Going Through Thoughts After My Mom’s Death [a poem] (+ link to see slideshow)

Hi, it is now after midnight in my timezone, but it was Saturday, June 27th, 2020, which would’ve been my mom’s 58th birthday and which seemed like a good day to power through and finish writing the poem I started the first week in February.

If you’d like to see the memorial slideshow I made for my mom, I’d be happy to share it in a temporary download link.

I followed advice I found via Googling to use her own handwriting from the backs of photos and scan those too for the slideshow, to caption photos so people can tell who they’re looking at, etc.

I discuss the slideshow in my poem below, a poem I started writing while I was still in the process of creating the slideshow. So without further ado, this is a start to some of my thoughts in the aftermath of my mother’s death.

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Going Through Thoughts After My Mom’s Death

Going through shots for a memorial slideshow
Many of two toddlers and their youthful glow
Christmas morning, playtime, in others’ arms, etcetera
But I’m looking for the woman behind the camera

Her love for her children wasn’t a ruse
But laws aren’t equipped to prevent all types of abuse
In another life, she might’ve been a good mom
Might’ve been equipped with patience, joy, and calm

So evident in the pictures is her affection
Toward unexpected people, the flash in their direction
She photographed her husband long after they separated
Sisters, brothers, those to whom she was related

She held onto images mailed from an in-law or a friend
Occasionally she herself appeared, her smile not pretend
It certainly is not the part of her I remember best
I recall her as always bitter, angry, and depressed

Personal Life Reflections Part 1, and My Takeaways From Reading Some Of The Love Languages Books

Hi everybody! I hosted the Carnival of Aces in April 2019. This is part 1 of 3 of my submission.

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So after I posted the Call for Submissions for this carnival theme on The Five Love Languages, the thought crossed my mind that if I’m hosting a whole Carnival of Aces on the topic I should probably dive deeper into the source of the ideas. And then I got kinda carried away.

I decided to write three posts on the topic of The Five Love Languages. I had a lot to say.

The first post, below, doesn’t have to do with asexuality—but this post was inspired by me having chosen the topic for the Carnival of Aces, and it provides good context for my thoughts that will be touched upon in parts 2 and 3. Parts 2 and 3 will be much more relevant to asexuality (& aromanticism). However, of course in all 3 parts I am writing from my own perspective which is always influenced by me being ace but in terms of drawing direct connections that will be few and far between.

Holding tightly to my worldviews that I knew would clash with a super heteronormative/amatonormative and Christian book, knowing not to take things too seriously like Myers-Briggs personality types that still can be fun as a tool or game but aren’t scientifically sound, keeping my own ideology in mind and feeling braced for almost anything and unsure what I’d find, I listened to the audiobook version of the original The Five Love Languages book for married couples.

After that, I still craved exposure to some of the other books I knew existed for a more fleshed out perspective and found myself having listened to not just one but actually three audiobooks. Yeah I definitely got extremely carried away.

But I have takeaways, if you bear with me!

Secondly, I read (listened to) most of the book the same guy, Gary Chapman, published in partnership with Child Psychologist Ross Campbell about these love languages as applied to Children although I didn’t get through the whole thing although I got fairly close to the end before switching again, and at that point I listened to the entire audiobook of the book he wrote for “Singles” (Basically it’s a catchall book for all relationships you might have that aren’t with a spouse. It covers a little of nearly everything including dating and friendship, roommates, and varied family dynamics (siblings, parents toward children, adult children toward parents), and co-workers. It even repeats stuff from the children book.)

All this gave me a lot of thoughts, some of which were very critical and frustrated, and some much more introspective, philosophical, and intrigued. I have a deeper understanding of what is meant by each of the five categories. I have a deeper understanding too of what the phrase “love language” is supposed to capture.

I will explain some of the MAJOR ISSUES in the books in part 2 of my Blog Post series here, but let’s start on a more positive note.

The kindest letter I can muster up for my abusive mom

(Note: I don’t understand why the paragraph breaks aren’t showing up correctly… maybe I can fix it later, but I’m going to sleep right now.)

