I Waited 15+ Years for “Just not very nice??”

I’ve been remiss in writing in my therapy journal the past couple of weeks. Last week she asked me to think about some other specific instances that I have compartmentalized – other than the one timeframe I had mentioned at that time that was such a stark and noticeable shift on the daily.

Perhaps if I had had the time to sit and write, I might have stumbled across something… but I came up with nothing. Nothing that sudden and difficult to pull back off the shelf in my brain. I could only come up with some general periods or people that I’ve done that with, but it at least feels a little more gradual or mundane day by day, I guess. It’s hard to explain.

Well, this week she followed up on the disassociation tendencies along with the compartmentalization and asked me if I feel like I have any missing memories or if I feel I’ve remembered enough – particularly about Wyatt – but that prompted me to recall a hole in my memory that has puzzled me on and off over the years.

When I was a young teenager or pre-teen, I’m not sure how the topic came up, but my mom had said something about how I started to bite my nails when I was in 1st grade – this was a bad habit I had constantly until I was 12 years old, and even now I occasionally do it without thinking when I am especially stressed – but over all it is a habit I’ve kicked.

Anyway, she said I started biting my nails in 1st grade because of the home daycare I attended for before/after school care, and that my parents pulled me out of the daycare after that. I had a vague recollection of the place – a vague sense of at least a couple other children, and taking naps in a closet. That was it, no other memory of what the adult(s) looked like or anything… But there was a sense of unease thinking about it.

I asked my mom what happened to cause me to start biting my nails. She told me at that time that she would tell me when I was older.

As an adult, in my 30s, I had this memory again and asked my mom about it. She blew me off and and said “oh, the daycare lady was just not very nice.”

“Just not very nice?” I waited 15+ years for “Just not very nice??”

So, I called my dad to ask if he recalled anything from that time – he did not. He said mom was the main person that dealt with the daycare stuff. I asked him why mom would say what she did when I was younger if there wasn’t something to it – this was at the beginning of my starting to realize how much she liked to have the dramatic effect embellish her stories. He told me he’d assume just that, she was making it sound more dramatic than it was.

I would assume that if something really serious had happened, that my dad would have been made aware. But who even knows what my mom may or may not have said at the time. She is so prone to “embellishment,” but also… outright lying, I’ve since discovered.

I didn’t just create the anxiety and nail biting out of thin air… But for the life of me, I can’t remember for myself. My therapist suggests trying to write about it and maybe it would be unlocked like some of my other memories had been in the past – but I feel like I have so little to go on, I’m not sure if that box is still salvageable.

This story led me to talk about further embellishments and lies that directly related to me by my mother, something I hadn’t yet told the therapist. I’m not sure if I’ve written about it here before, if I’m honest. I feel like I’ve probably at least mentioned it…? Anyway…

The main one being that when I was 15, I had suicidal ideation and saw a shrink, got put on meds. I just recalled another part to the story I didn’t mention today – the government wanted to send me to an institutional school in the US as well, but I wrote a letter begging my case and I didn’t get forced to leave my family.

Around this timeframe, I had gotten really upset/hysterical about something and my mom said (dramatically, might I add) that I was “manic depressive” and that’s why I had to take my medication.

I assumed she was telling me the truth about my diagnosis, so I looked it all up – discovered it had recently started being called “bipolar” …and awhile later, I mentioned to someone that I was “bipolar,” in front of my mom. She told me I was wrong.

“But you said I’m manic depressive, it’s the same thing – they call it bipolar now.”

She shook her head and said “No, you are just severely depressed.”

Again, in my 30s, I started to realize my mental health had taken a huge downturn and I was not managing it well, and had not for quite some time. Coincidentally, as I made a psych appointment, my mom brought up – of her own accord – that she had found all of my medical records in a box in the attic.

I specifically asked if my psych stuff from when I was 15/16 was in there and she said yes. I asked her to send it to me – she said she’d just hold on to it until the next time I visit because it’s expensive to ship.

Keep in mind, I lived a 19-20 hour drive away, I didn’t visit much and didn’t have a plan to visit again any time soon. AND she had been repeatedly sending me boxes and boxes of other shit from her attic and especially discarded library books “for the kids” that I repeatedly asked her not to send me. She was sending so many books the kids just didn’t want, and multiples upon multiples of some of them. (It was so much extra work for me just to end up donating all of the crap she was sending…. and paying LOTS of money in shipping to send me.)

I asked her to PLEASE send them, I could really use them for my upcoming appointment. I remembered quite a bit – but my actual diagnosis was questionable, and I recalled the name of my medication (Paxil) but didn’t know the dose I was on or anything like that.

She said it was too hot that day, so she’d go back in the attic the next day to bring them down… and she added “I’m not sure exactly where they’re at.”

She literally had already said she just found them and knew where they were…

Anyway, what she failed to tell me was that she had no intention of going in the attic the next day, because she was headed for a vacation in the Bahamas for a week or two.

When she finally returned and told me that, she added that she looked and for some reason she had all of my medical records EXCEPT the psych records. Interesting.

My husband tried to text her and ask for them again and assure her we’d pay for the shipping costs. She tried to call me – but by this time I was sick, I had a very sore throat so I didn’t want to talk, but also… I was just not feeling up to talking to her anyway.

