Last Friday, my parents wanted me to meet them in Bennington for lunch. I had a rough time mentally preparing in the days leading up. I don’t see or hear from them much. They wanted to know how business is going. It’s not going well. My mom particularly latched on to the idea of hiring me for some painting at their house. I went over there two days this week to take down and paint shutters. The conversations I had with my mom while she helped me organize and label the shutters showed me that she has an interest in learning what my life has been like since I started distancing myself from family. Some of the unsurprising and gut-punch things she said: “Your siblings don’t know where they stand with you. They say they miss their sister, Lydia. They blame the distance on your new identity. They just want to know you care.” I explained that I called them each individually to tell them my new name just months before my surgery, which only one of them took any part in (which was muddy and questionable support that ended badly). No phone calls or texts to show support, ask how it went, how it’s going, no engagement with my fundraiser. Silence. I tried to keep up with birthdays and other significant dates and even went to Christmas last year. I helped my sister with her kids at least once a week for the first year and a half that I lived in Troy and that ended after she (unbeknownst to me) built up resentment that she had to feed me while I was there helping, and accused me of only being there to use her laundry. Two things she freely offered on day one of our routine. I have been trying. It’s fair to say we each fail at communicating well because we didn’t have good examples of healthy communication growing up. I told her (my mom) that my sister’s in-laws dropped off food after my surgery. I looked her in the eye and told her she was less than an hour away the whole time and I didn’t hear from her at all. She surprisingly didn’t get upset. She said, “I thought the surgery was a bad idea.”
I think I needed to do some sort of emotional release in order to not collapse under the weight of her words this week. After lunch with them last week, I had planned to visit a friend an hour from Troy to debrief and blow off steam, but I didn’t even make it. I cried the whole drive from Bennington. I experienced that dreadful voice in my head telling me I can’t stay here like this much longer. But just as I was hearing the part that says “you have no one,” I was driving past a different friend’s house. I turned around, parked, went inside a total crying mess, shaking, pacing, she told me to sit and said I can talk when I’m ready.
“Do you feel this way often?” “No, only after seeing family.”
Somehow, I didn’t collapse as my mom told me a couple days ago that friends of the family lost their child to suicide. She said, “I think this happened because schools are pressuring kids to change their pronouns. She went from she/her to they/them and then tied a ribbon around her neck.” She then went on to say that she believes I have been pressured. I asked who she thinks is pressuring me to be trans. She said confidently, “Your therapist.” I laughed and said that’s not what a therapist’s job is. It’s to listen. I told my therapist who I am and she listened. “I told you who I was when I was 3, 4, and 5 years old, I got teased and punished so I decided to play the part of a girl from then on.” She looked at her feet and remembered out loud, wrestling me to wear dresses on holidays and for church. I could see her thinking about it. She said she wants to do better and she wants me in her life, so she will try to get my name and pronouns right. She said she wants to talk to my siblings and “fix this.” Yet still, she told me “scientifically, you’re my daughter.” I said, “Since when do you give a shit about science?” My mom has always been a big lover of bibilical “proof” against science, evolution, and all things “satanic.” She lived formative years of her life in the satanic panic era.
I’ve spent a lot of energy pouring myself into relationships only to be here, still struggling to ask for help because it always seems to end up being turned into a currency and used to guilt trip me later. That what I give is not enough and what I ask for is too much. This is a time in my life where I have to truly learn to release the things I am not responsible for and relearn how to trust people I’m building relationships with. To know when to lean in and when to step back.
My mom wants me to show more empathy for my siblings because they have kids and raising kids is hard. I told her I cannot pour from an empty cup.
—edit—
I just wanna say that I can tangibly see how I’ve changed since I started making room in my life to be genuine and gentle with myself. Years ago, all I wanted was for my siblings to protect me from ever having to hear the shit my mom said to me two days ago. I wouldn’t have coped very well before, but I’m now able to hear it and not go into a very dark place. Yes I still have feelings about it, and feeling those feelings got me here. It’s still hard. But I know that I’m finding more ground. For what it’s worth, I know that my perspective and recall will never match someone else’s who watched my life for 30+ years through their own eyes and is still surprised at who I am today.
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