On July 8th, 2010, my mother shot herself in
the head, ending her life. She was sixty-three years old, jobless, and living
on a friend’s couch in Florida. She’d used up nearly all of the goodwill
everyone in her life had shown her. She was physically and mentally ill and
deteriorating.
I can’t say she made the wrong decision.
To this day, I feel her blood on my hands. My
relationship with that stain has changed over the past decade. For some time, I
felt a great anguish, a crushing guilt. She had turned me into her life support
system against my will. I was the one who had to save her every time she came
close to the brink. She’d laid that responsibility at my feet, and had been
doing so since I was sixteen years old. I was the one who’d had to beg her not
to sit in a running car in our garage, all while my stepfather sat by,
impassive, wordless. I told her, knowing I was lying, that if she killed
herself, I would follow right behind her. That stopped her.
Years later, she asked if I was ready to kill myself with
her. She just… floated the idea of a suicide pact my way. It didn’t occur to me
until then that there could have been times when she might not have asked.
That, in the depths of her emotion, she might have thought it kinder to kill me
in my sleep before taking her own life.
That was the lie that secured my caretaker’s continued
existence, but that could have ended mine. That was the promise I made that I
knew I could never, should never, keep. That lie defined so much of my life.
Some have said it was not my responsibility that she
killed herself, but “responsibility” is a muddy word. I did not pull the
trigger. It was her decision. However, I’ll resort to metaphor to explain. I
was her shipwright and she was the constantly floundering vessel. When things
got too hard, she always came to port and pressed upon me to fix her. I always
would. I desperately tried to get her into operational shape in hopes that
maybe one day, she’d get around to the business of raising me. Of being an
actual mother.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, the immense toll it took
from me each time, the constant fear of not being the right person, of not
saying the right thing, of not being perfect for her… when I couldn’t take it
anymore, I gave up. I was exhausted and had nothing left to give. I grew deeply
bitter, seeing all the things she’d done to me with clarity and just gave up.
She set off to sea. She couldn’t do it without me. She
sank.
While I was not her killer, I’m at least partly
responsible for her death. I’m not sure if anything will ever convince me
otherwise.
The past decade has not been about me learning to free
myself from that responsibility, but about accepting my part, and about
realizing that there was truly no other good options. There were too many holes
in her hull, and the water came in too fast for anyone to save her. She had a
decision to make, and I firmly believe it was her right to make that decision.
No decision is more yours than the decision
to continue living. She made the
choice, but no choice is made in a vacuum. And her surroundings were deeply
colored by my absence. By her ungrateful, selfish, delusional child’s choice to
torture her for her very minimal, very understandable missteps as a mother.
My silence was killing her, she would say in the occasional
screaming voicemail. Then it finally did. My silence spilled her blood.
I could go into how deeply disturbed she was. I could
talk about how she tried to convince me from a very young age that I was the
messiah. I could talk about her sexual impropriety with me. I could talk about
her schizophrenia, seeing demons and soulless watchers following her. I could
talk about how she grifted and conned the people around her. I could talk about
all of the things that made her not only a terrible mother, but a terrible
person. But I feel like I’ve spilled enough ink on those topics – at least the
ones I feel brave enough to share, assuming I could even find the words.
I’m so sick of knowing how deeply her influence has
shaped me. I’m sick of the fear that still hangs over me every fucking day,
every decision, every interaction. Sometimes it feels like my bloody hands are
the least soiled things about me. I almost feel her fingers wrapped around my
mind, squeezing, still trying to make me her object to manipulate and abuse.
I’ve grown used to my damage, and god knows I’ve put in a
lot of work to find my way around it, but it is forever in me and I am so sick
of knowing it’s there. I’m sick of going over it, again and again, beating the
subject into the ground, boring the people around me with my self-pity. I’m sick
of needing to talk about it because of the wild hope that talking might mean I
don’t end up like her.
I’m sick of being so afraid.
I’m sick of being so furious.
I’m sick of being so weak.
As a postscript, I’d like to say that I’ll be fine. I
needed to mark the occasion and bleed myself a little here, but I grow better
with each year. Now just isn’t the time for optimism or self-motivation. I just
need to feel this and sit with my emotions as they come.
