Precious

I don't know if any of you have watched the movie "Precious".  I have to admit it is a ROUGH movie to watch.  At times it is like watching my childhood lived out by another girl.  I actually like movies like this.  It helps me remember what I was feeling during different episodes of abuse in my home.  It is hard to recall my feelings when, at the time, I wasn't able to feel much of anything.  No emotion was safe in front of my mother.  If I ever were to dare show a part of who I was I opened myself to certain ridicule or punishment.  In one scene of the movie the young girl, Precious, was being yelled at by her very abusive mother.  Precious stood at the top of the steps as her mother stood at the foot of the steps yelling profanities.  This situation is all too familiar to me.  When my mother was going to explode it was wise to get as far away from her as possible.  If I could sense her rage coming on (hear her yelling from another room) I would often run up stairs or down the stairs...basically separate myself from my mother.  It didn't stop her from raging at me.  The same things Precious' mother yelled to her were yelled to me.  "You bitch...you are stupid...you will never be anything...I should have never had children...I hate you...I am going to kill you...I will bust your head open...".  I couldn't move.  I remember my knees would lock up because I was scared to literally move a muscle.  Often I would be yelled at long enough that my vision would go white and I was close to passing out from standing still.  I can remember cursing her out in my head...the words I called her, whew, she would have killed me if I had said them aloud.  I can remember having a feeling of bricks on my chest from the anger I felt inside...maybe the sorrow over what she was saying to me.  Either way I wanted to burst open...I wanted to disappear...I wanted to lash out.  I couldn't though...that would have meant her lashing back at me. 

In the movie Precious' mother allowed her father to sexually abuse Precious.  A social worker questions the mother about this.  The mother tells this horrendous story that her baby's father first touched Precious as a little girl.  Instead of stopping him she grew to resent her daughter.  She didn't stop him because she feared there was no one else to love her.  If she said something or put a stop to it her man would leave.  She hated her daughter because the father "loved" Precious more.  Precious ended up getting pregnant twice by her own father.  Precious' mother resented her even more because the father gave Precious more children than he had given the mother.  The hatred the mother felt allowed her to treat her daughter like a slave...like an animal.  Precious was made to cook for her mother every night.  The mother forced Precious to lie to social services so that the family could continue to receive welfare.  Precious had something inside of her...something that made her keep going.  She had a teacher who encouraged her to write it out. 

The movie is based on a novel.  The actual people and events are made up...but certainly possible in this world.  My mother had to hate me in order to do the things she did to me.  There is no other explanation.  She put me in harms way to entice her husband to stay.  She called me names and made me feel like I was nothing.  She was selfish.  I was always doing whatever I could to keep her from her rage.  Whatever I did was never enough.  She always found something to rage about.  Meanwhile I never got the chance to learn who I was.  I never had time to find out what I was good at or what I liked because my time and energy had to be spent on figuring out what would prevent her from beating me.  She didn't direct me to discover these things either, like a mother is supposed to do for her children.  I never learned that life could be about me.  I never learned that I am allowed to have time to myself just doing nothing.  I was always desperate to be one step ahead of my mother just to save myself the bruises.  All the sudden I stepped into the real world when I left for college and was expected to delegate time to study to keep up my grades.  I never learned to study.  I never had time to do those things in a house where I was responsible for so many things and so many people.  I was lost.  I could survive in my mothers home.  I had the skills to keep people from getting angry...I had the ability to numb myself from the hatred yelled at me...I lived every day just to be able to lay my head down on my own pillow at night.  I didn't need those highly refined skills in the world that college offered.  I was never taught to communicate or have a simple conversation.  I was never taught to trust people.  I knew how to keep my head down and just make it through a day.  I found it impossible to function where the only skills I had were out of place.  It tricked me many times into thinking I needed to go back home and stay there...that I just wasn't cut out to live and be happy like the other people I saw.  When I got married (still don't know how that one happened!) it was made 1000 times worse!  I felt like I was going to suffocate from the unconditional love my husband gave.  What was his problem?  Why didn't he call me names and hate me when I let him down? 

My mother set me up.  She just didn't know how to be a mother.  Mother's are supposed to mold their children.  Mother's are supposed to draw out their child's abilities and talents...even if it means their child decides to go away to college.  A mother,  in her true love for her children, gives them a safe place to come and go.  A mother knows better than to expect her child to fill the wholes in her life.  Talk about being born with a job!  I never believed I was good at a thing.  I didn't shine at all.  I just turned 30 and it has only been in the last 6 months to a year that I have discovered there are things I enjoy.  I can sew and I can write.  I am not the best at either but I enjoy both equally.  I love the release I get from writing to you all...I get out the filth and can take another step forward.  I am in love with creating things with my sewing machine!  My lifelong search for the perfect bag is coming close to an end!!  I know I have always had these abilities but without someone to point them out...I never knew they were unique to me.  I thought everyone could write.  I thought everyone could sew.  I took a Home Economics class in middle school and learned to sew there.  I figured everyone had the same ability and there was nothing that made me stand out.  I had a blue sundress as a kid.  My grandmother gave it to me.  When I grew out of the dress I knew I couldn't stand to see it passed down so I cut it up and made it into a purse.  Now, this was not a functional purse at all but I made it all by myself.  I think I would frame something like that if my Madeline ever did the same.  I didn't take that purse to my mother.  I was afraid she would get angry with me.  I actually had hid up in our attic while I sewed it.  I wanted to take a few sewing courses in high school but I didn't know I was allowed to ask.  I was actually afraid to bring up the subject with my mother.  I knew opening up a conversation about school would only end up in me being reminded what a failure I was. 

I watched "The Little Mermaid" with Madeline the other day.  (She knows all the Disney Princess' by the way;))  That movie means so much to me.  Before you laugh let me explain.  I saw that movie as a kid.  I used to wish on the many things children think they can "wish" on that I would be turned into a mermaid.  I am TOTALLY serious!  I wanted this desperately...so much that I cried over this!  I wanted to escape.  I wanted to go away where no one could find me.  Maybe the movie reminds me of how I made it through.  I found ways to day dream and escape.  We are planning a trip to Disney World in March.  I can't tell you what this means to me...well, I can!  I can't wait to introduce Maddie to Cinderella (or "Rella" as she calls her).  I can't wait to take her to dinner where Rella will come and spend a few minutes with her.  I WILL dress my daughter and son as their favorite Disney characters when we visit the Castle for that dinner.  I want it to be a time of freedom and fun...for all of us.  I think of what Disney movies mean to us and Eli.  He is not able to communicate to us.  We long to "know" him deeper.  The only way we have really been able to connect to him is through watching movies and reading books about his favorite Disney characters.  We connect there in his imagination.  It is then that we all speak the same language.  Eli will meet his favorite characters too.  Our goal by then is to be able to communicate with him but still enjoy watching him squeal over seeing Buzz Lightyear and Woody.  Maddie is really too young to remember this trip.  I am not ashamed to say that I need this trip.  I need to dress my daughter as a princess because all my life I have wanted to feel like a princess.  I have been to Disney World before but always under the shadow of my mother.  Now I go as the mother but allowing the little girl in me to run around that park unchained!!