Mothers: The Cycle of Abuse Can Be Broken

Initially, I'm going to share some history that created the fabric of physical, emotional, and verbal abuse in my own family, dating back to the early 1800's in order to set the scene by which one might be able recognize why and/or what happened to them; or [to finally] understand why people are sometimes pre-destined to become abusers.

My great grandparents on both sides of the family were born into slavery in the "Deep South," and my grandparents therefore were greatly subjected to that way of life as well.

As a result of slavery, my grandfather's family morphed into hard-core, mean-spirited haters of mankind, and my grandfather (my mother's father) was true to his indoctrination--cruel to the 10th power!

My grandmother's people (my mother's mother), however, were well-mannered humble people who used the hardships of slavery as fuel to make life better for them and their descendants. They went along to get along and therefore faired better than most people around them. But they never missed an opportunity to help as many people as they could without having to be asked.

My grandparents eventually inherited a large farm in Alabama that my great grandmother had previously inherited from the man who had enslaved her family--for which she was very grateful (working like a man along side her family). They worked and managed the more than 600-acre farm very successfully--having to fight and make concession to survive every step of the way.

By the time all of my grandparents' children were born, their farm was fully operational, and all of their kids were driven to work hard--some of the older children were not permitted to go to school.

My grandfather by now had become a hard-working obsessed farmer and "master abuser." On a daily basis, he would fuss, cuss, and beat my grandmother and their children sometimes from sun-up til sun-down.

My grandmother was a petite, extremely pretty, soft-spoken, hard-working, quiet, and humble woman. She was often described as "being like an angel;" and she was terrified of my grandfather. Whenever she tried to intervene when he was berating or beating their kids, he would beat her to a pulp and forbid her from showing them any level of love and affection. If he caught her being loving with her own children, she was beaten for that--which caused her to become extremely traumatized, withdrawn, and completely silent. (Even as a child, I would speak-up for her--fight, cuss, and seriously tried to hurt anybody who disrespected her. Special Note: For the last three years of my grandmother's life, I was the only person in the world she would talk to. I was honored. She was 96.5 years of age when she died.)

My mother and her siblings were victims of my grandfather's rage, just as he was a victim of his father's and the plantation owners' where he was born and raised.

Two-thirds of my grandparents' children grew into being "master abusers" by the time they reached adulthood. The other third had inherited my grandmother's "gentle gene" and grew up to be the opposite of their abusive siblings--my mother was not one of them.

My mother was next to the last child born and had siblings that were 25 to 30 years older than her. So, not only was she emotionally, physically, and verbally abused by her father, her older siblings abused her as well.

My Mother Became An Abuser By Default
I must start out by first telling you that my mother was a good provider. She was a hard-working, strong woman--and very, very pretty--just like her mother. I use to think she had special powers because she always seem to somehow know when things and people were not right. She was very intelligent--having won an academic/athletic scholarship to attend a major university in Alabama in the 1950's--that her father did not allow her to utililze/attend. She was very resourceful; very clean (a real germaphobic), a great cook, and at times, a joy to be around.

Because abuse was the norm to my mother, she married an abuser--my father.. And boy, oh boy! My father really abused her--emotionally, physically, and verbally--and I use to cuss him out until I was exhausted; or I'd take sissors and destroy some of his clothes, wet his cigarettes, and pour his whiskey out in front of his face. My mother stayed with him until one of her older sisters arrived at our home one day, beat the hell out of my father, packed us up, and moved us away into her home. (I was so proud of what my aunt did, she became my life-long hero.)

After we eventually settled in our own home again, my mother's abusive ways surfaced and manifested. I couldn't believe it. She began doing to us what my father (and her father) had done to her. Even though, at [my] very young age, I knew she was hurt, scared, lonely, and above all, struggling; she could not control herself. This was the very first time she had been absolutely on her own--with kids. Also, having been exposed to my grandfather, I learned first-hand how he was--and I positively hated him--so I knew he had an affect on her demeanor.

Upon noticing my mother was abusive, I started assessing my aunts and uncles, and was able to quickly identify and differentiate the kind non-abuser from the harsh abusers among them.

