#my mom's mad at me because i refuse to play house with her volatile and shady af boyfriend

[hotmess-exe]

if one more person tries me today i. swear

[old-reminiscence]

when my mom would debate leaving us in the car, her reasoning was always so that no one would call the police

i remember being all alone in the backyard sitting in a kids play house for an underminded amount of time playing with snails and bugs

being made to stay completely alone in my room for hours as punishment

deep memories of being alone and scared in my crib, crying and holding my stuffed animals

the screaming and arguing and the hiding

fucking making up scenarios where i was drugged and sexually assaulted over and over again

the way i flinch at every sudden movement near my head

strong feelings that i wasnt allowed to eat they were mad at me

that one time i struggled to make dinner because my parents refused to

the time i tried running away and my mom laughed at me and asked me where id go and what id do

the times theyd make me touch people i didnt know and look them in the eyes

when my dad first started teaching me how to swim i jumped in because he was getting frustrated with me

my dad looking me dead in the eyes and telling me if he told me anything more hed have to kill me

when mom would be sick and dad would be volatile and i was hungry

when dad wouldnt come home until really late

when theyd grab me and give me a stern talking to if i was being too rowdy or unclassy

like that one time i was rubning around the outside of a reasturant with my brother and having a really fun time

i got in trouble for so many mistakes like spills or knocking something over

"im sorry i didnt mean to im sorry"

being screamed at till i was sobbing and then being called out on it

"you look at me when im talking to you"

"dont roll your eyes at me"

"go to your room and dont come out"

the time i accidentally popped a lizards tail off chasing it and i told my mom excitedly about how it still moved and she said, "i thought you were the animal lover, shame on you" and treated me like i was a horrible person

asking about evolution and having my faith be questioned at dinner

being told i was going to go to hell if i was a bad kid

"pray every night"

"god loves you"

getting sick and my parents always got upset with me, blaming me for it

switching between comforting me from nightmares and leaving me all alone

that one time i genuinely thought my heart was breaking because i was so sad when my parents got dissapointed in me

being told about suicide when i was like 8

being taught how to kill someone when i was 11

watching a rape scene with my dad when i was 12

being taught tactics of how to analyze and scan people and areas like a soldier

"your mom loved you so much she gave you up so you could have a better life"

"she named you"

"we love you"

"we'd never hurt you"

"we're not those kidn of peopel"

[sitiaisyahwrites]

Leaving

“Kakak, pack your bags. We’re leaving.”

My eyes widened at my mom’s commands. The words that I had wanted her to utter for what seemed like forever shocked me to the bone. My mom was actually leaving my dad? I mean, I’ve fantasized about this for so long, but it’s always remained as fantasy in my mind. Now, it was starting to become frighteningly real.

To say that my parents’ marriage rocky was an understatement.

One of my earliest memories was of them arguing about something when I was in pre-school, still an only at that point. I remember my mom crying, saying that I didn’t need to go to pre-school that day and my dad pulling on my arm, sending me to school anyway. It must have been quite traumatic for the younger me because the next thing I remember, I was breaking down and crying at school, telling my preschool teachers what I saw at home. Well, as coherently as I could as a 3-year-old anyway.

Ever since I could remember, things always seemed so volatile at home. My dad was at risk of lying into a rage at any time, so the rest of us tried to be cautious but it was pretty inevitable. Whenever my parents argued, my mom would protest by ignoring him for 3 days, sleeping in the kid’s room, refuse to cook or do any chores, and generally just avoid him in our small 500 square foot house. Then, he’d cave in and apologize to her and the cycle would repeat, over and over again. 

It was in my home that I learned about the realities of neutrality and that of playing both sides. You couldn’t risk picking only one side or you’ll risk alienating the other. I tried my best to keep the peace by pretending on both of my parents’ side, listening to them rant about the other during one of their tirades and agreeing with both of them to their faces. As an 8-year-old, I didn’t know that what they were putting me through was wrong, that a child shouldn’t be subjected to having to choose between their parents or have to learn to lie and listen at such a young age. I just wanted the fighting to stop.

The fights used to be about their personal arguments and issues. We were never really in the line of fire because we were too young to understand, Sarah and me. But then I started to get dragged into the fray of things.

One day, when I was 10 years old, my dad made to decision to personally groom me and taught me everything he knew. He taught me about computers and domain hosting, how to do PowerPoint animation, how to manage a website etc. My dad told me he was teaching me all this because it would be my responsibility to handle all this one day, once he’s old and starts to become forgetful. I was still a kid at that point and now that I’m offered a way to please my dad, I listened to his instructions eagerly and learned as much as I could.

Fast forward 12 years later and I am now 22 years old, a university student pursuing my Bachelor’s degree and my relationship for my dad has hit an all-time low. Things were pretty much the same as it was back then, only this time we were all older and made more mistakes, which gives my dad more ammunition to use against us during his temperamental rages. And this time, I was directly in the line of fire when it came to arguments.

