I recently read an essay, Motherless By Choice by Katie Naum, and felt awed by its honesty, its sincerity and its wisdom. It struck a chord with me and spurred me to tell my own story.
As always happens when I write stories from my childhood, the words flowed easily and almost wrote themselves. I ended up with more than ten thousand of them, so I’ve decided to post them as a series.
I’ve posted a few of the stories from my childhood previously on this blog (see ‘On Smacking‘, ‘Christmas Memories’ and ‘Letting Go‘). The young Louise relishes being able to tell her story—finally, after all these years, that child has a voice and she can be heard. I want people to know what happened to me. These stories from my childhood are a big part of me and I can’t pretend they’re not. My childhood formed and shaped me, and it has left me bruised and scarred. Not physically so it’s visible, but the scars are there and they’re deep. I’ve tried, and am trying, to heal them, and giving the young Louise a chance to tell her story helps.
Nearly eleven years ago, at the age of 36, I closed the door on the relationship with my mother. We did reconcile during the last year of my father’s life, but that ended bitterly, too.
Giving up on the relationship with my mother was the hardest decision I’ve ever made. I felt guilty for cutting off from the person who’d brought me up. I felt guilty, too, for making my children grandmotherless, and for leaving my father, even though he’d chosen to stay with my mother.
But I’d had enough. I’d hung in there, hoping she would change, but she didn’t. And I was sick of it. Sick of being flotsam and jetsam to her needs. Sick of being abused when I didn’t do what she wanted. Sick of the turbulence that always came with her.
I finally had to accept that she wasn’t going to change and close that door.
The Early Years
To the outside world our family presented not only as a normal family, but as a model family. Two parents and three kids. We were always clean, well fed, well dressed, and did well at school.
But the outside world didn’t know what went on inside our home, and as a kid, I couldn’t tell anyone.
I believed my mother when she told me how good she was: how she’d picked my father up out of the gutter, and built his business. Without her, he’d have stayed where she found him and we’d have had nothing. And everyday, she cooked and washed and cleaned for us, day in and day out. I believed we were lucky to have her.
Except that she physically, verbally, and emotionally abused us, not that I recognised that at the time. I thought maybe it was normal—this was how all families were. I had nothing with which to compare it, of course.
I was beaten, pants down over the knee. I was pulled along the carpet by my hair and left with friction burns on my elbows. My sister and I had our heads banged together if we fought. We were dragged to our room by our ears to tidy a messy toy cupboard. I watched as my mother beat my three-year-old brother and rubbed his nose into the patch where he’d peed on the carpet, then told him he was no better than a dog.
My sister and I sobbed and screamed the day my mother told us she’d burnt our dolls in the incinerator because we’d left them outside. I remember peering though the holes in the sides of the rusted forty-four gallon drum, searching the ashes for Marie (my doll), hoping she might have survived. Hours later, after we’d apologised and promised to never do it again, my mother produced our dolls, unharmed.
It was our own fault. We were bad and needed to be punished. From the minute I was born, my mother knew I was different and she had to be firm with me. It would have been easier for her to let me get away with it, she told me, but she couldn’t do that because she was a responsible mother. She didn’t like having to hit me, but I made her, because of my behaviour.
My most significant memories are of fear and shame. I was scared of her, of her raised voice and her raised hand. She seemed big and powerful. I didn’t tell a soul, not only because I’d be punished if I did, but because I was ashamed—I didn’t want anyone to know I was so bad I needed to be beaten by my mother.
So I kept going to school and to Mass each Sunday, always neat and always clean, smiling for the outside world and hiding my shame.
My parents did a Parent Effectiveness Training (PET) course when I was eleven (I wrote about that in ‘On Smacking‘) and I hoped things would improve after that. However, because I was so bad, PET didn’t work on me. The only ‘language’ I understood, according to my mother, was physical punishment so she had to keep hitting me.
The Teenage Years
By the time we reached our teenage years, Dad’s plumbing business was doing well—he successfully tendered for big government contracts, like the plumbing on the Scottsdale school, the new Police Buildings, and the new Launceston General Hospital.
