*Note this post may be rambly and error filled with run on sentences, poor grammar, and punctuation abuse. I don't care. It is for my mental health that I write this.
I am a bad mom.
There I said it.
I can't stop crying as I write this.
I fear I may have screwed up my children for good. I have 3 kids, I adore them. I love them and cherish them. They are brilliant, but they have me for a mother. I am angry, loud, unapologetic, and I just generally don't care what people say or think about me. I have yelled, screamed, and on some occasions said some really horrible things to my kids and I regret all of it.
I'm only writing this now because I just scheduled my lovely, sweet, daughter to see a child psychologist. She is violent and angry at school. And it's my fault. I failed somewhere. I failed my 6 yr old little girl. I did something along the way that turned her into an angry monster. I don't know what I did but I did it. I tried to show her love but I failed at that also. I'm starting to think I'm completely incapable of purveying the emotion of love the way one is supposed too. I know I love my family but perhaps they don't know I love them. Is this even possible?
Why can't I just love my children like all of those other moms who happily dote on their children? Why can't my entire world revolve around them? That's the way it's supposed to be, isn't it? Why don't I feel that way?
I'm selfish. That's the only answer. I like my time. I like things a certain way.
This is going to be hard for some people to read but I was abused (ok , that woman beat me) by my step mother who really wanted me to be someone that was seen and not heard. I was not to step out of line. If we went out to dinner I was to be quiet and sit still. If I picked leaves off the trees to make "soup" I would be punished by having my hands beaten with a rubber spatula. If I didn't like the raw zucchini in my salad because it tasted like a musty sponge smelled I would have to eat it and then I when threw it up at the dinner table, because I wasn't excused, I would have to stare at it until dinner was done. When I wrote on my hand with a Sharpie, cleanser and a green 3M scrubbie thing were employed to remove the marker from my hands. If I fell asleep in the corner while standing in it for 90 minutes I would be slapped on the back of the head so hard my face would slam into the wall.
I have done none of these things to my kids but because I was raised in this fashion I expect things that I learned out of sheer terror to be second nature to my kids. I have actually said out loud "Why won't you just sit still in this restaurant?" Like they're just supposed to know that you're supposed to sit perfectly still and not say a thing while eating out. Who really expects kids to do that? I did. I have no idea why. I wouldn't take my kids out to eat for the longest time because I wasn't sure how they'd behave and I might be triggered in some way. That I might lose my shit in some way and be just like her, like my step mother. I still get nervous when we go out and I do micro-manage the shit out of my kids, I can't help it.
The only thing I've ever tried to do successfully as a mother was not be her. I'm not her. I still yell too much and sometimes there is some favoritism, but I love these kids all the same.
This is all can write for now. I need to think about how I can make this better....
