I recently discovered this sub and it has been so cathartic to read through all of these stories. A quick rundown of my situation: I'm a 28F and my mom (who I've named Artsy) has near complete control of my life. This is going to be really long because I believe its important for context.
Some background: We came to US when I was about 8 years old from a troubled African country. My entire family is Muslim but I have strong reasons to suspect Artsy doesn't actually believe in anything. I am her youngest child from a second marriage that was more or less forced upon her. I'm also the only one of her children she's actually raised.
Artsy has been JN with me my entire life. Overly controlling, emotionally abusive as well as borderline physically abusive, always projecting her own issues onto me, and constantly putting me down. Here's where thing get tricky because I'm scared I've been just as JN as her. I learned very early on that I couldn't fight her so I lied to her. Constantly. I've spent thousands of her money to maintain said lies. To the point where it carried over into all of my other relationships.
I'm socially isolated and financially dependent on her. Our city is full of FMs and I live in a large city not a small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say Artsy is a prominent member of our community. She's friends with many elected officials and even the fucking mayor. In the last few years her rise to prominence has caused her to escalate her behavior because everything I do reflects on her.
Here's a non-exhaustive list things she's done to me:
- Put me in a religious school that closed my senior year because it wasn't legitimate. I never got my high school diploma because of this. She still went around telling people I graduated.
- My entire life I was never allowed to close the door to my bedroom while sleeping. To this day she will wake up in the middle of the night to open my door.
- Punished me for masturbating as a teenager.
- Bring random boys/men home for me to meet in my late teen/early twenties. Forced me to sit and talk with them. Then faked a heart attack when I made it clear in no uncertain terms I will never get married or have children.
- Forced me to single-handedly manage her art career after she retired.
- Fought tooth and nail against me getting FGM corrective surgery.
- Show up at my workplace constantly/threaten to cause a scene if I don't give in to her demands. For context I work at an organization she used to work for.
- Threaten to call the police if I'm ever out later than a certain time. Every time.
- The one time as preteen I lashed out at her she tried to stab me with a butcher knife.
- Held "interventions" with my family to embarrass and shame me into falling into line.
- Any hobby I find even the tiniest amount of joy in she has forbidden due to religious reasons. Which is bullshit because I know for a fact she doesn't actually observe or practice Islam.
- Recently started commenting on my weight and monitoring my food intake.
- Forced me to breakup with friends she didn't approve of, then proceeded to spread rumors about those friends to our whole community.
I'm so tired. I'm suffering from severe depression. I'm suicidal. I'm unqualified for any job but the one I have now and she 100% has the power to get me fired from it. I was so sheltered and infantilized my whole life I don't know how to survive in the real world. I'm in the early stages of forming an escape plan. I've realized its either I get out or I end up in a body bag.
Submitted July 31, 2019 at 03:08AM by mypasswordisphil https://ift.tt/2OsrYXL
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