Woman.

Open Letter To My Mother.

Arguments.

Yelling at me makes my heart race,
Not with love or excitement.
With fear.

I've had people my entire life yell at me and raise their hands against me because of tough love. Tough love has never really been love in my opinion. Love is not tough or hard. Love is soft and gentle and caressing. Love does not include wrapping a hand around my neck, it does not. Love is not calling me out my name, yelling how I won't amount to much more than you ever did. There is no tough love. It does not pain you more than it pains me. To have someone so close beat me down and put their foot on the back of my neck so I can't get up is not love. 

When you yell at me, excusing my anxiety or depression for being lazy and mentally stupid, that is not out of love. If it is out of love, then many men have loved me the way you do.
I raised myself.
I raised myself,
Knowing that no man should raise his voice at me, a human being who's voice gets no higher than a mouse. A man should not yell at me out of love, he should not expect me to be silent like you do.

There is no tough love, because being tough only excuses you of having to love me from a distance.