"But she loved you so much..."

My mother was abusive.

There, I said it.

After 40 years, I'm finally able to publicly acknowledge that my mother was both verbally and emotionally abusive to me.

I realize that those who knew her casually may be shocked by the above statement, but I can assure you, it's the truth.

You saw the smile and heard the infinite amount of praise. I saw the anger and heard the word "stupid" more times than I care to admit.

I have this one very vivid memory of sitting on my bed crying. Like numerous times before, I had done something to upset her. This time must have been particularly bad because she told me she wasn't going to love me anymore because I was bad. I pleaded with her, told her I was sorry, and she said it wasn't good enough and she didn't love me.

I lived that torment often. In school, if I received anything less than an A, it wasn't good enough. In public, she'd put on the proud parent facade. The minute we were alone, she became this whole other person. A person I was terrified of.

The summer between my junior and senior year in high school, I put on some weight. She was absolutely livid. I was told I was fat.

One day, I skipped lunch to make up a test. One turned to two, then a week went by, then a month, and so on. I started dropping weight and she was happy. I, on the other hand, was sick. In a span of a few months, I dropped 3 sizes.

A year later, I confessed to her, only to have her call me stupid.

I remember an incident where our electricity got turned off. I had to go pay the bill with money I received from a settlement. She was unhappy because she felt I took too long to pay the bill that day and called me an ungrateful bitch. We were living off of my money at the time and I did what I was told, yet I was ungrateful.

I was often called names or told awful things.

Once she told me that if my (future) husband hit/beat me, I'd deserve it because I had a bad attitude.

There's so much more I could talk about, but at least this is a start.

It wasn't any easier to write than it was to read, believe me.