Operation **Reclaim** Loveland

Mom’s Mistake- Hi! It’s Me! I’m the Problem. It’s Me!

If Mom was in a good mood, I was an accident.
When I messed up, I was a mistake.

I was a decision that she would have made differently if she had it to do over again. I was the end of her freedom, and the tether that made her fate inescapable.

To The Cousins and My Brother I was a bastard, but to Mom I was a mistake.

I was a stillborn and life would have been much simpler for Mom if I had stayed that way. Doc Johnson refused to give up on me. I had been born after 48 hours of heavy back labor. My umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck 4 times.

I was not supposed to be here. He worked for 30 minutes to get me breathing while I had a nonexistent Apgar score, and remained silent and lifeless.

I heard the SCRIPT a lot growing up. Mom liked telling her battle stories. They never said so, but I suspect he left the umbilical cord attached and that’s the reason I’m still here.

However it unfolded, I finally breathed, and there was no way for Mom to get out of it after that. She never forgave me for that.

Even thinking back on it now, (and I promise this still hurts), I don’t feel resentment toward my sisters. It’s hard for me to imagine that anyone feeling this exiled from their own family wouldn’t turn that on those getting attention, but I really internalized it.

I believed that I wasn’t supposed to be here. I believed that I was the cause of most of the things that went wrong for us. The little girl who sat on Grandpa’s lap had disappeared long ago. I think he had favored me because he knew my mom had resented me.

By the time I turned 13, I was no longer Grandpa’s favorite. Sister B had taken the spot, and it seemed appropriate because I was no longer a baby.

It was widely understood that I was expected to take over Mom’s position in the family someday. It would be my job to stay close to home, do what my elders want me to do, compel conformity from the younger family members. It would be my job to nurse people when they fell ill. It would be my job to babysit so others could work. My labor and life would go to the family, so that others could go live their lives.

In Grandma’s generation, her older sister had taken the role, which was apparent every time we went back to Nebraska to visit. The people who fulfilled this role did not seem like happy people. They wielded a certain amount of power, but they were not well liked, and the power only originated from their loss of autonomy.

I was expected to get good grades in school, but nobody expected me to go to college. Nobody in my family had gone to college. If anybody was going, it would be my older brother. I was supposed to get good grades, and graduate with honors, to bring Mom honor, not because it was going to get me anywhere.

Curious why everyone keeps going through the motions?
Break Free!

If I was especially lucky, I might find a husband, but I was told many times that I shouldn’t expect anyone to want me, because I was a fat, ugly, lazy slob. My high school experience reinforced daily that nobody would want me.

Remember, I was f#@kable, NOT datable. This really added some fire to my sluttiness, because I thought that was the only affection I was ever going to get and I truly believed it was more than I deserved.

Once when my brother was home on leave, in the middle of reclaiming his territory he looked me in the eye and said “you might be really pretty if you just lost some of the weight.” I can still hear him say it and it still messes with me.

I hate that he was right. I was really pretty when I managed to lose the weight.

I used to have vivid fantasies about cutting off all of my excess fat, just taking a knife and cutting as hard and as deep and as fast as I could until either the fat fell off or I died. Either were better than staying fat.

I never found the courage to do it, and I felt like a coward. I did cut myself though.

When I got time away from the girls I would hide in my room downstairs. I had poked around downstairs from time to time, but most of it was just covered with dust. I did find a pack of razor blades that I found rather interesting.

They felt illicit, forbidden, dangerous. Just taking them to my room felt like an act of rebellion.

I can remember the heightened arousal that came from opening the package and sliding out the first blade. My senses were on high alert. I listened carefully for the creaks in the floorboards that would warn me that someone is coming.

My first cut was on my wrist, I think because that is what people talk about.

It stung, but it stung like being alive. The sensation called to the numbness within me. It felt real. It felt sovereign. It felt free.

I made some star patterns across my wrist then I got scared, and licked the blood off of my wrist until it stopped. I was terrified someone would see it. I was terrified that Mom would accuse me of threatening her with more of what Dad did.

I had ample scrunchies and threw a few on my wrist, then went down the street for dinner.

Nobody noticed.

I thought of that razor all through dinner, feeling the sting on my wrists with ever motion of the scrunchies. I knew how to keep secrets.

The razor felt like an illicit lover I had snuck into the house and couldn’t wait to sneak off with. I went through a lot of razors. I acquired syringes and drew blood from my veins. My friends and I pretended to be vampires. I loved blood and bleeding.

It felt honest. It felt real. It felt like a natural part of accepting my place-

Especially because I was never supposed to be here.

Erasing the Silence- Next Post

30) Public Shaming

Erasing the Silence- Next Post

32) Sisters Part Three