She had always
longed for a mother that she could have a heart-to-heart talk. Instead, her
mother kept her down. In the end, she had to make a choice.
Growing up, my
friends liked to stay the night at my house. My mother would bake crumpets and listen
to their stories about the boys. My friends felt comfortable being with her.
But I didn’t.
She was totally
different with me. She made me feel choked and did horrible things to me. She
read my dairy barefacedly when I was in secondary school. When I was in high
school, she often came to my room to arrange everything – sometimes she took my
clothes which she didn’t like and threw them away. In the evening, she would
look at my dish and then immediately cut out my grilled meat without asking me.
She was always interfering into my life … and that drove me crazy.
Seen from
outside, it seemed that she tried to get closer to me, actually it was her
secret behavioral controlling strategy. She gave naive comments to get on my
nerves, such as “I suggest you to use mascara” or “do you actually like that
hair style?” I would try to keep calm, if I had left, she would have stuck to
me with some more criticism.
Occasionally,
she looked like feel angry with me but I couldn’t figure out the reason. One
night, we were sitting in the kitchen and suddenly, she said she couldn’t
understand how I could have friends because I was overly stupid. I knew that my
reaction would make the situation worse but I couldn’t stop talking with her.
The fight was
going on and on. When I was in secondary school, we kept calling by names and
even shouted at each other. Though my father hated arguing, he stood outside
the fight between two of us. I knew how to kindle her anger by comments like
“Mom, this jeans makes my butt looks flat”. I wasn’t proud of the way how I
dealt with this, but at least this could protect me from her attack.
Shouting club
Regardless of
our strange relationship, I missed her – or her opinions – when I went away
from home for university. I phoned her and asked for advices about boys or
university stuff. All of my friends did the same with their mothers; therefore,
I thought I could do it too. Instead, she asked me whether I regularly did my
exercises or was eating too much or not. I felt being badly criticized and
completely depressed.
During my home
visits, I applied the best solution which I could come up with. I would behave
with her as if I was her guest – I would have a wander around and talked
politely with “please” and “thanks”. As usual, it could last for several hours
before I realized she attempted to destroy all my efforts, later I would pay
back, continued with bad manner till the rest of visits. I was dispirited when
everything was screw up.
I wished I could
have said that our relationship was good again, but it seemed to be never
happened. Anything about me would raise her anger and hatred (and vise versa).
The proof for that was when I stayed at home in Christmas holidays, in my
family party, my ex-boyfriend showed up without being invited to tell me that
he had been engaged with another girl. Being deeply shocked, I ran into the
kitchen and burst out crying. She came after my back, not to comfort me but
said that I was so cruel and impolite to leave the guest in the living room.
In the end, I
made a hard decision about stopping this situation. For years, I dreamt about
the normal relationship between us in some way, but it was really hopeless. At
that moment, I was a fresh graduate who was trying to find out what would I intend
to do with my life. Meanwhile, the relationship between her and me was not good
at all. It was too bad that I started to come to a psychologist who advised me
avoid meeting her. And I follow his advice. I thought it wouldn’t last long,
but weeks became months. There was no calls or emails and most important, no
fighting.
Keep the peace
During that
time, I read about books about relations. I kept thinking about the moments
between my mother and me in the past, then talked about my feelings but I believed
that she didn’t care about it.
While I thought
that I gave up about everything, suddenly I realized that this happened mostly
because of my fault. When I grew up, we were so closed and there was no
boundary between us. As soon as she came back home from her office, I
immediately stuck with her. I followed her when she cooked dinner and even watched
her doing exercises. Moreover, I usually phoned to her office to complaint how
bored I was.
In the end, the
support from our family members helped us do this. 2 years passed by. The first
time I met my mother after that hard times was in the lobby of a hotel. She
lived a few hours from me but she came round to me, and I thought that meeting
her in the hotel was safer. We hugged each other, cried and ate something. We
sat face to face, talked about business and books we read and I knew we wouldn’t
talk about the past. There were still hurts for both of us. We would never be
so closed; however, I didn’t feel that she would criticize me. Strangely, during
this visit, she behaved to me like the way she did with my friends. She was sweet
and charming.
Now we talk on the phone
once a month and meet several times a year. We send to each other sentimental message,
such as “This film reminds me of you”. But my mother is not the one I call when
depress or seek for advices. We are not get close in that way.