June 27, 2017

Happy 55th Birthday, Mom.

I remember 15 years ago, how stressful it was purchasing a gift for your 40th birthday, how important it was to me that I succeed in getting something you’d like. The fact that this is a milestone birthday number wasn’t lost on me.

How I, a 12 year old who’d only had my ears pierced for a little over a year at that point, shopped at a huge Jewelry Exchange place for the first time in my life and told my dad (your ex-husband) about your taste in always gold and not silver, how we (he) spent $100 on pretty earrings made of white gold with gold plating so it still didn’t look silver in color and… and then when that weekend spent with my dad was over, when I was back home… I waited with bated breath to see if it would make you angry because I’d failed at gift giving in some important way I’d overlooked.

You must not have liked your Mother’s Day gift 5 or so weeks prior because why else would I have been so determined to do this well this time? I’m not sure. Maybe I remembered a different gift thing you hated but it was probably Mother’s Day. I think I gave you little Hallmarks figurines of like a lighthouse and other things you’d see at the beach. Because despite how much i remembered you being unhappy at the beach the last time we ever went, when I was 8, you in the years since would comment that you liked the beach… you even wanted that “By The Sea” song played at your funeral…

In the end, you smiled weakly in my bedroom when you opened your gift and said you liked it – without sounding like you meant it. And I thought that was the end of my feelings about giving you this gift. That the reaction happened, and it was over. It could’ve been worse, it could’ve been so much worse, this was a pretty good reaction, but I wanted to cry anyway, because I’d tried so hard but you still weren’t happy.

Literally nothing would make you happy, because you were in the midst of Persistent Depressive Disorder, but none of us knew that. Not my dad or me and my brother, not you.

I wrote a bunch of other stuff recounting the awful but I just hit “backspace” for a few paragraphs. I changed my mind. I want this to be… in a different tone.

I saw you for the first and probably only time I’ll ever see any glimpse of what you in your 50s looks like back in December at your mother’s funeral home visitation (my grandmother’s). It was so jarring seeing 54 year old you. Your hair was so much grayer. Your hair was shorter. You were wearing a shirt that actually looked pretty nice, I was surprised I liked your style.

I hadn’t seen you in 7 years. I haven’t even seen any new photos. My brother noticed your teeth looked decaying. He noticed your breath smelled like cigarettes. I didn’t notice these things. He even noticed you flip off the casket.

You came over to me, and my brother, and two of my younger cousins, including the 17-year-old one you later made burst into hysterical tears with some harsh whisper. Why did you do that to her? But sorry, I’m digressing. You came over to us and you called your mother abusive. You said she was an evil bitch. You asked the 4 of us to “Name one good thing about her. Just one!” and I felt so guilty that in that moment I couldn’t think of how to respond. I wanted to defend my grandmother. There were plenty of good things, I’d been mentioning them to people in the days before and after that moment, and other points that day when you weren’t there. I’d been hearing about them from others. But in that moment, when you asked me, my cousins were ignoring you on purpose and not taking your bait, being calm and reasonable about your scariness. I, on the other hand, was so hurt by everything about your presence, so outraged on behalf of my grandmother and on behalf of my cousins/aunts/uncles/the strangers who shouldn’t have to deal with you and everything else.

But you know who else I could say “one good thing” about, “just one”?

Well. You.

The Relief…

Imzy is shutting down. I want to preserve these little original writing things I did for the 100 words community so I’m reposting them here on my blog. The prompt at the time for this one was “Sweet”.

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She never intended to actually drive us out of her life, but oh it happened anyway. My mom was yelling, I was crying, my brother was defending me, she was ignoring him, and the next thing we knew…

There was the sweet relief of freedom.

His hand broken from having punched the wall, my grandmother yelling at her daughter over the phone at 1:00 AM to stop calling – (we all needed to sleep, after all) – the many stressful, difficult things that were still to come…

None of that prevents this memory from being somehow fond in my mind.

Humor as coping mechanism

Imzy is shutting down. I want to preserve these little original writing things I did for the 100 words community so I’m reposting them here on my blog. The prompt at the time for this one was “Comedy”.

