Growing up, my mom often gaslit me for doing completely normal teenage and preteen actions. If I was overwhelmed or distressed because of how she was treating me, she would tell me that I was being abusive to her, slap some mental health diagnosis on me, and then use that to prove she couldn’t be the abuser. My entire life has been my mother expressing to me that she wants to be my mother, but that she never once did anything to harm me. She won’t accept any responsibility for the abuse that she put me through.

When I was younger, she would push me to my absolute limits by yelling at me for doing the tiniest things wrong. She would torment me and throw things at me. She would get up in my face, hoping for a fight. I would scream at her to stop, telling her that she was making me scared or uncomfortable. She would tell me I was going crazy.

I looked up to my mom when I was younger.

People would say I was so much like her, sometimes.

That almost broke my heart.

When I got older, and I became more immersed in clinical counseling, my parents held me to a higher standard. It was seemingly as if I was expected to withstand more abuse because I could now call myself a therapist. But it didn’t faze me because I’ve been held to impossible standards from a very young age. They’ve been the ones to do this to me.

My mom is the type of person who went to therapy and learned the language to supplement her abuse and couch it all in “therapy speak” so she didn’t have to be held accountable for anything. She does this now, and it is so triggering.

My abusive ex played this same game with me.

He thew fit after fit that my mental health was destroying him. So I told him, “Go to therapy and get help, then,” and he learned just enough to blame me better.

My mom doesn’t like that her daughter is queer and into social justice and the loudest, most outspoken activist in her life. She hates that I’ll call her out for the abusive patterns of behavior she thinks are helpful because she calls it “Christian” and I say otherwise.

Everytime I try to talk to her, she looks disinterested.

She doesn’t say anything but then tells me that she felt uncomfortable being asked to listen to me and give so much advice. She asks me what I like, and what I like is ideas, and justice, and equality – and discussing the ins and outs of patterns of this. I like dissecting how people have perpetuated good and bad in social settings. I love talking about things.

My mom says it’s harmful because, “You’re asking me to be your therapist,” she says in regards to what’s making her uncomfortable about what I’m saying. “I am uncomfortable hearing you talk about your feelings so much and therapy stuff so frequently.”

More specifically, she throws a fit that it violates her boundaries to ask her for emotional support once in a blue moon – when she knows I’m in active trauma mode.

Well, I can’t help that my passion is psychology.

I also can’t help that a lot of my activism efforts are geared toward bettering mental health treatment for individuals, as well as social understandings of it.

I also don’t think she’s being honest.

Because when I was younger and was in theatre shows, and tried to talk about what those were like and how interesting all of the shows were, she told me she wasn’t interested. I asked her why. “It’s just not my thing.”

So I never got to talk about the literature (plays) I loved with my mom, the English major.

When I asked her to read my writing one day, she couldn’t say a single nice thing about it other than, “This really doesn’t make sense. You can’t write at all.”

She says I’m the one who shuts her down and violates her boundaries.

But most times I ask her for something that seems to be to my benefit, it seems that she wants to fight me that I am awful for assuming she could even want to hear about anything other than her unique passions. Yet, when she calls me, she talks about anything and everything – and I’m expected to respond joyfully or she’s annoyed.

I get told by my mom and dad that asking someone (namely either of them) to be there for me is asking too much. That’s not fair to them.

I have many stories of being told that my needs are silly and contrite.

I have equally many stories where my parents say I’m the one being mean to them for being imperfect when I was put in an impossible situation to begin with.

I have stories where things are neutral.

The hard part was that my parents only did this to me.

And when I met a guy just like my mom, my mom adored him so much.

“He really loves you. I can tell,” she gushed when she met him.

He threw the same fits at me that my mom did – and still does, actually. Things as simple as expecting me to be responsible for his mental health. Things as outlandish as thinking it’s ridiculous that I don’t want to be barked/screamed/taunted at when a simple question could make me much more comfortable. Things seemingly neutral, such as saying that my disability is nothing because his disability is so much bigger and better than mine.

My mom often throws a tantrum that if I do something wrong or am overwhelmed, then it was an affront to her. I had an instance where she asked me (kind of forced me) to visit her in the hospital for her cancer treatment. She frantically and without much kindness, asked me to move some IV tubes. I was panicked because she barked the orders at me and was essentially screaming that she needed it done instantly, and I mistakenly pulled them too hard. And she throws a fit at me that I am doing this intentionally to harm her because I hate her and always have. She never once considered that it’s not easy to see someone get chemo. Also, it’s not fair to demand something so harshly and then assume the person’s panicked response is an attack. I was later told I made her feel horrible. She still holds against me that I harmed her so badly that I must not love her. Yet, she never once considered my emotional state or feelings – and yet all that mattered was that I was the one who was able to take the brunt for not considering her pain enough on that day.

She weaponizes my emotions to show I’m evil.

She expresses that it’s unfair to ask her to give me emotional support.

My ex had such a similar take. He said of me, “Remember how funny it was when we would watch horror movies and you would be scared? It really made me feel like such a man.” To me, it’s representing the same idea. Isn’t it fun to pick on the scared girl until she freaks out enough to where you can bully her for you putting her into that state?

To me, that’s abusive.

To a lot of people, and to my mom, they cushion their abuse of mentally ill people in Christian teachings. They get on their high horse, “Well we’ve all survived horrible things and so you just have to get over it on your own; it’s not my job to be there for you.” But also, the thing is, the average abuser will say this and then deny it’s abusive.

It is not an inherently abusive statement. Don’t get me wrong.

What becomes abusive is when people say it as a way to evade all responsibilty for the things they have done and the harm they have caused. Abusive people respond to you asking for help by saying, “I’ve been through some awful stuff.” And then refuse to acknowledge the pain you are in. Or they’ll say it’s inappropriate to ask them to support you in some fashion, since that’s not what they want to do, so it’s a “boundary”.

To sidebar –

A boundary is something that’s actually about limits pertaining to normal versus abnormal communication and behaviors in a interpersonal dynamic. A boundary is something like, “That is my laptop. Please do not use it without asking.” A boundary is not, “I don’t like you opening up to me. I’m setting a boundary.” A boundary could also be, “I need to be asked before we talk about certain things.” A boundary is not, “I expect you to validate me in all my interests while I pick which ones of yours are acceptable.”

Granted, the “not” boundaries are probably not going to be stated verbatim that way, but utlimately, those aren’t really boundaries. The first is potentially a boundary – and that’s only in a unique case. (The case would really be along the lines of with someone you’ve just met.) But really, a boundary isn’t about what someone else is doing, it’s really about what you are doing and what you need. The second follows similar principles. Yet, it is not a boundary because it communicates that there are unbalanced dynamics. A boundary is really only existent when the person setting it considers their needs but also the specific circumstances under which the boundary would be used and makes sense.

To circle back –

I was getting at this idea that the abuse we know is what we go to.

My ex treated me like my mom and dad did – only his needs mattered, I was a “crazy bitch” for being mentally ill, and I was worthy of being ignored if I made him mad. He also used entire church organizations to slander me. My parents are very similar.

I don’t think abuse is so clear-cut.

I often get told by a lot of people, “Oh, your parents are so nice,” and well, they are super nice – to everyone else. They’re really pro-mental health. Just not with me. They want to hear about everyone and how they are. Just with me, I’m supposed to shut up.

Often my parent say they want to protect me.

I ran across the country to find myself.

And still they want to tell me that I’m simultaneously who they want and that my interests and conversational topics of choice are overwhelming and boundary violations.

Yet, I ask: What about me?

What about my boundaries?

XOXO,

Dorothy B