Threw on a CD and started cleaning house. The Miranda Lambert song "The House that Built Me" came on and a flood of emotions overcame me but for different reasons than what used to hit me.

I've been thinking a lot about why I have a harder time talking to my mom than my dad and even being in the same room as my mom than my dad. The truth is my dad is a monster and always has been. For 10 years he brutally beat and raped my mom and convinced that somehow it was her fault... that she was crazy. I remember the brutality. I remember hearing the brutality the evilness in his voice from the room next door. I remember crying and hearing him tell her "you make her stop or it gets worse for you!" I didn't shed a tear for another 10 years. (And I used to be proud of this) He was rarely around and when he was, he was drunk and violent. I remember my mom working up the courage to leave a couple times around the holidays but my dad kidnapping me and taking me to my aunts. In both instances my aunts hid me, lied and said I wasn't there. All the time, my cousins basically holding me hostage at the top of the stairs while I scream for my mom. When they were sure my mom was gone, my cousins thew me down the stairs. I was 5 years old and I have never forgotten this. Wanting my mom so badly and my cousins tossing me down a steep flight of stairs and laughing.... This was an old Victorian house. My dad nowhere to be found.

There's so much more. Yet all these years later I can't have a decent relationship with my mom. My Dad; I can get on the phone and have an adult conversation at least. My mom... within 15 minutes she has thrown an off handed comment that has triggered me and I must go. In person it worse.

This is what the song triggered....

When she finally did leave my dad and after abandoning me with him for a year and a half. The worst time of my life prior to these past two years; she came to get me and I was forced to choose. I CHOSE HER! Well from that moment on, day after day, year after year for 9 years and more she continued to abandon me. In the beginning it was always booze, drugs, and men. plus the constant need to control, and demand. But never allowing an opinion or the defense of ones self without consequence of getting slapped, an ass beating, or grounded for a month. And she brags that I was a perfect child. I've been hurting myself since I was 9 years old. Punching myself in my head, slamming my head into the wall, hitting myself in my face. (A secret I kept until now) I was never good enough, I'm still not. It's ironic. Now she want's the old me back.... I want to tell her she's dead and I'm glad. She hates it... because the old me never stood up for myself, never said "no". she says I'm mean, I'm snippy. I'm really not. I feel on a level now, that's unbelievable. I'm learning not to be fawn. She hates it.

I think it's easier to talk to my dad because my dad hates the monster he was and still is to some extent. He reads and studies a lot and he's aware of what causes the darkness inside him and he has changed a lot. My mom on the other hand went another route; she embraces the darkness, is proud of it, wears it like a badge. I feel so sad for her. She is quick to buy me books and tell me to get help but won't read stuff to understand me or even get help herself. So sad.