My earliest memory is of shaking my unconscious mother who was lying on the floor with a vodka bottle clutched to her chest. I remember racing to my bedroom in search of my journal that held my father's cell phone number and frantically dialing the seven digits to hysterically detail my discovery. Minutes later, first responders rushed through the front door and ran upstairs to resuscitate my mother. I watched from police officers' arms as paramedics carried her lifeless body towards the ambulance. That morning was the first of many times that those blue and red lights would illuminate, and that I would appear in courtrooms to testify against my mother. Ultimately, though, it marked the beginning of my journey learning how to forgive a childhood of abuse.
At five years old my father filed for divorce and fought for sole custody as he realized the threat his wife posed to her daughters. The courts granted him sole guardianship, but ordered him to surrender his daughters on alternating weekends in an effort to maintain a mother-daughter relationship. On those weekends I remember my mother holding guns to our faces in a crazed attempt to teach us empathy for massacre victims, hiding as she chased us around her home with a butcher knife to instill in us a sense of fear towards weapons, and screaming in pain as she burned my forearms with hot skillets to ensure that I never forgot her. At night it became worse. My pleading cries to cease the emotional and physical abuses only ever provoked her, though sometimes provocation was the only option to keep her away from my little sisters. I took the brunt of it to protect them. I locked them away in the safety of their bedroom or hid them in closets to shield them from her. After reports of child abuse, the judge finally revoked all unsupervised visits; my mother's only opportunity to interact with her children was in the presence of a social worker. After she missed several appointments due to drinking binges, my mother forfeited her daughters completely.
After years of communication restricted to phone calls, my mother asked for a picnic with her children on Mother's Day. Naively, my sisters and I believed that she had finally chosen us over her addiction. We begged our father to permit her request and, with strong hesitation, he allowed the visit. On the day of the picnic we sat anxious and hopeful, but as she approached us reeking of alcohol, we realized that she had not changed. During lunch she asked if we wanted to see her again. Recalling the atrocities and recognizing she had surrendered to her addiction, we declined. She began swearing violently as my father motioned us to the car and drove us away. I was fourteen years old when I last saw my mother.
There are many reasons why I am grateful for having attended University X, but one in particular was life-altering: my minor in psychology. Traumatized as a child, my curiosity drove me to understand the cognitive processes responsible for my mother's actions. In "Abnormal Psychology" I became engrossed with studying schizophrenia, alcoholism, and bipolar disorder--all with which my mother was diagnosed. The course forced me to relive each traumatic experience that I had been repressing. It made me recognize that because I had not allowed myself to heal from the childhood pain, the torment festered and now translated to feelings of low self-worth and fear of abandonment. After much self-reflection and many counseling sessions, I chose to forgive my still-unapologetic mother as the first step in ending the childhood of abuse.
Today, seven black letters on my left forearm stain my pale skin. The tattoo reads "namaste"--a phrase that in Hindu culture conveys a mutual respect between individuals regardless of actions committed or differences in character. To me, it is a tribute to my journey towards compassion despite the pain I have endured, and reminds me of the struggles that have molded me into a determined and resilient individual.
Although I would have wished for a different upbringing, I am more independent because I served as the mother for my younger sisters, self-confident because I persevered despite the odds against me, and forever humbled by the infinite compassion I was shown in my darkest hours. I will never be able to forget the pain from my hellish experiences, but I have learned to end the suffering and strive to live a life of compassionate towards others.
At five years old my father filed for divorce and fought for sole custody as he realized the threat his wife posed to her daughters. The courts granted him sole guardianship, but ordered him to surrender his daughters on alternating weekends in an effort to maintain a mother-daughter relationship. On those weekends I remember my mother holding guns to our faces in a crazed attempt to teach us empathy for massacre victims, hiding as she chased us around her home with a butcher knife to instill in us a sense of fear towards weapons, and screaming in pain as she burned my forearms with hot skillets to ensure that I never forgot her. At night it became worse. My pleading cries to cease the emotional and physical abuses only ever provoked her, though sometimes provocation was the only option to keep her away from my little sisters. I took the brunt of it to protect them. I locked them away in the safety of their bedroom or hid them in closets to shield them from her. After reports of child abuse, the judge finally revoked all unsupervised visits; my mother's only opportunity to interact with her children was in the presence of a social worker. After she missed several appointments due to drinking binges, my mother forfeited her daughters completely.
After years of communication restricted to phone calls, my mother asked for a picnic with her children on Mother's Day. Naively, my sisters and I believed that she had finally chosen us over her addiction. We begged our father to permit her request and, with strong hesitation, he allowed the visit. On the day of the picnic we sat anxious and hopeful, but as she approached us reeking of alcohol, we realized that she had not changed. During lunch she asked if we wanted to see her again. Recalling the atrocities and recognizing she had surrendered to her addiction, we declined. She began swearing violently as my father motioned us to the car and drove us away. I was fourteen years old when I last saw my mother.
There are many reasons why I am grateful for having attended University X, but one in particular was life-altering: my minor in psychology. Traumatized as a child, my curiosity drove me to understand the cognitive processes responsible for my mother's actions. In "Abnormal Psychology" I became engrossed with studying schizophrenia, alcoholism, and bipolar disorder--all with which my mother was diagnosed. The course forced me to relive each traumatic experience that I had been repressing. It made me recognize that because I had not allowed myself to heal from the childhood pain, the torment festered and now translated to feelings of low self-worth and fear of abandonment. After much self-reflection and many counseling sessions, I chose to forgive my still-unapologetic mother as the first step in ending the childhood of abuse.
Today, seven black letters on my left forearm stain my pale skin. The tattoo reads "namaste"--a phrase that in Hindu culture conveys a mutual respect between individuals regardless of actions committed or differences in character. To me, it is a tribute to my journey towards compassion despite the pain I have endured, and reminds me of the struggles that have molded me into a determined and resilient individual.
Although I would have wished for a different upbringing, I am more independent because I served as the mother for my younger sisters, self-confident because I persevered despite the odds against me, and forever humbled by the infinite compassion I was shown in my darkest hours. I will never be able to forget the pain from my hellish experiences, but I have learned to end the suffering and strive to live a life of compassionate towards others.