If my mother couldn't find her hair rollers, she'd beat us. If we talked too loud, she'd cuss us out and/or beat us. She would bark demands at us saying some of the most hurtful things to us, and call us the nastiest of names (yet she was always baffled as why I wasn't afraid to cuss in her or anybody else's presence when I was a little girl). If someone told her we misbehaved, she'd try to kill us. I was horrified and did not take too well to beatings, emotional and verbal abuse. So I decided I could love her out of that sort of behavior.

By the age of seven, to try and keep her from fussing, I started having dinner ready when she'd get home from work. I'd pamper her by scratching her scalp and rolling her hair every night. I'd massage her legs after dinner and wash her stockings [every night] before going to bed.  I'd hustle to earn money to help her out financially by cleaning house for my aunts and other women in my life; cooking, washing, often going to the store; hustling pop and juice bottles. I had a paper route. I worked in a restaurant serving hamburgers during lunch hour when I was in grammar school. I did everything I knew how to make money to ease her struggle. Nothing worked--at first--but I never stopped believing I could [help] change her learned behavior.

My mother was especially abusive to my sister who looked just like our father. She was so abusive to her that at times when she would tie my sister to a radiator and beat her, I would jump on my mother's back, covering her eyes with my little hands in an attempt to make her stop beating my sister and turn on me--I did this often, and often did I get the hell beat out of me; but she would have to work hard to beat me because I would run out the door through the street(s). She thought I was nuts--as did my sisters.

Eventually, she stopped roping my sister to the radiator to beat her because she got tired of chasing me for miles. Every time she caught me (the athetic part of her scholarship was becasue she was a tri-athlete--a Flo-Jo" of her time), she'd snatch me around and beat me in the streets all the way back home; and I'd be telling her every step of the way how wrong she was.--I was never afraid to do so. Some times, I use to question my own sanity for blurting out what I thought was right against her. But I was bold like my great grandmother and a few of my aunts. Wrong was wrong, and whenever I encountered it, I was on it--adults, dogs, policemen, whomever, whatever, or wherever. I am hard-wired to on-the-spot challenge "wrong."

I stayed focused on loving my mother into abandoning her abusive ways. And one day, when I was 9 years old, I asked her if I could talk to her. She agreed. I asked her to tell me why she was so mean to us? I told her that I love her and I wanted to know what could I do to make her life better and feel loved? I told her that I was not like her and grandfather--I was like grandmother--and I could not understand why she treat us so badly.

She kept her back to me as she made coffee. Then she poured a cup for both of us--I was surprised--and sat down at the kitchen table with me. First she just starred at me, and I sat there patiently waiting for her to stop starring at me because I felt her staring meant something. Then she smiled. and I smiled back at her. Then she cried for what seemed like an eternity, but it was actually 5 minutes or so before she was able to speak.

"You know," she started speaking in a slow and methodical manner, allowing her fat, wide tears free-flow down her face, into her mouth, and under her chin.. "No one has ever asked me how I felt, or what I wanted, or even tell that they love me. No one."

I shouted: "Nobody! Really, Mama? Not even grandmother?"

She looked me square in the eyes and whispered: "Not one soul. You are the first person--my baby--to tell me I am loved. You are the first person to ask me what I want and what can be done for me to make me feel loved..." She crumbled face first onto the table top. She mumbled through her sobs: "My daddy didn't allow my Mama to show us or tell us she loved us." We could see it in her eyes, but she wasn't allowed to speak it so she didn't. And my brothers were so rotten to the core, they told daddy on a couple occasions that they heard Mama talking baby-talk to some of us." (Well, this was the affirmation of my hatred for her brothers.)

I jumped up, ran around the table and embraced her as hard as I could and vowed that I'd always love her and take care of her.

