Addiction and addictive personalities abound in both sides of my family.
My mom is an active chain smoker and alcoholic. I am pretty sure she is or has been addicted to other substances as well but I have never seen physical evidence of this- only hearsay from relatives.
My dad had the same two habits but has managed to quit both; he stopped drinking in 1987 with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he quit smoking about 10 years ago after a major lung surgery.
When she was working, my mother was a functional alcoholic. She was able to keep a roof over our heads, and all the bills paid, by going to work every day. But after coming home I never knew what version of herself she would be. I never knew if she would be loving and laughing, or morose and verbally abusive. The inconsistency of her behavior terrified me as a child, and, as I matured, calloused my demeanor towards her. For example, she would intently listen to and harbor the words I would tell her in her sobriety, stew them inside her brain, and unleash them with totally different insinuations piled high with her own assumptions while drunk. This is how I learned not to trust her with my words.
Witnessing and experiencing the effects of my mother's addictions my whole life has made me hyperaware of my own behaviors. There have been periods of my life when I felt myself wanting alcohol more than usual and I am so intent on not becoming my mother that I stayed strong and so far have not given in to alcoholism. To date, I have never tried a cigarette.
As a child, my mother always saw more reasons to criticize me than to take pride in me. Our moments of joy together were few and far between, and she would say and do hurtful things to push me farther away from her during moments in my life that were supposed to be celebrated. For example, when I got my first period, at age 14, she said, "Great! One step closer to having you out of the house." When I revealed to her at age 29 that I had found the man I wanted to marry, she said, "Great! You're making the same mistake I made."
What I gleaned from her behavior towards me was that she was never happy to be a mother. Rather than a blessing to her, or even something unexpected but still somewhat desired, I was a burden and a hindrance to the way she really wanted to live her life. I remember her leaving me with my grandparents to go out with all her boyfriends or take vacations. When we went on vacations together, she would leave me alone in hotel rooms for hours at a time. I remember, at 7 years old, laying on a hotel bed in Puerto Rico, falling asleep and waking up, wondering when my mom was coming back. I remember, at age 14, her leaving on vacation and not telling me, and not leaving any food in the fridge for me while she was gone. I remember having a friend who was an employee at the Starbucks a block away from my home, who I had told about this. I remember the look she gave me, and I remember that she gave me three paper Starbucks bags full of sandwiches from their cooler. I am convinced that if she were not living with her parents at the time of her pregnancy, my mother would have aborted me.
I was molested by my mom's husband at age 12. He put his hands in my pants one night.Yes, I told her. As a matter of fact, I told her the morning after it happened. She cried a little and gave no comfort, wanted no detail, wanted no more information than the few words I had mustered all the courage in the world to say. And a few months after that, she made that boyfriend of hers her third husband, effectively putting me directly in harms way for years. He repeatedly groped me, harassed me, and propositioned me until I was 18 years old. The last time he did it was the week before I left to go to college 3.5 hours away. I told my mother each and every time. According to my mother and him, it was always, at the very least, not his fault (he was drunk, he was tired, he didn't know what he was doing). Sometimes, it was my fault (I fell asleep in the living room and therefore was inviting sexual assault). Other family members that I shared this with did nothing. NOTHING. Provided a little acknowledgement but no comfort, no validation that I had done nothing wrong and that what had happened to me was not my fault. Some even encouraged me not to go to any authorities with this information, because my mom had "had a hard enough life" and this was "her only happiness." As a result of this I stopped sharing this information and I did not tell anyone in my father's side of the family when I became acquainted with them at age 12 and reacquainted with them later in my life. I could not bear the heartlessness, the loyalty to my abusers, the deeply shattering betrayal... I could not bear those heartbreaks again.
Relationships are always complicated. They are never all black or all white. There are black and white moments, but most of them are gray. I met my father for the first time when I was 18 years old. So the only person I had that I could call a parent was my mother. If I couldn't call her my mom, I was effectively an orphan. That's too great a reality for a young child to willingly face. The fact that my mom and I had any moments at all that were not dark, was enough for my friends and family to look at us and think we were perfectly fine. The fact that we never lived in abject poverty, the fact that we took vacations, the fact that I was fed and clothed, made many of my friends and family believe that I was a spoiled hormonal teenage brat complaining about nothing, when I started opening my mouth about what was going on in my household as an early teen. These people never knew. They never saw. And the few people I revealed things to, couldn't handle it, or didn't want to learn that they were wrong, and I shut myself off from them in a combination of humiliation, fear of judgement, and the guilt of having burdened them with reality.
I am angry, through and through. I was never taught how to take my anger out in healthy ways, but rather, to hide it and stifle my negative feelings for the benefit of others. I attribute some of this also to my cultural background as a South Asian. My anger manifested itself in terrible ways, which I still grapple with to this day. As a result, the addictions I have are not to substances, but to behaviors. They are not true addictions, but they are "habits," "quirks,""inclinations," and "pathological conditions."
Please understand that having lived these words is much more complicated than just reading about it. My life has not been easy. It's been a hard road and I want now, more than ever, to live life out loud. Maybe just not as angry, but more healthy. Maybe even be happy. Maybe hope can come in and shine a ray on my future as a prospective parent, and take away some of the tremendous fear I have around that. Maybe I can be free.
I am going to try and sleep but will revisit this when I have the strength and drive to.
To round this entry off- I learned very early in life that that you cannot change someone who doesn't want to be changed. I learned that friends can be family, and that although blood is thicker than water, water is cleaner than blood. I learned how to be a strategic thinker and a game player by learning that in order to maintain self-preservation I could not share everything with everyone at all times.
