Bermuda's Memories - Overflow Journal 1

[Armee]

 

I'm sorry for the profound neglect you all experienced. 

[NarcKiddo]

[Bermuda]

Neglect, yes. I don't think of that one often. As a parent, definitely.

This memory holds a lot of the patterns that persist through nearly every memory.

1: Appearances were above all. How we sat. How we carried ourselves.
2: Her appearance, in this case she felt stigmatised, but deflected the stigma. (I am not teaching that to my kids.)
3: Lying, insisting, denying reality until something goes away or until everyone agrees, or is forced into placation.
4: Controlling the narrative by removing the threat.

My aunt held it up, my brother hadn't seen. I didn't dare say anything. We would have been targeted.

[Bermuda]

This led to another thought. I was recently following this high profile abuse case and watching some legal commentary, and I heard a phrase repeated a lot that I hear often, and I just don't think it's true. So, in this case the mother hid the child, the scapegoat, which she abused to extremes. So many people, rational lawyers, said things like, "Because she hid him, she knew what she was doing was wrong. It's an admittance of guilt!" When I go over my memories and my mother's horrible unfathomable actions, I don't see an admittance of guilt, or even a coverup. Her actions were much more about her own shame than guilt, and those are very very different things. Her responses were actually always quite childish and reactionary, stunted. She didn't think of us at all, so she didn't feel guilt. She didn't look to see if my brother had lice or not. She didn't care. She cared about her image. This was her golden child. If it had been the scapegoat, she could have used him for pity. "Oh, he has such bad hygiene, look what he has done to himself this time, he's so disgusting, what am I supposed to do bathe a teenager?!" I can imagine that. It wasn't him though, and the golden child absolutely did not have lice, but rather just bad table manners.

She never felt guilt. They don't. The mother in question was supported by her church, and everyone else. Why would she feel guilt?

[NarcKiddo]

That's an interesting perspective, Bermuda. My mother certainly has a concept of what society would frown upon. Your comment about your mother's reactions being childish and reactionary resonates massively with me. I feel that my mother operating in apparent obedience to most societal expectations comes from a childish place of not wanting to be caught and scolded. When my father had a colonoscopy which diagnosed his bowel cancer she was summoned to the hospital so they could be given the diagnosis together. She said "I thought I was going to be told off about what I give him to eat." This is completely irrational, not only because it just is, but because she does actually take pretty good care about what he gets fed and makes a great show of that.

As for us offspring, I feel she regards us as her toys. Sometimes I might be the favourite toy and at other times I am flung to the back of the toy cupboard. But since we are her toys she is completely within her rights to treats us precisely as she pleases. A child is entitled to decapitate her own dolls. So - yes. Why would she feel guilt?

[Bermuda]

That is precisely it. With my own children, I never made a choice to go through their hair, to comb it gently and thoroughly. It was something I did because I care, not because I am their mother. My mother did not make a choice either, and it's because we were hers and she was our mother. Sounds the same but is indeed very different. She created us as accessories to tell the story of her life and we had to act the roles she assigned us. She didn't feel guilty, she felt shame when our acting was bad and it looked bad on her.

My mother would often say, "My mother was evil so I never learned how to be a mother!" and things like that, with the intent to get pity from us little kids. ...No one ever taught me to be a mother, but I care enough about other people to express kindness without forethought, and feel guilt when I have hurt them inadvertently, and I don't hurt people intentionally. My aim is not just to shut people up and build my image however I want it to be. It's difficult to imagine what that's like.

[Bermuda]

A memory that I didn't share when I wrote my story.

When I left the warm back stoop of the laundromat at the beginning of being homeless, I walked. I just kept walking. I didn't want to be seen or found. Before the officer had found me I had actually tried to climb down a small ravine on the side of the road because I saw a clearing in the brambles. I tried to walk down, but I fell. I was happy to see a surrounded clearning that I could set my little cloth down on to sleep, but I looked up and suddenly saw several reflective eyes in the thicket surrounding this odd clearing. I was surrounded by wild pigs. I ran out of that clearing and up that trench, through those thorny bushes so fast. I decided not to sleep.

I love wild pigs but I don't want to sleep in their clearing. I have been thinking about raspberry bushes today, and ... now wild pigs, scuffs, destitution. It all just topples out.

[Armee]

Your story Bermuda...there's so much pain and suffering and wild twists and plots. You know what I hope for you? One day you are in a position to feel safe sharing your story with the people around you. Snippets without context sure they don't make sense. A dinner party: "Do you eat pork?" "Pork? No, I like wild pigs but I wouldn't sleep in their stomping ground. Do you have any raspberries?"

But you deserve to be known and understood. The full story is understandable. It isn't unbelievable in the literal sense. It's like a choose your own adventure book but your character had to choose all the adventures instead of 1 path.

[Bermuda]

It is, and I realise it. That's another reason why I don't talk about it. Maybe in the right setting this snippit could be comical. It is amazing how fast I can climb when little glowing eyes are eyeing me. I darted out of there. No one has to know, let them assume I was camping. No I don't eat pigs, and I can tell you that I did not have a hunter's instinct either, fortunately. Hah. I used to love choose your own adventure books. I never felt I had any choices. Probably why I told myself stories of a different reality before bed.

These little bits don't feel significant enough to include. In wasn't traumatic. I wasn't chased. It does affect my choices, and I notice openings in brambles for what they are now. It was never a path for me to go down. I am not a pig. They were bewildered by me and were not looking to adopt a stray.

[Blueberry]

I see you've left the forum, Bermuda. I hope you're OK and I wish you well

[Hope67]

Hi Bermuda,
I hope you are ok.  I also wish you well.   
Hope