Well, Dr. Mooney, where do I start? Just remember you asked for this.
So, okay, I'm back in your office and I'm thinking about a million things I'm not saying. What am I not saying?
You know, sometimes I wonder if I'm misremembering what happened to me. Like, I'm exaggerating it or maybe even undercutting it. Maybe both. I don't trust my memory. It hides things on me. I think what's most likely is that I have pushed it way down and made it seem better than it actually was, because that's what brains do naturally. I can remember some things very well. I can feel them very deeply. I can remember terror, just sheer, unadulterated terror. I was going to die this time. I was sure of it. I can remember feeling utterly alone, although my little brother was often suffering with me. I have this image of me being very little. The room is very poorly lit. It looks almost yellow. I'm curled up on the floor near a corner but not in it. I'm crying, and I'm trying to stop because she's threatening me. If I don't stop crying, it's going to get worse.
How am I supposed to trust people when that's what I come from? Sorry, that's today not the past.
I don't remember what my aunt said to me the one day we were over her house. I remember my mom was very angry about something and hit me right in front of her - not just once. I want to say she beat me right in front of her little sister, and my aunt couldn't do anything. She waited until my mom stepped away. I don't know why she did - to cool down, because she felt ashamed? I really don't know. I remember my aunt putting her arm around me and though I don't remember exactly what she said, I know she was trying to get me to understand that I was a good person. I wish she were still alive.
The day we found out my aunt died is burned into my memory with the smell of burnt pizza. My mom had thrown a frozen pizza into the oven. The apartment wasn't lit well. Why does everything in my past have a slight yellow cast to it? Anyway, my mom was sewing like she usually did every hour she was at home. She blasted her Korean Christian music like she always did. The phone rang. My mom screamed, "WHAT?!" over and over again. She pounded her chest. Something was wrong. She was crying. My mom never cries. Oh, god, what was it? I asked her. She screamed that my aunt was dead, killed by a drunk driver. My brother came into the room and asked what was wrong. I screamed at him that my aunt was dead. He sat there, completely blank while my mom and I cried hysterically. I yelled at him for not having what I felt was an appropriate emotional reaction. I always took everything out on my little brother.
I have a lot, a shit ton, of guilt about my brother. I was just a child. I was an abused child. I don't feel like that excuses my behavior. It seems like, from my flawed memory, everything I got he got double because I'd turn it on him. Sure, how was I supposed to know better? But how does this not make me a horrible person? I know, I know. It's just what I feel. Ah, god, I can't do this. This is so fucking painful.
I miss my Ajashi so much. I miss his big hands, and how tiny my hands looked in his. I miss his warmth and love. I wonder if he would have loved Alex, because Alex is atheist and Ajashi was very Christian. I don't know how much he knew about how much I was being hurt. It's not like it happened every day. I wonder if he told me so much about a God who loved me for exactly who I was as a way of helping me with what I was going through. I remember him throwing me around in the above-ground pool in his backyard. I'd scream and laugh right before I hit the water. His house had an undefinable smell. It was comforting. It smelled like home away from home, mixed with moth balls and cocoa butter and books. I was never not happy in his house. Even when he was disciplining me, it was with a warmth I didn't feel with my mother. He never meant to be my dad, but he was.
I'm running out of steam. I don't want to do this. I don't. I hate this.
I ran away once. Well, kind of. My mom very clearly told me to get out. I think this was the last time she beat me. I think this was the time with the metal broomstick handle. God, those bruises were awful. I thought she was going to kill me. I thought, this is how I die. I thought, I deserved this. I stole from her. I crossed the highway. She was right to want to murder me. She told me to get out and I did. I wonder if part of her was trying to save me because she realized she'd taken it too far and she was going to kill me.
I had nowhere to go. My aunt was dead. I didn't have a cell phone back then, so I couldn't call Ajashi. Would he and Emo even take me after what I'd done? I didn't even leave the block. I hid in the laundry room. I don't know how long I was in there. Everything has a yellow light. I sat in a corner on the floor or maybe in a chair. It was basement level. Every sound of footsteps I heard terrified me. I thought she'd come to finish the job. I saw her peek through the railing down at me. She demanded I come home. What choice did I have? I don't think it even occurred to me to run. I don't think she beat me any more. I think she screamed and I cried and she threatened that if I didn't stop crying it was going to get worse for me.
You say that I should still be mad at my mom even though she's changed. I don't think you fully understand how much I cannot do that. If my mom kills herself because of this, I won't survive. I can't handle the guilt of her feeling guilt. I know it's absurd. I know.
Maybe that's part of why I feel so miserable at work. The shitty overhead lighting makes everything in my office look yellow. All of my worst memories look yellow.
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