Milestones

*Image description - lightly tanned woman's arm that has scars and a tattoo that reads 'I'm still here'.

Well, I did it. Yesterday was my birthday and I turned 44. Most people see 30, 40, or 50 as the big milestone birthdays but, for me, 44 is it.

I jokingly told my husband yesterday morning,"Okay, I made it. I can die now."  
No, I don't plan on dying soon but I have now officially outlived my mother. She was 43 when she committed suicide and that's been looming over me (with the help of several craptastic 'professionals' over the years) for a long time.

She's been gone for almost 28 years now and I still don't know if she was consciously trying to kill me. I knew she didn't want me and she came right out and said she would have wanted to abort me if she'd known she was carrying a girl but did she really want to see me die? The only time she ever showed concern for my depression and suicide attempts was when there was someone, usually a therapist or caseworker, whom she wanted to play the 'good mother' for. One thing is for sure, she loved the attention it got her. Poor Barbara With The Crazy Daughter. How haaaaard it was for her. I was 13 before someone had the balls to call her out on her part in it all. 

Her last words to me on the day she died was to call me a 'slut', repeatedly. She just found out that I had been raped the week before (or 'seduced that poor man', as the oh-so-fucking-predictable narrative goes) and had to come right over to see if she could break me the way she always used to be able to. But I wasn't nine years old anymore. Or twelve. I was 16 and had learned that when people enjoy hurting you the best defense was to not give them what they want. I kept my cool and calmly headed out the door for my therapy appointment. By the time I arrived he said she had already called him and told him what she had done. He wouldn't tell me what he said to her but he warned me that she was going to 'pull something dramatic' to try to win over everyone's sympathy because she knew she had gone too far.

Take a bottle of pills, drive straight to the hospital, and everyone will feel so sorry for her that they'll forget what a shit human being she is. That game probably would have worked on most of the family, too, except for a medical condition that caused the drug to hit her system faster than expected. There are some that believe that she killed herself because she was 'depressed' but I saw her that day. She was just an evil woman trying to hurt people and couldn't handle getting called out on it. I think she started out that day believing I would be the one to try and kill myself.

But she's gone and I'm still here. I made it.