The scar on my arm is a reminder of my mother’s cruelty

I was a sickly child, and went through some surgeries for scoliosis. Life has been a bit of a haze ever since. 

However, what’s sad is that I can’t remember a single part of my life that my mother has celebrated. 

Everything that I remember about her is tarnished and toxic.

When I was about five, I was out with my grandmother and we were visiting arts shops on a day out. My grandmother asked if there was anything I wanted, so I pointed at a clay statue of an elephant. I loved elephants, so she bought it for me. 

When my mother came to pick me up, she got visibly annoyed. On my way home I was screamed at. 

‘Your grandparents don’t have a lot of money, how dare you pick something like this?’ she scorned.

By the time we got home, the gift was but a painful memory. It’s been over 25 years, and the elephant is still with me – but looking at it feels bittersweet. 

Another time, she came back from work and I was wearing white slippers. These, apparently, clashed with my outfit. I tried to hide on the balcony, as I had no lock on my door to my bedroom. 

She berated me for ruining our image as a family to our neighbours because what would they think if they saw me in clashing slippers?

Throughout my childhood, image meant a lot to her so I was always dressed nicely, while she bought tasteful things for our home.

But when I was 10, I let my friends sleep on our leather Italian couch during a sleepover and she yelled at me in front of them because they might’ve ruined her expensive furniture. I was so embarrassed.

She never hit me, but she never celebrated me either. This included things like birthdays, where I’d receive money that I couldn’t touch because it was for college.

This lack of celebration progressed well into my adult life.

After she left, my husband calmly declared that if she ever came again, she wouldn’t be allowed in. I agreed

When I hit 18, as soon as my boyfriend at the time found a place for us to rent, I hopped on a plane and left my Baltic homeland for England. 

I only went home a handful of times after that as it was never a pleasant experience. But the painful memories, unfortunately, did not end. 

When I got engaged in my early twenties, she called me, furious, and demanded that I take my engagement photos down from my social media because they weren’t pretty enough. Not romantic enough. 

I was still a university student, so I don’t know what she expected, but I complied. Many years later, I regret bowing down to her. Maybe the photos were rough around the edges, but it was what I had to remember the moment. 

For my wedding, I had a small private ceremony. I took some pictures together with my family and in-laws. When I printed them out for her, she demanded that my in-laws be cut out, because they were ‘ruining’ the photo. 

She wanted to slice the family that I was now part of out of the photo. Thankfully, with that one, I never gave in.

Once, when visiting an old flat of mine, she got it into her mind that my living conditions didn’t suit her, so she threw out my furniture without my permission. The weekend was spent with my husband assembling new, terrible furniture she bought as she berated us and our place.

After she left, my husband calmly declared that if she ever came again, she wouldn’t be allowed in. I agreed. 

When my husband and I bought our first apartment, I shared the news with her and she got upset at me. She told me that I was making an unwise decision by buying somewhere leasehold, not freehold. She never got invited to see it. 

It was clear that her expectations were way above the reality of the situation that I was dealing with. Happy news reduced to bitter tears yet again. 

In my late 20s, when I was recently fired from a job, my mum’s reaction caused me such emotional distress that I self-harmed. 

I was trying to share my woes and my emotional state with her on the phone. I wanted the love and reassurance that mothers were supposed to give. 

I was told that I belonged with the garbage. That I married a garbage man, that I was a garbage person and that I belonged in the ‘landfill with all the bums’. That it was where I’ll end up and that it was where I’ll die. 

This was coming from my own mother.

I ended the call and I spiralled. I have a thick skin – my upbringing made sure of it – but this drove me to self-harm. 

And honestly, I was so numb that I couldn’t even feel it. Then the realisation came as to what I had done. I did my best to close the wound then ran to my husband for help. 

It healed eventually, but I have a terrible scar. 

It never occurred to me how much her emotional abuse was piling on me. For years, I lived like I was sitting on a mountain of needles, one wrong move and I could be hurt badly.

I worried that every phone call would end in an outburst. I was never good enough. My decisions were never right. She would raise a stink over such minor things, and always knew better. 

Sometimes, I wonder if my hazy memory is due to childhood illness, or if it’s a trauma response. 

So after the self-harming incident, I sent her a long message. A message about how she hurt me one too many times and how it was too dangerous for me to keep in contact.

I told her, for my sake, it’s best that we cease communication.

She initially agreed to stop communicating with me, but I think she only expected that to last a few weeks. That was last year and I still haven’t changed my mind about wanting to speak to her.

Ever since then, I’ve experienced a lot of blame from other relatives. 

‘You are tearing my heart apart, you’ll send me to an early grave!’ my grandmother said. Every call ends in ‘forgive her,’ or: ‘You’re not remembering the good times because you’re choosing not to.’ Or: ‘Call your mother,’ ‘Would a small message hurt?’, ‘She cares about you so deeply.’

I did my best to close the wound then ran to my husband for help

And every single time I look down and see that dreaded scar. That day when I was told that I only ever belong in a garbage bin, because I was worthless. 

I honestly wish I had a therapist. I can’t afford one and I don’t feel like I can ask for one from the NHS. Nothing is officially wrong with me. 

But I remember the times when I, as a child, had to learn to cry silently so that my mother would stop yelling at me – I was making too much noise. When I was mocked for the facial expressions that I was doing. 

I learned to sit quietly and be still because I knew that fidgeting or noise would annoy my mother. As a result, plenty of my relatives said that I was the best behaved child that they’d ever seen.

But now I struggle with things like dancing and singing – even when no-one is watching – because I have her voice in my head that I just need to keep still.

I have pent up anxiety and stress. I spiral easily and can have panic attacks, yet I try not to show them. I’ll try not to express it, or ask for help – and I think it all stems from my childhood. 

Currently the worst part of it all is the feeling that I’m unjustified in my feelings. 

Family and friends say ‘it’s just how your mother is’; that I’m being ‘hard-headed’, ‘cold-hearted’, or ‘overly sensitive’.

Maybe I am, but that doesn’t give her permission to treat me poorly. Contact with her is a ticking time bomb. It could go off at any time.

I don’t think I have all that many milestones left in my adult life. I’ve already graduated from university, got engaged, married, a place of my own… My mother ruined it all.

My husband and I aren’t planning on having kids, so I don’t know what else could be significant. But whatever it is, for once in my life I don’t want to associate poisonous feelings with it. 

I want to be happy, and I know I can only do that by cutting off my mother.

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