Write about a time during your childhood when you got in trouble for something you didn’t do

#synonymouslyhuman

I don’t know how to talk about my past. When you grow up being called a liar, there’s a constant fear that it’s true. You stop trusting your memories, your perspective. You wonder if maybe you forgot the details that would make them right and you (me) wrong.

I remember sitting in the piano room. A room full of furniture we never sat on, tables we didn’t use and a tea set we didn’t drink out of. I sat by the piano often, and when no one was home, I would play and sing. I was always loud when I could be because when others were home, I needed to be quiet. Mainly to avoid attention but more importantly to gauge the atmosphere that my parents dictated. Heavy footsteps meant avoiding dad at all costs. Cabinets slamming meant mom was about to scream. My name being called could mean just about anything.

I digress

I was in the piano room when her screaming began. She ran up to me, frantic, asking why I had thrown away one of the golden tea cups. I had no idea what she was talking about.

Even as I write this, I still question history…

She told me I threw it away and demanded to know why.
God, I was still young enough to be flooded with perplexity.
‘I liked the tea set‘, I thought to myself. I pretended to drink from them with my pinky finger up like the fancy ladies did. Why would I throw it away? I couldn’t even reach the garbage can lid yet.

“I didn’t do it!”
I said
Her eyes narrowed and her tone dropped a few octaves
“I saw you”

I hated these moments
There’s no point in arguing
When I was up against her narrative, I could never win
I didn’t know this then as much as I would realize it in the years to come, so I argued…

I swore to god, swore on my fish, swore on my life, that I hadn’t done it.
“Yes you did“
That was all the defense she needed to flop me back to square one of trying to beg and reason. This kind of thing was a game to her. She’d let it drag on for as long as I would play, and at 5 years old, I didn’t understand the rules yet. I truly believed if I said it enough times, she would realize I hadn’t thrown the cup away, broke the plate, touched her jewelry, or whatever the crime was. I hoped she’d realize she was wrong. I wanted her to stop dragging me into the car, suitcase packed, driving to a random road and telling me to get out. I was tired of convincing her that I was worth keeping but that there was the game she wanted to play. Those were the rules.

I came to realize the quickest way out of an accusation was to grovel, apologize, go on about how awful I was and how tired she must be of being my mother. She wanted tears, promises to be a better daughter, and my plan to show her that I was going to make it up to her.

_{(if you lived this, you survived a narcissist)}

Truth didn’t matter, reality was not the point. I lived in a world she created and had to decipher each time what she needed to be happy in it. At age 5, I cared to make her feel better. By 6th grade, it couldn’t matter less to me how she felt, so long as she left me alone. I still played my part, I just didn’t play it as long. Life was a robotically numb existence that never made sense.

Part of me feels a need to say that things got better and switch gears in a more positive direction. Things did get better (after I went no contact with my mother as an adult, but that’s another blog post) but for a moment I accept the discomfort of airing out a painful past.

I’m still sure I never threw the cup away but I can’t at all understand why this was the kind of mother she chose to be. Why these were the games she wanted to play. It hurts my brain now as much as it did then. I question my own reality daily, still struggling to know what does and doesn’t exist. I live weary of truth but yearn for a world that is full of definitive answers.

How complex it is to grow up
How painful it can be to live as daughter, son, child

Adulthood might shield us from the power a parent/guardian once had but the memories live as echo’s in the still quiet moments of today. Moments when someone, innocently, questioning your answer brings overwhelming guilt, shame, and frustration. When it’s easier to go along with what another person is saying because you’ve lost the energy to fight for your own opinion. When someone asks about your childhood and you can’t seem to remember much of it at all. That’s the complexity of pain. That’s a sign that were still waiting to feel safe. That our younger self is waiting to be given a voice, a chance, a choice.

I don’t know why to a lot of things, and I don’t know how to talk about most of it, but this I know…. we are worth healing from the wars we never enlisted in as children.