After I left home, I continued to financially support her. I gave her everything she needed and desired. I showered her with gifts, dinner and lunch dates. I exposed her to cultural events. I talked to her every day and visited her no less than 3 to 4 times a week. In the winter, I'd get-up extra early to take her to work, and when the temperature was sub-zero, I leave work early to pick her up from work. I'd take her grocery shopping every two weeks without fail--and buy her groceries. I bought her any furnishing and appliances she dreamed of having. I paid her rent often and her weekly transportation cost so that she could start and have a savings account--which I added to bi-monthly. I tried to give her self-esteem and make her dreams come true. She was my "road-dog," i.e., I took her everywhere I went when I wasn't working--she'd just ask me what to wear and she'd be ready when I got there.

Throughout the course of all of my efforts, I began to witness a person transformed. My mother became very extroverted, very calm and loving. She became trusting and began making friends, and going places. She was no longer an angry person, and even though she was previously like that, I never heard her a say a bad thing about anyone--not ever. She had just been abusive to us--her children. I came to realize she had become the person she truly was--true to her real nature, and I was over-joyed and proud of her.

In 1985, while out scouting about shopping, my mother grabbed me by the hand and said to me: "I really, really love you; and I appreciate and thank you for teaching me how to love, and for showing me what it feels like to be loved, respected, and forgiven."

In 1996, immediately after one of my sister's passed away, I forced her to have knee surgery--for which she  took a 4-month medical leave-of-absence. One week before she was due to return to work, without her knowledge, I authored her retirement letter, forged her signature, and Fed-Ex'ed it to her job. Gracefully and intellectually, I slapped the s--- out of her supervisor and adversaries in her retirement letter and proudly announced her retirement. I had been wanting to quit her job for decades.

The Sunday night before her Monday morning return to work, shaking like a wind-whipped leaf, I showed her her retirement letter. She read it then looked up at me in disbelief. Then she went and got her glasses and read it again. When she raised her head again to look at me, she had tears in her eyes, and I knew I was in for it... She had not cussed in years--not one utterance of profanity. She asked: "You quit my m-----f----- job? I can't believe you quit my f...... job! You quit my f..... job?!

I nodded in the affirmative--I was scared to death.

She repeated: "Saishe, you quit my job? What am I going to do? I cannot afford to quit my job! Jesus! What have you done?

With God-speed I started laying out her financial future. I informed her that while she was recuperating, I applied for and had obtained her the "Widow's" Pension" for her through the Social Security Administration because she wasn't old enough for straight Social Security benefits, and she would be getting $1,191.00 monthly. My sister Lyn had left her a decent sum of money in an account with her [my mother's name] on it. And I had been investing money for her retirnement for more than 20 years. On top of that, she'd be getting a pension from her job, in addition to her Profit Sharing money--that she will rollover to a safe investment plan.

After hearing about her financial health, she starting smiling, and stated: "I'm retired! Good God! I don't have to go back to that place...!

By now, I had recovered from my out-break of raw fear and nervous twitching. I replied: "I've been wanting to quit your job for decades, and it was a pleasure to do.

My mother enjoyed her retirement fully from July, 1996 up until she fell ill in March, 2005. She went everywhere she wanted to go with her friends; bought anything she wanted when she wanted it; and played the lottery or the slot machines with wild abandon. She was so lucky at winning, she had a big, fat "gambling account" that she drew from to indulge in her favorite pass-times.

And one night as I laid in bed with her as she was dying from bone cancer, she turned her face close to mine and said: "Before I die, I want you to know something else."

I asked: "What's that?"

"You make life so much fun. We have laughed the past 30 to 40 years away. And I want you to know that with you, I know we've shared the greatest love affair of all. I just want you to know that. And if everybody else whose lives you've touched was honest, they'd tell you the same thing..."

At that moment, she confirmed that I had achieved my goal, and I relished that accomplishment, i.e., using love as a weapon against her abusive ways.

So, the moral of the story is this: I broke the cycle of abuse as I have never abused anyone in my entire life--including my children (the one I birthed from my wound and the ones that were born one from heart). I am a real example that it can be done--it's hard and very painful, but it can be done.

In addition, if you were abused or is an abuser, take time to try and understand what causes people to be abusers, and then forgive the abuser(s) and/or yourself for being an abuser--which is necessary to [finally] break the cycle of abuse. If not, the cycle of abuse will continue, as will the pain and suffering that results from it.

Stay strong.

Love, Saishe! Holla-back!