u/personallyexist

Warning: doesn’t go in detail, but discussions of verbal/emotional abuse (there’s more types going on here but that’s the main one I’m bringing up).

I’m in an abusive relationship with my mom.

Whenever I try to remember to be mad at her it’s hard, like the manipulation thing is affecting it sure, but it feels like after a while I start forgetting what was said to me or how I was wronged, so I just don’t feel right staying angry, because I can’t fully remember or comprehend the amount of things she’s done to me. I’ve started writing a list of grievances and (like yesterday) recording the things she’s says about me (multiple people have said I need to keep some record of the worse things she’s said, like medical threats). My mom tends to do this when ever I start having intense symptoms (she doesn’t like things to not revolve around her and gets offended if I am sick, but I am not paying attention to her while I am sick). It’s either that or there are times where something happens during the fight that triggers the seizure symptoms.

I need advice on how to try and keep that angry energy so I don’t keep forgiving her.

Notes:

(There are times where I can remember glimpses of things she did to me, like I’ll have a visual hallucination flashback, then not take that out on her because it doesn’t seem right, she’ll say I’m holding it against her, essentially it’s not her fault that I remembered what she did so late).

Currently undiagnosed, but doc is looking into it; specifically partial awareness seizures symptoms. I’m still looking back on some strange things, I’m now realizing, might not have been normal if seizures are still on the table.

I only recognize having this happen to me twice:

1. I don’t know how to accurately explain this, but I forgot my best friend existed entirely. Like one day, I just forgot her, I don’t know when, and I don’t know how but it happened, so we weren’t friends during that point in time (but I didn’t know that because I forgot we had a relationship at all).

Then one day I had some recognition of her when I saw her (I knew she was friendly and nice to me,) so we became close friends again; she told me how I just stopped looking for her and how much that hurt her. I was friends with her throughout elementary school and then in the beginning of middle school, but at some point my brain just forgot. I fucking hated myself for this and on some level, I knew this was a cognitive issue because almost immediately (in my head) I admitted, “I did not remember you, I knew you were there in like some sense when we started talking, but I don’t remember you in any specific way until we met again, and that doesn’t make sense because you were a big part of my life.”

I’m still friends with her, but I never wanted to tell her because it sounded fucking nuts, and would’ve been really sad because I knew on some level something was wrong with my cognitive ability.

2. I forgot my Absent Father, he didn’t keep up contact with me because I was constantly getting sick and became a burden in a way, because I would need to go to the doctor, but the doctors couldn’t tell what was wrong with me (so it got him mad at me), the other big factor was he wanted to start a new family.

I just didn’t remember him for a good long while (or I didn’t like cognitively clock into the fact he was absent from my life because I didn’t remember I was missing anything; like I could understand everyone had a “dad” to be born, but I would not make the connection in my head to my actual father, because he as a person, he didn’t exist).

It was the same kind of feeling I had for my missing memories of my friend. It’s like he never crossed my mind, even though I have a lot of PTSD and abusive shit tied to him. It’s like he himself was missing in my memory (so when something bad happened, I would think, “Damn wonder what that’s connected to,” but I had some form of recognition, that it was connected to someone in my life).

One day he called me, and I didn’t even recognize his number at first, (like you need to understand he made me remember this number, it’s the only phone number I’ve ever been able to somewhat coherently remember. My brain really didn’t like specific bits of information so when I had back to back episodes, it would, delete the information and wouldn’t be able to recover it even after it ended. He hated me for this).

So I answered and almost fucking blew the fact that I didn’t remember because I was like, “Umm… AB name…” while thinking, ‘Who the fuck is AB, I’ve never heard anyone with that name outside of TV, and then I remembered.’

I’ve been mad ever since about the father one, because almost immediately all the fucking betrayal and abandonment issues hit me. Like my brain sprinkled in memories (never all at once), but now I can never like reach the level of peace I had when my brain did not remember him. Like he disturbed it and now my brain woke up to the fact there was a potential for a parental relationship.

Additional Notes:

• Both of these moments where I finally remembered happened in high school, at different moments in time.

• I don’t know what happened to trigger the amount of memory lost I had, but the memories that were locked away, coincided together; it was my life during elementary and some of middle school. When I do recall them, they remind me of this one bad episode where there’s bright light emanating from the back of the memory. This is one of the major reasons why I kind of suspect it’s connected to the symptoms.

• I also don’t think if I just saw their names I would’ve been able to remember them, like I needed more substance before I was even able to kinda recognize there was something missing.