My parents drove luxury cars, and Dad owned a boat. They built a holiday home overlooking the ocean, and a majestic house just outside of town—a sprawling home, with marble bathrooms, slate floors, Persian carpet. Even a bidet and a chandelier! My mother wore designer clothes, and to the outside world, we looked like we had everything.
Yet home was becoming increasingly volatile—even the shower wasn’t safe. My mother would unlock the bathroom door, or if she couldn’t, she’d pull the handle out, spindle and all, and haul me from the shower. She’d drag me, wet and naked, to whatever it was that I had or hadn’t done. One time, it was to the kitchen sink where I’d left a dirty cup, which she then made me put in the dishwasher.
I also watched as she abused my sister and brother, and my father, but stayed quiet and out of sight. If we dared stick up for each other, then she turned on us.
When I started school, my teacher told my mother that if the whole class was like me, she could have brought her knitting. I managed to stay good all through primary school, and in Year Six, I was House Captain and won the Junior Citizen of the Year Award.
After that, things slid downhill, and quickly. By the middle of Year Seven, I suspect I was the naughtiest girl in the year, doing all sorts of attention-seeking things—eating in class, writing notes, acting the class clown—and spending significant periods in the hallway outside or in the Principal’s office. In the end, they moved me out of Year Seven and into Year Eight before I tearfully begged to go back and promised to be good.
Still I couldn’t stop misbehaving and no one questioned why the Junior Citizen of the Year had spiralled downwards in less than a year. Nor did it occur to me—hadn’t I always been bad? Wasn’t the ‘good’ me only a facade? My mother was right, after all.
Throughout it all, my mother never admitted any fault or that she’d done anything wrong; it was us, always us. The abuse was worse when no one was around, and if we tried to tell Dad, ‘She’s lying, Geoffrey,’ she’d say. ‘That’s not what happened at all.’
Sometimes, we tried to talk to her as a family and tell her to stop. She’d start to cry because we were ungrateful and selfish, after everything she’d done for us, and how she’d stood by us through thick and thin. And my father would be reminded, again, of how she’d found him in the gutter, and I’d be reminded, again, of all my misdemeanours. Then, she’d pack her suitcase, sobbing as she did, and telling us that she had to leave because none of us wanted her.
We’d cry and beg her not to leave. We’d tell her what a good mother she was, how wrong we were, how sorry we were for what we’d said, and how much we loved her. And, finally, after hours of our crying and begging, she’d agree to stay. There were always conditions, including that we were never to ‘attack’ her again. We’d sob quietly and agree to anything just to have peace restored.
And the next day, we’d step outside with smiles on our faces.
I believed my mother when she said she’d never force us to attend Mass, but, at the age of twelve when I told her I no longer wanted to go, I was hit until I climbed in the car, red-faced and puffy-eyed, and once again walked down the aisle to sit at the front of the church with the family.
It was the first time I remember really hating her. From this age, I began hinting to others that my mother wasn’t all that she seemed. But the image of her, with her perfectly made-up face and hair, wearing her designer clothes, at Mass every week or helping out wherever a hand was needed, made me appear a liar.
‘Your mother’s so nice.’
‘Your mother’s always there to help.’
Everyone, it seemed, loved her and as soon as I detected that I wasn’t going to be believed, I shut up. I couldn’t have coped with pouring out my story, only to be disbelieved.
I couldn’t explain to anyone how vastly different was the mother they saw, to the mother I knew.
***
2018 Update
In 2013, I was served with a writ for defamation from my mother for two emails I sent to uncles and a handful of close family friends in 2012. My mother has not progressed this writ since mediation failed in 2014.
The emails I sent to my uncles weren’t defamatory. They did, however, expose the truth about my mother, the facts she tries to hide.
