Rants of a Salty Slytherin

Inconsistent as always

so uh, hey there.

It's been a hot minute eh?

Two and a half years since I wrote here.

A lot has happened. I moved out from under my parents because we reached a breaking point. I FINALLY started seeing a therapist. Got hella bills now but it's cool. Oh, and I turned 21 so my journey to becoming an alcoholic has begun!

Let's talk.

So, I just reread the previous chapters after so long of forgetting they existed, and I gotta say, that's a lot of repressed anger. I'm still angry, but I'm sorting through it all now. With the help of my therapist of course. I've come to terms with the fact that my relationship with my mother has all been a facade. I've realized that she has gaslighted and controlled and manipulated me my entire life. Even my dad has fallen victim to her clever words. Back in the chapter "Mom wtf", I mentioned wearing a mask around my parents because they've always shit on my personal interests, and it made me come to the realization that my own mother doesn't actually know me at all. I could tell you her favorite movie, favorite musical, how she takes her coffee, her aesthetic, her passions. But I promise you, she could not tell you mine.

I should have known how actually terrible she was to me when even my friends would tell me, "Kat, that's not normal." I knew they could be strict, hovering, protective, and generally annoying, but I had blinded myself to the truth of their actions because of the simple fact that I believed how they chose to be parents was normal. That somehow this was their way of loving me and that frankly, I might actually be overreacting. 

I knew what manipulators sounded like, I knew what a controlling person looked like, I knew what the signs were. And still, I didn't see it in them.

Going against your parents is scary. Like really fucking scary. Especially when they know exactly how to push you into doing what they want. My mother has always used scare tactics on me and they've worked. Every. Single. Time. Until they didn't. 

She discovered my plan to leave, (I had no intention of telling her either, duh) and left a terrible note for me on my door about how I must have found a job and already had a separate phone plan picked out and car insurance in my name, telling me how disappointed she was and that I was absolutely under no circumstances to take any of my furniture with me, and that even the subject of me keeping my car was up for debate.  All a scare tactic to get me to talk to her.

I was gone the next morning.

The "breaking point" in question is when I finally plucked up the courage to ask to see a therapist and a doctor to begin seriously treating my depression and anxiety. My request was met with condescension. 

"Why can't you talk to us? What's a therapist going to tell you that I can't? Meds won't work for you. A therapist won't help you. Talk to me."

I FUCKING TRIED! FOR TWENTY GODDAMNED YEARS I HAVE TRIED TO TALK! BUT EACH AND EVERY FUCKING TIME THEY TOLD ME I WAS JUST BEING DRAMATIC, THAT I'M JUST SENSITIVE, THAT I'M OVERREACTING! 

NO. MORE.

So I did the only thing I could. I left. In the dead of night, I packed all my shit in my car and I fucking left. I refused to be gaslighted and manipulated for another goddamned second in that house. No fucking more.

True story: one time myself, my mother, and my dad all went to my aunt's house for dinner with her and her family. Everyone present included my aunt and uncle, their four kids (my cousins), my parents, and me. My mother had taken it upon herself to contribute to the conversation by making jokes at my expense. I asked her to stop because it was making me uncomfortable and hurting my feelings. She said to me, at the table, "Stop getting defensive, god, you're so sensitive." Obviously I didn't say a word the rest of the evening. Classic gaslighting and I was too much of a pussy to call her out for it, let alone identify it in my own mother. She later laid into me about how I embarrassed her at dinner by asking her to stop. I didn't say anything. I went to my room and cried. Not because she cut me down at the table, not because she lectured me at home, but because I couldn't help feeling so fucking tired of the same shit and being crushed every damn time.

This was never meant to be a "woe is me" title, it's just that the more I write about how my parents have hurt me over the years, the more pathetic my life sounds. The purpose of this whole thing was only to put out any random thought I had. It was never meant to lay out my pain and frustration. Yet here we are.