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Sometimes humor is a reasonable coping mechanism. Finding a way to laugh at the trauma and pain means, well… maybe you’re doing okay despite everything. At least you’re able to talk about what happened.

Other times, though, the humor turns into a bad habit. Even when you don’t mean to make light of a situation, you find yourself chuckling. The people in your vicinity think you must not care, or at least that this isn’t a big deal to you. Even when it’s huge!

Sometimes, it hides your pain. Even from the people you were trying to reveal it to.

Personal updates. And a grief-fueled rant.

So I’ve had some huge life events lately. It’s been a bit overwhelming and I don’t even know what to tell you guys first. [content note on this post for… heavy talk about all sorts of things that are personal to me, like my grandmother’s death and my mother being abusive so read at your own risk.]

My Abusive Mother Won’t Leave Me Alone (Part 2)

[Content note: discussion of multiple forms of abuse including physical, emotional, child, spousal, etc]

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Back in January, I shared my first My Abusive Mother Won’t Leave Me Alone post, complete with a transcription of a voicemail message I received from her.

Allow me to transcribe a couple other messages she’s left more recently, like in August 2016, just for your benefit.

Starting off in a kind of bored tone of voice, her typical “I’m calling because it’s a thing i do but I know you never will reply” thing she does… Also for what it’s worth my dad’s first name has been changed and is listed here as “Joe”, and I’m not sure if she is just a substitute teacher at an elementary school or if she has a different school teacher related job or what, because honestly it’s been almost 7 years since I really knew anything at all concrete about her life and back then she wasn’t working.

So yeah she said:

Hi Emily, it’s me. Look um… Tuesday… (Extra long pause) They were- At work, they were talking about um… how parents don’t read to their children anymore, and… I got a little choked up. ‘Cause I remember… I remember reading to you, in bed, all those times. And then, um, today… Uh… My neighbor – he helps me out all the time – he did this stuff with my dryer and… there’s… Something. I don’t even know what it is but it had ‘Emily’ on it, it’s a metal thing, slowing?(I’m not sure what word she said) it down, and I just… started crying. And just cried, and cried, and cried. And um… you were a really nice kid. You really were. You were a really nice child, when you were young, you were so sweet, and… If there’s any of that left in you… (Her teariness sort of fades off here ish) look me in the eye. Look me in the eye, and tell me it’s okay that- that Joe beat me. And then we can say goodbye! How’s that? Ok. I love you. Bye.

Gaslighting & Love

This is part 3 of a series of posts I’m going to be writing on the topic of gaslighting (& my personal experiences with it).

[Content Notes: Discussion of my mother and her abuse, mainly her emotional/verbal/psychological abuse. Use of a NSFW curse word and discussion of a NSFW body part.]

Part 1 talked more about her abuse, specifically, and that post can be found here: Gaslighting & Crocodile Tears

Part 2 focused more abstractly on society with some undercurrents of my mother. Gaslighting & Santa Claus

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I cut off all contact with my mother when I was 18 years old, but for another year-and-a-half or so my brother still was visiting with her, and he also was forced to endure something which I never had to, since it started after I was legally an adult: reunification therapy where he, our mother, and a psychologist would sit in a room together.

My brother didn’t like to talk much about his unpleasant experiences at those sessions, but when he did, he recounted my mother being a woman who would complain about our father the entire time, despite the therapist’s best efforts to get the conversation to be focused on something beside our dad. My mother felt the first two therapists were biased against her, so they switched to different psychologists for continued reunification counseling. My mother would insist my father was relevant because supposedly he had “brainwashed” me and my brother into thinking anything negative about her. Supposedly my father was evil. Supposedly there was no way my brother (or I) could have valid reasons of his (/our) own for having the strained-at-best relationship he (/we) did with her.

At one point, my mom started going too far with the third therapist, and he flat-out said to her, in the reunification session between her and my brother, “You’ve already lost your daughter. Do you really want to lose your son too?”