These things all happened, and I have a right to tell them. Very few of the incidents I’ve described in these posts are my memories only—they can be verified. My brother and I witnessed each other’s abuse, and that of our father, as well as our mother’s gambling. I’d forgotten about being pulled along the carpet by my hair, or having my head banged against my sister’s, until my brother reminded me. A lot is documented in letters and emails—I have handwritten letters from my mother in which she admits what she did, says she shudders at the memories, blames her own childhood abuse, and says she’ll try harder. Many of the more recent events were witnessed by my husband and children, and many are on record—the sale of the house, the court appearances, the bankruptcy.
This is my story and although I’m trying to write as honestly as I can, it’s still my version of events, the truth as I saw and see it. As much as I’d like to think I’m not biased, of course I am—it can’t be helped. My mother has a different version of the story, which she can write if she wishes.
***
Next week: Part 2 starts with my teenage years and early adulthood, both of which were pretty bleak, until I turned my life around. Then, the final straw—the reason I finally called it quits on the relationship:
I could tolerate almost anything if it only hurt me, but no way was I going to let her harm my kids.
I’ve heard you speak of this, Louise and it appalls me now as it did then. Yes, I agree with the Anne Lamott quote, people ought to behave better if they wish us to speak well of them. I don’t want this next comment of mine to sound emotional in any way, even though this evokes deep emotions, but if I’d had you as a daughter, I would have valued and cherished you for the extraordinary human being you are.
Thanks, Rashida, for everything you’ve said—that Anne Lamott quote has given me a lot of strength. And your comment doesn’t sound too emotional—it means a lot to me to read it, and thanks for writing it. xx
When I was young I remember thinking the worse thing in the world would be to have a mother who didn’t love you, or couldn’t show it. Your story is remarkable for all the pain you’ve suffered in the care of such a mother. Good on you for tackling it.
I can see why a child would think having an unloving mother is the worst thing in the world. I didn’t at the time, but we weren’t allowed to call it for what it was—cruelty and abuse. If we complained, we were told it could get worse. I remember being read a story from Readers’ Digest about a kid whose parents burnt him with boiling water so his skin was peeling. If we ever complained after that, we were reminded of that boy and told to consider ourselves lucky.
How brave you are to share your story Louise. Excellent quote too.
Thanks, Lisa. It’s one of my all-time favourite quotes!
Louise, thank you so much for sharing this very personal experience. May the process of writing about your experiences be salve for your soul 😉
Thanks, Marcia. It is helpful to write about my childhood experiences, and it’s even better to be able tell people about them. Thanks for commenting.
Goodness, Louise, you’ve had a gruelling time. It sounds as though you’re an empowered adult who’s made a courageous yet firm and positive decision. 🙂
Thanks, Lee-Anne. I am empowered. I was powerless as a kid, but not anymore.
Dear Louise, while I admire your courage and honesty, I can’t bring myself to ‘like’ this post. It mirrors too closely, the life of my sister and myself. My mother would be imprisoned today for the horrendous things she did to my sister, and to a slightly lesser degree, myself. She even once tried to kill my father.
My mother is now dead, so I am free, sadly so is my father. But while she lived, no matter what her cruelty, I seemed compelled to try to make her love me. All her life she worked to drive a wedge between my sister and myself. Since my mother’s death, my sister has become my dearest, most loving, nonjudgemental friend. I’m so sorry you must now live your life without your sister.
Although your story saddens me, it’s also empowering. Keep writing your truth my friend, your words help others to heal. xx
I love your comment Tricia. I remember a nurse telling me once how she couldn’t believe children in hospital with cigarette burns and bruises inflicted by their own mothers crying out for those same mothers at night. It’s a child’s natural instinct to love their mothers… unconditionally. It’s such a sad thought.
It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, how kids can still want maternal love, no matter what it costs. As I replied to Tricia, I’ve written about that in a later post—I kept trying to be good, hoping for that love. It’s very hard to accept that it isn’t ever going to come …
Everything you’ve written resonates, Tricia. For some reason, we still want that maternal love—I’ve actually written more about that in one of the posts to come. And the ‘splitting’ of the siblings that goes on. My sister and I were only sixteen months apart and shared a room until we were in our teens, so we were always close. I’m glad you’ve been able to form such a close bond with yours in the years since your mother’s death.
