#but excessive over-use in places where it doesn't belong like creative writing and art is the problem

[frogsandfries]

Which actually brings me to

That woman screaming at me that she wasn't out whoring around while she left her kids at home, she was there for us, at home where she belonged. She was the best mother she knew how to be, which is why this fact must be screamed at top volume. Not to cover up the falsity of it.

I think somewhere in her head, just as she has to scream to shut me up when I point out that I've been stolen from, she knew she had to scream to shut me up pointing out her grave shortcomings as a parent.

After all, what kind of parent who is truly trying steals from their children? What kind of parent yells at their children for waking them up? What kind of parent one day yells at their child not to wake them up, they can make dinner themself, and the next day, yells at the same child to stop playing parent? What kind of parent who is truly trying, shames their children about their bodies or identities?

She screams down any attempt at critique.

I don't fucking care where she was. Or was not. For all the fucking difference her quality of parenting made in my life, it might have been better for all if she'd been sleeping with other men, getting drunk, getting paid. After all, semen is better for a woman's body than three to seven cheeseburgers with fried fries and excesses of bacon, each week, knowing the condition of her heart and weight.

And yet, her language, her bodyweight, her diet, her relationship with my father....... That every last is shitty, and shittier since I've been forced to live with them again, is utterly my fault. My childhood, my start in life as an adult, my fault. She was a stellar parent, of course, don't ask questions, don't criticise her.

Then she decided that one in the morning was a great time of day to let rip. She probably went on for an hour, but I was too tired to deal with her shit. I pretty much rolled over and went back to sleep. I'm so tired of sleeping on a cement floor with just a duvet between myself and the floor. I'm tired of trying to sleep with headphones on, plus I misplaced the cord again, so now I have to contend with the blinking power light. It's hard to get enough good sleep, so I have to get too much bad sleep. Or far too little.

I don't understand either way, what I did to deserve this abuse. I really tried to make it on my own, but I simply didn't receive the tools and support that I needed. I have one sister whose spouse I pretty much pegged from day one, and has only gotten worse, and one that tried to make it on her own only to realize she needed military connections to give her the career boost she needed. The final sibling went straight for it for shelter, to escape factory work and for a career. (Don't tell him, but I was so touched when he wrote, I didn't expect it.)

And if anyone was listening, certain people don't need to mentally and verbally abuse me to chase me from the nest. I'd be doing everything in my power without the abuse to get back out there on my own. I can't wait to see this van completed. I can't wait to see where this van can take me. I can't wait to fill books and walls with pictures of places and things I've seen. I can't wait to connect with people in this unique way and share my art and have my creative perspective changed.

I don't need to be dragged back to the trauma of my childhood to make me desperate to get out of this. Actually, it's funny I should mention, I do feel dragged back to my childhood in a lot of PTSD ways. It's like the years of progress that I made don't matter, they never happened. I spend my money like I'll never see another paycheck, I can't handle my emotions, I've even started writing again, a lot. And it's part worse and part better because now, I drown her out with headphones, but now I'm pretty much trapped inside my own reality in a way that feels icky to me. I shove away all the anger and disgust and fury and laugh and smile so she doesn't know I want to press a pillow into her face, until I crack and I cry and I know she luxuries in my anger and frustration and I get a little of my emotional energy back from letting my anger show, but I also feel..... sick, gross, because I know she enjoyed my helplessness. Then it starts all over and I can laugh in her face for a few more days.

I need to find something, pretty much anything that isn't factory that will give me money. I just need money to get my license and have real freedom at last. I just need a little more money after that to fix my van brakes. I'm so close to having my new roof ready for installation and solar, and then I can just go. I can take my stuff and go wherever calls. I'll never look back, least of all at her. I'll be a better mother, a better person.