Diary Entry 24 February 2021
It is very hard for me, and I have to be very strong, to go to my mom and tell her something. I am scared of the disappointment, or of not being understood or of being hurt even more.
I have already written into this book a few times, what Mom says to me which hurts me. The trigger for my heavy emotions is always different, but the pain is always the same – one – thing.
Until yesterday I didn’t know where all my problems and pains derived from. Or at least most of them. Well, somehow I knew – it was always there somehow – but I could never grab hold of it. It was in the background – in my subconscious – until my psychologist Viola spoke out: “It seems as though you want to be heard by your family.” And that hit me directly. It answered something inside of me. I had no idea that this was the answer to my suffering, to my problems – until yesterday evening.
Until yesterday evening, when I slowly began to talk. It put pieces together, like a puzzle. Step by step. Piece by piece. It wasn’t planned to talk that long. It wasn’t planned to pour out my heart like that. It wasn’t planned to explain my pain. And it definitely wasn’t planned to talk to mom about it.
It wasn’t just a conversation. I looked in the other direction. We sat on the sofa. I needed a lot of courage. Overcoming of fear. I was so scared she wouldn’t understand me. I was mostly scared dad or her would hold what I had said against me when we fight again. That she would rub more salt into my open wound. That she would take advantage of my openness and honesty.
Mom listened to me.
“I know exactly what it feels like to be alone. A good example of this is Halloween 2017. I took off my shoes in front of the door, where granny and you were holding a deep conversation. When I told you I hadn’t been listening, you didn’t believe me. You looked at me like a monster. I saw a beast behind your eyes, and I didn’t recognise you. You scared me so much. And you sent me up to a room because you thought I was lying.” Already at this moment the tears were rolling down my face. The pain in me, from what happened back then, was still fresh inside of me. “As I cried and cried and repeatedly called your name, you still didn’t come. I heard how you just continued talking to granny. I thought you would never believe me again. I thought I was unimportant to you. I thought I didn’t matter to you. And I thought you didn’t love me.” I had to sob to bring my pain under control. “You weren’t there when I needed you most. Dad was the one who came up to me. Dad was the one who wanted to assure me you still loved me and wouldn’t leave me. I felt so alone. I was so alone.”
“That evening, back then, I was actually really proud of myself. I had written Amy an apology letter because we had an argument. It was really hard for me, because I was always jealous of Amy. I always believed she was your favourite daughter because she was never locked into her room like I was. You never fought the way we did, and she got in way less trouble than I did for certain things. And as if that didn’t hurt enough, you even named the main character in your book after her. Amy was always listened to, but I wasn’t.”
“No matter how loud I screamed, no matter what I did, I wasn’t heard. You didn’t come to me when I needed you most. You wanted me to stop crying because it hurt in your ears. You threatened to leave me again if I didn’t stop. The only way I could show how much you hurt me was by crying, and even that wasn’t enough. No matter how hard I suffered, you didn’t see it, you didn’t hear me. You didn’t hear what I wanted to show you, you just went away again and left me alone. Even when I wanted to move out, it wasn’t enough for you to understand that you were making a mistake.”
“I started to believe less and less that you loved me. I made indication after indication, I tried everything to make you see what was happening to me, but it was never enough. You didn’t hear me, and that was enough for me to know I didn’t matter to you.”
“2017 I blamed the incident on the alcohol that you had drank. I couldn’t explain to myself how else this could have happened. I didn’t know how else a monster like that could live inside of you. You couldn’t have been my mother. Even nowadays you can’t understand why I don’t want you and granny to drink alcohol. Even today you think I am exaggerating. Even today you don’t understand why I don’t want to go to granny’s, or I want to leave when you’re drinking alcohol. You never understood me and opened the wound from back then even more when you didn’t realize what happened to me that evening. I felt unimportant. Worthless.”
“Less than two weeks ago you did the same thing as back then. You wanted to prove to me what feeling alone really feels like. But I knew exactly how it felt. I was alone often enough in my life. But you didn’t stop. You said it has to be done this way, you said I don’t see clearly anymore, you said you’re doing it on purpose and no matter what I did, you didn’t hear me. I wasn’t heard by you and you left. You left – out of my life – the same way you did in the past.”
“Dad, again, was the one who came to me. The person I needed most left and wasn’t there for me. Dad called me childish. He called me childish because I knew you didn’t love me. He called me childish because I knew I didn’t mean anything to you. He blamed me – for everything- just like you and he said I shouldn’t live in the past anymore. But my past is my presence.”
“I don’t want to blame you and usually I blame myself. I just don’t know who I should blame. I am just saying how I feel and that is the truth. I kept asking myself: ‘What did I do? What did I do?’ but I couldn’t find an answer.”
“I had hoped you had learnt from the past, but that which happened two weeks ago proves that you haven’t. I always hope that you understand what I mean with our conversations. But you don’t hear what I say, you always hold it against me. And if you hold what I’ve just said against me in any way, at any time, it would be the worst. It would be so bad that I would never talk to you about such painful things again.” I spoke in a total serious tone, like a promise.
“I think later on in life I’d like to stand on stages and help people, because I want to be heard. My whole life I haven’t been heard properly. In my dreams I’m always the one holding big speeches. Everyone is listening to me. My voice has a huge influence on everyone who is present. After I am done with my voice, my power, my speech, everyone is changed. Everyone gained wisdom. Everyone is happy and I helped them to be good people. My voice was heard. It was heard by the world. I will not stop fighting for my dream. I want to be heard. I want to say what I have to say. No-one can change my mind.” I will fight for eternity. I want to be heard. I have to be heard. And I will be heard.”
“A lot of my problems have got to do with not being heard. I think I don’t have a lot of friends, or it’s not easy for me to find any, or I decide against it, because I want to be heard. I can’t be friends with someone if they don’t listen to me or if I can’t have a deep, personal conversation with them.”
Mom stayed quiet the whole time. Until I was finished. She cried again that evening because she blamed herself for everything. She blamed herself for me having it so hard and for me being the way that I am. The truth is, it is her fault. It is her fault and she has to learn to accept it. To cope with it. To learn from it. In addition, she realized that she must’ve lied to herself about being a good mother.
“It is my fault,” she began “I take 100% responsibility, because you opened my eyes. I didn’t see how much I hurt you and put you through a trauma. You are right, I didn’t learn from the past. I made the same mistake the week before last.”
“But actually it’s good that the wound is freshly bleeding, because this is how you can heal it best. Now you have the best chance to change what happened in the past. The only thing I can ask is that you forgive me. I know it takes time and you need to be ready for it, but only this way can you heal the wound. I have to learn from my mistakes, and you are the only one who can heal your pain, caused by me.
The best way to do this, is to go back into the situation where the suffering happened. And then you have to imagine that whatever would’ve helped you in that situation, actually happens. Which means, in your case, you would imagine your mother coming in and staying with you the whole time, until you have calmed down. You do this over and over until the pain is healed, and like this it will work.”
Leona.
