Blooming Lotus

I went to graduate school after college. I got into my dream school, and my mother offered to pay in full (including living expenses) if I went there and turned down three full scholarships to other schools. That kept me wed to her for another three years. Big mistake.

My sister, who was now 18, was my roommate. My mother told me she was doing “tough love” with my sister and would not pay her half of the living expenses unless she went to school. Meanwhile, she told my sister that she was giving me lots of money to support both of us and that I was keeping it all to myself. It took my sister and me years to unravel the lies of our mother pitting us against each other.

My mother randomly decided not to pay my car insurance as finals were coming up. One week before finals, I received an insurance cancellation notice. I called my mother to ask WTF?? She told me that she was not going to pay it because I was irresponsible. Of course, I had no way to raise a few hundred dollars when I was in the middle of finals and had no job. I felt backed into a corner, and that is when Irate (a protector alter part) came out. That was the first and only time I confronted my mother, even though I (as Faye) had no idea what I was really doing.

I told my mother, “You already f@#$ed me as a child. You are not going to f@#$ me as an adult!!!!” She hung up on me. I called her back in a complete rage, and she hung up again. I have since learned that she got out a gun, loaded it, and almost blew her head off. She wrote about the incident in a self-published “book” she wrote. In her version, I called her up and was “nasty” to her. She says she does not remember why I called or what the argument was over, only that she was suicidal after we hung up.

I married a man I met in graduate school. I suspect a big part of the timing was to get the h@#$ away from my mother. He could protect me from her. My mother slept in the same bed as me on the night before my wedding. Not surprisingly, I was awake all night.

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Photo credit: Hekatekris