So my husband gets on the phone with her, puts her on speakerphone and she proceeds to say she doesn’t have them after all but she could answer any questions we may have.

I don’t think my husband even got a question out before she continued on saying that I was never diagnosed with anything, I just saw a counselor because I was just a dramatic teenager who was sad because I missed my boyfriend. She also said “It’s not like she took medication or anything, the government would have sent her back if something was actually wrong with her – and they didn’t do anything like that.”

By the time she was done saying all of that I was panicky and crying. My husband said thanks or whatever and hung up – and I, just about hysterical, squeaked out of my sore throat with “she’s lying!”

My husband said “I know.”

My sisters who had been around 9 and 11 when I was going through everything at 15 even remembered me taking meds – they recalled a little pink pill – which is exactly how I remembered it. So I know that this isn’t some dramatic fantasy of mine like my mother was painting it.

I was absolutely shattered. That day was when I knew for sure I’d have to go no contact with my mom, I had already been on the fence before this as I started to see/realize more and more what she was really like. But, I felt like I couldn’t do it completely while my grandma was still living with her – I was afraid I’d lose access to grandma and/or find out too late if grandma got sick or died. So I went as minimal contact as I could. I never visited her again. …And she continued to dig her own grave in that respect with other horrible things she’s said and done since. So after grandma passed away at the end of 2021, I cut ties completely.

Sigh.

Anyway, I think I likely compartmentalized a lot of my mom’s behaviors when I was younger. I’m thinking this because of how aghast and confused I was by her behavior after having been far away for years and years and then suddenly being back in the family dynamic one Christmas and then multiple times (comparatively) within a couple year timespan shortly thereafter. Either compartmentalizing, or it was all just so normalized in my household growing up that it didn’t seem out of place and therefore not noteworthy to recall most day to day questionable interactions. Especially if they didn’t involve me directly… They weren’t fodder for my core memory necessarily. Like how my sisters don’t recall the Christmas when I was 19… They were involved with their own gifts and talking amongst themselves – and mom’s over the top wailing was not abnormal to any of us – so why would it have been notable to them, ya know?

One thing I discussed with the therapist today is seeing if I can bring myself to recall other specific memories from my childhood/youth related to my mom/family life. She said something today about how I have a few “big” traumas, or rather what the world would see/classify as “big” traumas, but she feels that I probably have a lot of smaller traumas – day to day traumas I grew up with not realizing how it all was rewiring my brain.

I can recall a couple bigger not so pleasant memories of mom, especially in my teen years… but I will have to think really hard about anything from younger than that.

i.e some that I recall easily/and or off the top of my head as I’m writing right now:

The time my mom and her church friend kidnapped my sister and involuntarily admitted her to a psych hospital (keep in mind this was a scare tactic – my mom never particularly believed in psychiatry, the only reason I ever got treatment was because the government required it.)

Obviously, the Christmas memory and the other memories detailed above.

I have a few “Karen” moments I recall actually – her being demeaning to retail staff and demanding items for free that were rung up incorrectly. That was always so embarrassing. …And she was always so proud of getting her way/getting a “good deal.”

The time she went with me and two of my friends on an overnight ferry, said she was going to meet up with a couple of her friends for drinks, so me and my friends went off to do something… when we came back to the room she was angry and loudly crying trying to guilt trip me saying we left her behind… I reminded her what she had said and she claimed she said it was later that night she was going out… She also didn’t say anything as we got ready and went to leave… She claimed we just ran out so fast (no, that did not occur.) Um, my friends were not only very uncomfortable, but they had understood what she said the same as I had… and noted she was just sitting around while we were getting ready… and had plenty of time to say something as we headed out… so… My theory is that her plans changed and/or she misunderstood or mis-assumed when she was going to meet up and then got salty that she was left behind after that. She did shortly then go meet her friends.

Her leaving me alone in foreign countries… I feel like I mentioned this briefly to the therapist last week – not the first time, but a specific one I recall was being in Greece, at a museum, I tell my mom I need to go to the bathroom before we get started and she acknowledged that… I go in, do what I gotta do (and I was always quick 1-2 mins tops, unless there’s a wait – there wasn’t this time) and come back out… and she was just gone. There were 3 different ways you could start off in… and she was not even in the first room of any of them. It took several minutes of low-key panic to find her, and she acted like I was being dramatic for being upset that she didn’t wait for me. I was 15. In a foreign country.

This same trip she sent me in a taxi alone back to the hotel when I started feeling ill, and got pissed at me for not having change for her when she got back – though the taxi driver had tried to take me places I didn’t want to go to “get a drink,” and to “see the view.” He had been resting his hand on my thigh… and when he finally took me to the hotel I just tossed the money and ran. I tell her this, and she barely reacted.

Okay, that’s all I have the energy for today. I’ll have to contemplate/journal to see what else I think of from childhood… and perhaps I will later write a post about specifically the disrespect and behaviors since I’ve been an adult. I’ve written (maybe even ranted) about some things on the previous blog, but I had refrained from putting it here – since she was the reason I had to privatize that site. But… That can of worms is open now, and hopefully she won’t come across this one since she A. ) hasn’t been invited and B. ) I’ve changed the name of myself and the site and shared it with less (no) connections to her …So fingers crossed I guess. Otherwise, it’ll just be more fodder for therapy … Therapists gotta eat, no?