As a society we assign tremendous power to family esp. "the parents." I've never met these "mortals fantastic," generated from a Hollywood dream. Every parent is a composite of things well intentioned and future regrets. They know they can't be perfect therefore the excuses.

Mother: I was a single mother with no money fighting for our lives yet I found a way to clean them and feed them. Wilfred was his name.

Everybody applauded her and put her on a pedestal. It was an argument no child could win. The world was incapable of seeing her true self. She brewed a glow from a mother's sacrifice. We were branded silly little liars if my sister or I complained to an adult. Now, I am clinically insane so they wont believe my stories of abuse. Family first. Keep your witnesses close and the snitches chained.

She accepted my coming out with a "but" and a lifetime of attempts at changing it.

Mother: thank God you're not a flamer. I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

You mean it could have been worst?

She drugged me so I could sleep with a cousin while two other cousins and herself, watched and cheered. She had my lesbian aunt make out with my boyfriend and grind on him so no one would question anybody's sexuality. When I would break up with a boyfriend she'd scowl at me and tell me to get over it. It wasn't real love. It was two guys. My stepfather concurred. I sounded like a maniac rendering my feelings.

Mother: you should stop this shit now with the guys. Only a woman can make you happy.

I had to come out every time it didn't work out with a boy.

To everyone, she represented survival and progression. She accepted everyone. She was a goddess. She knew the power of a woman. She was not a threat to her brethren and she knew what a man wanted. She told me it was pretense. It was a secret between mother and son. She created a role fitting the person she was trying to mentally seduce from pieces scattered in her reality. She changed them. (OMG. That's Errattic.)

Blah, blah, blah...she's a monster.

I believe every person deserves respect. Every time the media latches onto the joy of parenting without consideration to how the child feels, it's inconsiderate. You are giving them the right to kill us. Almost every person I've ever met has been abused by their parents. We act like it's an anomaly. My mother told me she loved me everyday and did unimaginable things to me. She'd rather celebrate my failures than allow me a win.

Mother: I told you so.

The scary parents aren't going to be talking to experts about their skills. Experts are for the privileged. They have their own fuck-ups. These are the parents we are confusing and bullying to love everything about a kid. Just because they said "hello" doesn't mean that they will love you. Those parents are going to bolt the door and you will find out about the abuse when he or she is dead. That's dangerous.

We don't need scary people pretending. They will infiltrate your lives and wait for that moment to slice you because..."they told you so."

Teach the kids to run. It never gets better. "They never understood, they just accepted it."

In old age mother finds different but no less strategic ways to abuse. It always takes me back to the room where I cowered from her fists as a wee.

I wish society would allow us to shoo away the monster without guilt.

"It only takes one member to poison a family." 01-Aug-2019