I turned 50 years old today, and for some reason, I thought of a phrase the adoptive mother used several times to describe how I looked. I had not thought about her in at least a day, which is progress for me, but the reminders of her venom hit me at the strangest times. I was reading The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook, which has photos of scenes from the show, in addition to recipes for dishes that were popular during that time period of the show's setting. I came to a recipe for "Punch Romaine," and the photo on the opposite page was of one of the actors from behind, the hair done up nicely and the sloping shoulders visible in a beautiful evening gown.
Something as simple as shoulders that are vastly different from my own made me remember her meanness about my appearance. I hate when this happens, but I'm getting better at not letting these memories ruin my day. I notice variations and differences very easily, but I've never been one to think that one way is better than another. She did not share this view. Any trait or feature that was different from her or her biological children was automatically bad.
I was always tall and skinny, with brown hair and brown eyes, and apparently, she despised me for it. I grew up thinking I was disfigured and believed for many years that I was deformed because she almost always commented on and complained about my body, hair, skin tone, voice, face, and everything about me.
I believed her then (and for many years after) because why would she lie? I must have been defective for her to have to tell me almost daily about my "flaws." I constantly strived to be better and to not make her mad with my existence, but the rules changed every day. What pissed her off at one time was the same thing she'd praise me for 24 hours later, and vice-versa. It was crazy making for sure.
I was frequently criticized for being "too skinny," and when I was 15 and 5'11" and weighed 135 pounds, she told me out of the blue one day when she saw me bend down to pick up something from the floor, that "You look good now, but you don't need to get any bigger." She was obsessed with my height and weight and would give me absurd fashion advice that she thought would "hide" my height or make me look shorter and fuller.
I wrote about that before, but it still galls me to this day. Why in the hell did she think my body was her business, except as part of normal parenting in making sure I was as healthy as possible?
I wasn't allowed to wear anything that showed my shoulders because, as she put it, I looked like "a worm with the shit slung out of it." Looking back, I realize that she did not want me to look attractive, but I wasn't allowed to be ugly outright because she couldn't parade me around to others to make herself look better by association. I was supposed to be "pretty" when she instructed, but not more than whatever image she had in her mind. Any characteristic I had that attracted attention that she couldn't take credit for was cause for almost immediate castigation.
If someone dared say anything nice to me or about me in front of her, she would visibly seethe until we were alone, and then the claws would come out. I would then be accused of being "haughty" and told that if the person complimenting me only knew what I was really like, they wouldn't say such nice things about me.
This longstanding pattern of abuse set me up for further exploitation and mistreatment for decades. I only wanted to be accepted, never admired and definitely NEVER the center of attention. This made me extremely vulnerable to those with ill intent. I believed for years that people have good intentions, so I assumed that anyone who didn't openly disparage me like she did could be a friend. I was so accustomed to constant ridicule, so I was so relieved to not get that when meeting someone new. I mistakenly gravitated to what I thought was acceptance, and it was often to my peril. I was the figurative lamb to the slaughter for many years because I didn't know any better.
My birthdays were never good. She would decide that I had done something at some point and proceed to shake and slap me for it and throw in some more verbal abuse for good measure. A few of the birthdays involved getting beaten with a belt, and I remember one in particular that was especially brutal. I had done something serious and unforgivable like getting into bed and going to sleep in my nightgown, but without wearing any underwear. I was a kid and had the idea to do something different. My younger cousin was visiting, and I don't remember if she suggested it, or I did, but it was something along the lines of "what's it like to not wear underwear?" I don't know how the adoptive mother found out, or why she waited until the middle of the night to turn on the light and drag me out of bed by my hair, but an innocent childish act really set her off.
Given how many other times she went berserk on my birthday, almost never getting me a gift and definitely not making or getting me a cake, I can't help but think that my bare ass gave her all the justification she needed (in her mind) to beat me senseless. My birthdays were almost always acknowledged by violence and were never happy.
It's painful enough getting beaten with a leather belt when wearing clothing, but it was excruciating on bare skin. What kind of parent finds it acceptable to treat a child like that? A truly sadistic one.
I look back at it now and see how worthless she must have felt, but instead of owning up to it and getting help, she projected it onto me and punished me for it. As I write these things down, I think about the experiences with a mature adult's perspective and have no explanation for her behavior, except for malignant narcissism.
I've tried to make my birthdays pleasant each year for the last few, and for a long time, they were usually fraught, and I just wanted the day to be over. I enjoyed today, and now that I've have lived to 50, I am determined to enjoy as much of my life as I can.
I am not defective. I never was. I simply had the misfortune to be placed in the care of a monster.
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