieces
and nephews on down. But I was determined to know what healthy love is. So that I could love myself
and others right. And I am happy to say that I am happy I chose to be different.

9