Why do some people get away with it?

As you may know, my mother died in May 2020. With her death, I am released from much of my silence about her and my early life. I have a lot to say as much as I have nothing to say. Over the next year or so, I will write what I can as a way of releasing the demon that I've held silently inside.

Why do some people get away with it?

My mother hated me.

From the moment I was born, she set her will against me. She tried to kill me when I was six months old and so many times afterwards.

I never knew why she hated me so much. She just did.

Her cruelty knew no bounds. Everyone who knew her knew that I was her "problem" child.

We'd be standing somewhere -- church, restaurant, anywhere really. Just standing there. She would haul off and slap me across the face.

I hadn't said anything.

I hadn't done anything.

But I knew better than to react.

The adults around would glance at her and then turn their beady eyes on me.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing," I would say if I had the chance to speak.

"Well, you must have done something," they would say.

I was born.

That's what I did. For my sin, I was beaten, berated, and abused.

My mother was insane.

She reacted to an unseen world -- and got away with it every single time.

The last time I saw her, she had insisted on making dinner for me for my 30th birthday.

She burned the dinner.

Knowing better, my siblings and I ate this "special birthday meal" down.

Then she wanted to play "Spin the Tale on the Donkey" with me going first. Because I'm good at spacial relationships, I easily placed the tale.

She began beating me -- first on the butt and then all over. This was a real beating. My body was bruised for nearly a week afterwards.

In her unseen world, I had done something. Cheated? Said something mean about her? In her mind, she was acting in response to something real and tangible.

She ran out of the room and went to her bedroom.

I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I needed to apologize to mom for "being mean to her."

When I tried to say that I'd done nothing, I was told just to do it.

So, I apologized.

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