the darkness of the world is staring me in the face today we are shaking hands and pretending we haven't met before when really we are well acquainted we are so close we have this nauseating intimacy we are trying to stave off our glances are fleeting but time moves so slowly when our eyes cross

I found it hard to work, to enjoy activities. I felt I was always hiding behind this mask, pretending everything was fine when I was screaming inside. She played on my low self-esteem, telling me that no one else would want me. The more depressed I became the more my physical appearance deteriorated and the less motivated I was to do the simplest everyday tasks. I got to the point where I could barely function. This just made her lash out at me harder. I was called every name in the book. Her most popular phrase was to tell me I was a "worthless, lazy, good for nothing bitch". She would belittle me as a beast. She would do everything to convince me I was the one at fault.

After hearing these things, you begin to believe them yourself. That is how an abuser controls you. Anything I cared about, whether it was people, things, possessions, she would destroy just to hurt me. She would say hateful things about my friends. It took a long time to realize I was playing right into her hand, allowing her to keep me a weak and broken spirit so she could continue to control me.

As the years went by and the emotional abuse took it's toll, I would get hysterical and angry during her attacks. She would use that against me. She would become calm, so as to make me look like the one out of control, and then criticize me for it. During one of her attacks, I lost it and smashed the mirror I was holding on. What a mothering love to say "This is how you make me feel, " I said. "You hurt me so bad. When you say these things, you break me into pieces." I then wiped up a few of the smallest slivers still left on the hearth. "Every time you break me, some pieces are too shattered to put back together. So now, this mirror is beyond repair. That's how I feel now, like pieces of me are missing and can't be put back." Instead of seeing the connection, she proceeded to tell me that I needed "professional help", that I was "loony". This seems ironic to me now, under the circumstances.

I needed help? She purposely tormented and hurt the person she had taken to love and cherish. She criticized, blamed and shamed me every chance she got. Not only is emotional abuse the hardest to detect, it is the hardest to recover from. Still, to this day, I have problems dealing with some situations and I react to things based on these ghosts from the past. The scars are always there, the memories. Things people say and do, people who have no idea what happened in the past, can trigger an emotional response based on a suppressed memory from this time in my life.

It makes me angry to know that I will never be rid of these memories, that my relationship with my mother will forever be affected by the cruel and hateful things my abuser did to me in the past. It's not something you can control even after the fact, only something that you can try to recognize and work through when it happens. But what angers me the most is that I let her get away with it.

Thankfully, Meanwhile, my relationship with my family and my mother is strained trying to deal with the same pattern of emotional abuse I suffered throughout my friendships and co-workers from work. Protect yourself and your children. Get help and get out. God Bless.