When you’re drowning, you don’t say, ‘I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come help me,’ you just scream.
-John Lennon
Growing up with my mother was like almost drowning every day of my life, a chronic repetition of being swept away by the current, a vicious fight against the rip tide, followed by a slow, languid dance underwater, and a decision ultimately made my biological reflexes. Drowning is a terrible way to die. First, you’re conscious. You realize what’s happening and you try to fight it, sending yourself into a panic, which causes you to hyperventilate, consuming more and more oxygen. Once submerged underwater, the body begins to accumulate carbon dioxide, the gas that stimulates the need to breathe. Eventually, your brain takes over and says “I need air,” not knowing that the air cocktail outside has been replaced by water and involuntarily draws in a breathe, but when the water reaches the airway, the body sends another reflex to cough, which begins a vicious cycle of water in, water out, followed by more water in. Your throat contracts, trying to seal off the organs, but your stomach fills with water and your body gives in to sleep. You fall unconscious while the remaining process happens on autopilot while you leave your body.
But every day I fought it, this urge to submerge. Every day I fight this feeling in some way, shape or form. It is a learned behavior after so many years as a victim to my mother’s wrath. She is my riptide, the thing that sucks me under when I least expect it; the feelings of rejection, guilt, sadness, emptiness. The feelings that both ignite and extinguish the fire inside me.
I often find myself on resting spots, tired, damaged, but safe and ready to be rescued. I have flirted with the fine line between the two sides that I can’t remember a time when the choice for life was a conscious one.For most people, living is a simple reflexive function without thought or question. But for me, every day is not so much a choice, but a battle. While most float in an inner tube down a lazy river, I am white water rafting uphill in the middle of a thunderstorm to get somewhere as simple as the grocery store. Not to minimize anyone else’s battles, because we are all fighting noble ones every day.
I am exhausted and I just want to get out of the water, but despite the fact that my father once taught me never to turn my back on the ocean, I still do it, and I find myself overtaken by the waves.
Wow. Just Wow. This is just an amazingly beautiful and raw post. I love how you describe your mom as your riptide. Although not my mother (she’s actually one of my best friends) I have others who are personal riptides for me. Thank you for your honesty and sharing this. It’s the kind of writing I always aspire to.
This is a beautiful and terrifying post.
Thank you for reading.
Have you ever read “the narcissistic mother”? I too have a mother that was a source of pain rather than comfort and joy. Thankfully she is rarely active in my life, only popping up in my commen section once in a while. My email has a filter that sends her communication to my husband for deletion.
Your description is perfect. And I’m sorry.
I have not, but definitely adding it to my reading list. Thank you so much for reading, and I’m sorry that your mother has also been a source of pain.
As much as I wish the right words existed, there’s nothing I can say that makes up for life with your mom — except that you’re gathering more family by the day who want nothing for you more than fresh air in your lungs and your feet on solid ground. I’m one of them. I could name many, many more.
One thing I was just thinking is that one of your gifts in life — singing — relies on a lot of breath control that most people don’t have. You can hold notes and get through verses without pausing in a way that probably 99% of the population can’t do. And all that control results in something incredibly beautiful that is unique to you — yes, someone taught you how to do certain aspects of it, but you were born with the talent and capacity, or their teaching would have been a moot point.
So while you have had to fight for air in one part of your life, you have learned to dominate it to beautiful effect elsewhere. I don’t know how the metaphor works, exactly. But I kinda love it.
Many of parental issues I hear about are between relationships with dads, but I share with you a difficult relationship with my mother. While my issues with her are more a lazy river rather than white water rapids, she is the source of much of my life’s pain, and she has no idea. I’m sorry for your continuous struggles, and that there don’t seem to be any calm moments in your raging ocean. Try to stay afloat. You’re strong and beautiful soul.