Re: *chokes on water*

I have a lot I want to say in reply to this post:

https://theacetheist.wordpress.com/2016/03/31/chokes-on-water/

which, to try to clarify, is Coyote blogging about their reaction to a certain tumblr post, and more specifically I want to reply to epochryphal’s comments too (and Coyote’s replies to co as well).

This is not actually a real blog post. This is basically a mess of jumbled thoughts type way-too-long comment on someone else’s blog post, a way-too-long comment from luvtheheaven. (Whoops that didn’t make sense, did it?)

(To clarify:) This is basically something that started as a comment on someone else’s blog post and still basically is a REALLY long version of yes, a comment on someone else’s blog post.

And then because I was turning it into its own separate blog post, yeah, I made it way longer and just kept writing. Feel free to move along as if there is nothing to see here.

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Wow. This is a lot to take in, you guys. Side note for Coyote: Because you linked it, I’ve just now (re?) read your “Models of Conceptualizing Morality” post and even if I did read the post itself before (and I do think I probably did?), well, for probably the first time I have now read the comments there too.

When you first posted this Coyote, epochryphal hadn’t commented yet. And I read just the post and tried to appreciate what you were saying. I went back and forth between the linked tumblr post and your blog post reaction to it here until I got through the whole thing, but of course I first looked at #12.

[Content Note for mentions of publicized news stories about gang rape:]

Gaslighting & Santa Claus

This is part 2 of a series of posts I’m going to be writing on the topic of gaslighting (& my personal experiences with it). This particular post in the series  is more general and doesn’t dive into any specifics of my mother’s abuse, not really. I am not putting any trigger warnings on this blog post. If you think I need a content note/trigger warning, let me know.

Part 1 talked more about her abuse, specifically, and that post can be found here: Gaslighting & Crocodile Tears

Part 3 is Gaslighting & Love.

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Christmas was only a month-and-a-half ago, and every year, it brings its fair share of memories, both positive and negative, and also plenty of memories that just “are” – neutral memories, as well.

Something just hit me one morning a couple of weeks ago, though, and that’s just how much gaslighting was involved in things my mother did around Christmas in my childhood.

In the past, when I would read posts like this on the signs of emotional abuse: http://luvtheheaven.tumblr.com/post/138652549987/what-are-the-signs-of-emotional-abuse, I always thought my mom didn’t engage in the particular abusive tactic known as “gaslighting”. I’d been reading posts like that for a long while now, and I always though that if gaslighting is defined as:

A form of psychological abuse involving the manipulation of situations or events that cause a person to be confused or to doubt his perceptions and memories. Gaslighting causes victims to constantly second-guess themselves and wonder if they’re losing their minds.

then, well, I didn’t experience it. I never really second-guessed my experiences, and I definitely never thought I was losing my mind.

But then, a few weeks ago when I started the draft of this blog post, which I actually started writing before my post on Crocodile Tears, I did a Google search for more explanation on the abuse tactic that is gaslighting, and the first thing I clicked on was this Everyday Feminism article on the topic (“10 Things I’ve Learned About Gaslighting As An Abuse Tactic”), and… the degree to which I can relate to multiple aspects of this post when I think back on specific things with my mom is… um… actually a little scary.

Look at these quotes from the article:

Gaslighting does not require deliberate plotting. Gaslighting only requires a belief that it is acceptable to overwrite another person’s reality.

and…

I believe that gaslighting is happening culturally and interpersonally on an unprecedented scale, and that this is the result of a societal framework where we pretend everyone is equal while trying simultaneously to preserve inequality.

You can see it in the media constantly.

For instance, every time an obvious hate crime is portrayed as an isolated case of mental illness, this is gaslighting. The media is saying to you, What you know to be true is not true.

The quotes will become relevant soon.

In order for me to explain the relevance… I’m going to recount my experience with Santa Claus, because my lovely abusive mother (note the sarcasm dripping from my voice as I call her “lovely”) left me a voicemail on my cell phone on December 28th saying she remembers my reaction when she told me Santa wasn’t real.

She remembers that?!?

What?