Abuse

I was an abused child and at the the age of 37 still feel that I am being abused. My mother often calls me and I often do not return her messages upon receiving them as I know that when we talk she will say something abusive. I am an abused child though I am 37 year old.

I did not speak to my mother for a six years span. This occurrence happened because she, as usual, was being disrespectful and abusive, and at the age of sixteen, I had had enough. I would see her thereafter in the streets of Harlem and would walk by without speaking. I left her home and taught myself that it was not OK for someone to scream at and be abusive to me.

When my father died six year later my mother sent word of wanting to speak to me through family members. I debated about communicating with my mother and was told to do so by my significant other who, at that point in our relationship, did not know all of the circumstances of my leaving and not speaking to my mother. He now knows and regrets that I began speaking to my mother because he has had a taste of her nastiness. I also regret that I started communicating with my mother because it has proven to be disastrous.

She has used every opportunity up until recently to be verbally abusive, and has done so, often, when she is tipsy. She has also been somewhat manipulative. I have found out that many distant family members think because of my mother's lies that I have never left my childhood home and live there with my 3 children, and that I often do not have a job. She has created a persona of the sacrificing grandmother who has to take care of her inept daughter who has babies and can't take care of them nor herself. Her answering machine has three boxes in which persons can leave messages. Two are for her and one is for "The Kids". My mother lives alone, but this message on the answering machine would make anyone think children live with her. When I questioned her about it, she could not come up with a plausible answer.

My mother calls me on the phone, and when I pick it up she is often, without saying hello, screaming out demands. "What's the number for that thing we talked about?", I'll hear her screaming before I have even gotten the receiver to my ear. She is often at work when placing such calls and she is using her cell phone in her break room at her job, talking, if not screaming, loudly. She does all of that for effect. One effect is to let her co-workers think I am home during the day, and therefore do not have a job, giving the effect that I wasn't and couldn't be doing anything that had or would tire me, though I work during the night. Another, is to talk to me in such a way as to have those hearing think I am being bossed around by a person I am indebted to i.e., someone living with their mother with three children. Another is to make the request as if I was sitting around not doing anything useful and am at her beck and call. I will, when hearing the screaming requests, lay the receiver back in its cradle. She does not call back. My mother has stopped using that tactic.

I don't see my mother, and I do not call her because she is verbally abusive. It reminds me of my childhood, and I will not be forced to revisit my childhood. When I speak with her on the phone it is because she has called. I do not hesitate to hang up should the conversation becomes abusive. And my mother knows that, so of late she has been very careful. Her calls have been reduced to about 3 a month and there have been no hang-ups by me of late.

I would like to go back to the 6 years when I did not speak to her. The anticipation of abuse is as unnerving during a phone conversation as actual abuse. My mother will never change, and I know that as long as we have a relationship, her propensity for verbal and manipulative behavior will appear and I will be victimized by it. Eventually I will have to severe all contact as I did when I was younger because she is not worth the trouble and I value me. I am deserving of peace of mind.