I will keep writing—I have to tell my story. Thanks for your encouragement, as always, and your wonderful support. xx
Louise, you amaze me because despite what you were brought up having to deal with you are a caring and special Mum to your own children, and you openly love others who are not your family– i.e. me! I treasure our friendship… the relationships we have all formed as a writing group make me feel like I can do and write anything, and that I am good enough, and this is a wonderful thing. I admire your clarity of mind when writing about such awful things, and your bravery, but above all, your commitment to making sure that young Louise gets her justice, finally, in making herself heard. Much love! Emily
Thanks, darling Em, for all you’ve said. I love our little writing group, and I’m glad you’re feeling positive about your writing—you should!
As I said to you earlier regarding the clarity—the passage of three or more decades from most of these childhood experiences has helped! It’s much easier to write about experiences from this distance. And yes, it feels good to finally give ‘young’ Louise her voice, and to tell her she need not feel ashamed.
Hi Louise, I think you already know, ditto. You are brave, special and I am very glad we are friends xxxx
Thanks, Rae, for all of what you’ve said. I’m glad you’re my friend, too—more than I can say here. xx
I read this hours ago. I’ve thought about it at length because I had a friend in high school whose mother was similar. My friend would come to school with scratches up and down her arms. Even though (at the time) I thought my own mother was a horrible witch she was probably very normal and this occurred to me when my friend told me what her mother was like. One day I turned up at their house unexpectedly and I heard her (piously, church going) mother screeching like a shrew from the Underworld. I couldn’t believe it. I admire people who extricate themselves from insufferable situations. You are brave beyond description, Louise. It would be the most difficult thing in the world to separate oneself from a negative mother… but you did it. Good for you. And such a poignantly written story.
I know what you’re saying, and I know what you’re friend must have been feeling. As kids, we all think everyone is the same as us, that our family is what is ‘normal’, and we can’t imagine anything different. You thought everyone was like your mother, and your friend probably thought everyone was like hers.
It’s very hard for kids who are emotionally abused to come to the attention of authorities because there are no or few physical signs. The parent can easily deny what they do or say, then punish the kid later so they don’t attempt to tell anyone again. Plus, the parent can present so well that people dismiss what the child is saying. I don’t know what can be done for such a child while they’re still under that parent’s control.
Thank you for sharing your story, Louise. Anne Lamott is on the money about your right to your own story.
Thanks for commenting, Jole! I love the empowerment in that quote!
That is such a brave, brave post to write, Louise. I have no words. I can’t imagine going through anything like what you describe. You are out the other side though, and still climbing, and that must be a tremendous thing.
Thanks so much for your words, dear Lily. Yes, I am out the other side, with my broken bits glued back on. xx
Ohh, Louise – how awful. Abuse comes in many forms. It appears she practiced all of them. I am grateful that in spite of the trauma you were able to rise above it and become the beautiful person you are today. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks, Betty. Thanks for taking the time to comment, particularly as I know you’ve been ill, and thanks so much for your kind and supportive words. xx
How difficult is must be to have to cope with all this and still strive to do very best by other people. I have put aside my mother at her age of 85. It has been a lifetime of emotional abuse and battering from both parents. I swore never to use emotional blackmail with my own children, and I never have and never will. Stay strong Louise and ask for support when you need it. All the very best of everything to you and your family.
Thanks, June. It helps to hear from others who have had similar relationships with their mothers. Good on you for drawing that line in the sand with your own kids, and sticking to it. I said the same about never smacking my kids. Please stay in touch. xx
It’s hard to “like” such a sad, gut-wrenching post. And yet, I admire you for your strength and courage in sharing such a personal aspect of your life. I’m so sad that you went through such a difficult childhood, but so happy that you have a loving relationship with your own family.
Thanks, Monique. Life did turn out well for me in the end 🙂