My mom is an active chain smoker and alcoholic. I am pretty sure she is or has been addicted to other substances as well but I have never seen physical evidence of this- only hearsay from relatives.
My dad had the same two habits but has managed to quit both; he stopped drinking in 1987 with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he quit smoking about 10 years ago after a major lung surgery.
When she was working, my mother was a functional alcoholic. She was able to keep a roof over our heads, and all the bills paid, by going to work every day. But after coming home I never knew what version of herself she would be. I never knew if she would be loving and laughing, or morose and verbally abusive. The inconsistency of her behavior terrified me as a child, and, as I matured, calloused my demeanor towards her. For example, she would intently listen to and harbor the words I would tell her in her sobriety, stew them inside her brain, and unleash them with totally different insinuations piled high with her own assumptions while drunk. This is how I learned not to trust her with my words.
Witnessing and experiencing the effects of my mother's addictions my whole life has made me hyperaware of my own behaviors. There have been periods of my life when I felt myself wanting alcohol more than usual and I am so intent on not becoming my mother that I stayed strong and so far have not given in to alcoholism. To date, I have never tried a cigarette.
As a child, my mother always saw more reasons to criticize me than to take pride in me. Our moments of joy together were few and far between, and she would say and do hurtful things to push me farther away from her during moments in my life that were supposed to be celebrated. For example, when I got my first period, at age 14, she said, "Great! One step closer to having you out of the house." When I revealed to her at age 29 that I had found the man I wanted to marry, she said, "Great! You're making the same mistake I made."
What I gleaned from her behavior towards me was that she was never happy to be a mother. Rather than a blessing to her, or even something unexpected but still somewhat desired, I was a burden and a hindrance to the way she really wanted to live her life. I remember her leaving me with my grandparents to go out with all her boyfriends or take vacations. When we went on vacations together, she would leave me alone in hotel rooms for hours at a time. I remember, at 7 years old, laying on a hotel bed in Puerto Rico, falling asleep and waking up, wondering when my mom was coming back. I remember, at age 14, her leaving on vacation and not telling me, and not leaving any food in the fridge for me while she was gone. I remember having a friend who was an employee at the Starbucks a block away from my home, who I had told about this. I remember the look she gave me, and I remember that she gave me three paper Starbucks bags full of sandwiches from their cooler. I am convinced that if she were not living with her parents at the time of her pregnancy, my mother would have aborted me.
I was molested by my mom's husband at age 12. He put his hands in my pants one night.Yes, I told her. As a matter of fact, I told her the morning after it happened. She cried a little and gave no comfort, wanted no detail, wanted no more information than the few words I had mustered all the courage in the world to say. And a few months after that, she made that boyfriend of hers her third husband, effectively putting me directly in harms way for years. He repeatedly groped me, harassed me, and propositioned me until I was 18 years old. The last time he did it was the week before I left to go to college 3.5 hours away. I told my mother each and every time. According to my mother and him, it was always, at the very least, not his fault (he was drunk, he was tired, he didn't know what he was doing). Sometimes, it was my fault (I fell asleep in the living room and therefore was inviting sexual assault). Other family members that I shared this with did nothing. NOTHING. Provided a little acknowledgement but no comfort, no validation that I had done nothing wrong and that what had happened to me was not my fault. Some even encouraged me not to go to any authorities with this information, because my mom had "had a hard enough life" and this was "her only happiness." As a result of this I stopped sharing this information and I did not tell anyone in my father's side of the family when I became acquainted with them at age 12 and reacquainted with them later in my life. I could not bear the heartlessness, the loyalty to my abusers, the deeply shattering betrayal... I could not bear those heartbreaks again.
Relationships are always complicated. They are never all black or all white. There are black and white moments, but most of them are gray. I met my father for the first time when I was 18 years old. So the only person I had that I could call a parent was my mother. If I couldn't call her my mom, I was effectively an orphan. That's too great a reality for a young child to willingly face. The fact that my mom and I had any moments at all that were not dark, was enough for my friends and family to look at us and think we were perfectly fine. The fact that we never lived in abject poverty, the fact that we took vacations, the fact that I was fed and clothed, made many of my friends and family believe that I was a spoiled hormonal teenage brat complaining about nothing, when I started opening my mouth about what was going on in my household as an early teen. These people never knew. They never saw. And the few people I revealed things to, couldn't handle it, or didn't want to learn that they were wrong, and I shut myself off from them in a combination of humiliation, fear of judgement, and the guilt of having burdened them with reality.
I am angry, through and through. I was never taught how to take my anger out in healthy ways, but rather, to hide it and stifle my negative feelings for the benefit of others. I attribute some of this also to my cultural background as a South Asian. My anger manifested itself in terrible ways, which I still grapple with to this day. As a result, the addictions I have are not to substances, but to behaviors. They are not true addictions, but they are "habits," "quirks,""inclinations," and "pathological conditions."
Please understand that having lived these words is much more complicated than just reading about it. My life has not been easy. It's been a hard road and I want now, more than ever, to live life out loud. Maybe just not as angry, but more healthy. Maybe even be happy. Maybe hope can come in and shine a ray on my future as a prospective parent, and take away some of the tremendous fear I have around that. Maybe I can be free.
I am going to try and sleep but will revisit this when I have the strength and drive to.
To round this entry off- I learned very early in life that that you cannot change someone who doesn't want to be changed. I learned that friends can be family, and that although blood is thicker than water, water is cleaner than blood. I learned how to be a strategic thinker and a game player by learning that in order to maintain self-preservation I could not share everything with everyone at all times.
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