I was pretty much his unpaid tech intern, the person he considered responsibilities for handling all kinds of technology and website-related matters ever since I started learning about them years ago. My knowledge was still pretty unofficial and was rudimentary, especially considering I didn’t major in IT in college, but he expected me to have all the answers and to solve all his problems no matter the situation. I would get yelled at over the phone when I was in university for not solving a problem or finishing his assigned work fast enough, despite my heavy course workload. At home, he’d undermine me constantly saying that my college education was irrelevant, threatened to not pay my school fees even though it was my mother who paid them as well as saying that he would expose my ‘unsavoury’ behaviour to everyone I knew to shame me.

It was later that I found out that I had now become a big topic in their arguments, and how my dad seemed to blame my mom for me ignoring him and not following his every order. How every time I messed up or forgot to do something, my mom would also be inevitably dragged into the argument and he’d then fan the flames of his own anger further by bringing up every single mistake my made has made since before they were married.

It was in my home that I learned that everything you say can always be used against you. Every single accomplishment I’ve told him about, every little thing school-related that I talked about with my family would always be used against me during one of his tirades against the rest of my family. He would belittle any accomplishment that we felt proud of, taking the credit for himself as he claimed that he was the one who taught us and taunts us about how pathetic we were for being satisfied with our small-time victories and achievements. It took me a while to learn my lesson, but eventually, I stopped telling them about the comings and goings of my life. I couldn’t risk telling my mom either in case she told my dad anything during one of his good days so I just… stopped.

Home became a living hell for all of us as it was constantly filled with tension. It felt like there was a ticking time bomb, just waiting to explode at any time. ‘What would get mad about next?’ was a game that I constantly played in my head. For some reason, he’s starting to become more and more dissatisfied with everything in life it seemed, and he was taking his anger out on us constantly. He bitterly complained about how he made us his heartsick for not listening to him, dredging up our all old faults once again that dated back from when we were primary school age even and even undermining his wife and her family to his children.

Despite all his faults, he was always a pious man and constantly preached about the word of god. He never missed a prayer and always did a lot of sunat prayers. He reads the Quran constantly, and always encourages us to do prayer together. He’s never cheated on my mom, never did drugs, doesn’t even smoke and he never physically beat us.

People always preached that by maintaining your relationship with God, that by being religious, you would also find it easier to preserve and maintain your relationship with other humans.

So why did it feel like his relationship with us for fraying every single day as time goes by?

The day it all came to ahead initially started great. It was Father’s Day and my mom had made my sister buy a cake earlier that morning because our cousins and auntie and uncle were coming to visit. I remember thinking that it was going a good day because we haven’t seen one another in so long, and it would be a real treat to chat with one another again.

Both families celebrated the occasion together once they reached our house, taking pictures and eating the spread that my mom stayed up all night to make. Sarah’s friends also made an unexpected visit that day, so they joined in the celebration as well. Because they had come all the way from Perlis to Cyberjaya to visit her, she decided to go out to spend the evening with them.

It was after we said our farewells to our cousins that things really started to fall apart.

I was in my room taking care of our baby sister Khadeeja, but I could already hear his angry mutterings and complaints starting, signalling the start of another of his infamous temper tantrums.

He was complaining about how we were always doing things he didn’t tell us to do, and we somehow only always tried to please others. He even called to yell at Sarah about leaving the house, which resulted in her having to come home early instead of going out with her friends even though we’ve all been cooped up in the house for weeks.

Nervous, I went upstairs to ask my mom what was going on when I saw her crying angrily in her office. It was only later that I knew that he had gotten mad at her for posting a picture of their celebration on the family’s Whatsapp group. That he began accusing her of only trying to please others, but that she was showing off.

I could see that my mom’s patience and resolution starting to break. He had forgotten all about Mother’s Day and also barely acknowledged her birthday months prior, and despite all that, she still took the time out of her busy day to prepare a celebration for him. But of course, he could never appreciate his family’s efforts. Nothing we do was ever enough.

And then all hell broke loose.

The next thing I knew, they were arguing heatedly and then mom went downstairs to my room and told my sister and me to pack up all our things. It all happened so fast that it feels like a blur. Sarah and I began to half-heartedly pack up or things into suitcases, not thinking that she was seriously going through with this. But just in case, we tried our best to keep things light and only carried our most prized possessions and other necessary items like clothing and certificates.

“Once the kids and I leave this house, we’re never coming back.” My mom had declared before picking up the rest of her things and walking out the door.

I remember the betrayed expression on his face when we walked out of the house with our suitcases and my baby sister in hand. I remember him holding onto my mother’s arm, indignantly asking her why she had to go.

But I also remember him saying that we didn’t need to leave, that he’d go back to his hometown to visit his sick parents of he was the source of stress in his house in an emotional voice. And then suddenly all my sympathy faded just like that. He had never bothered about his parents or mentioned wanting to go back before this, had always considered them an afterthought but now out of the blue hr brings them up? It was at that moment that I realized that he was manipulating us. I should know. I learnt from the best, after all.

I could see my mom wavering and my usually brash sister hesitating at his words. I was in tears at this point, but I also knew that bridges were already burned and that nothing would ever be the same after that. He’d try to weasel his way back somehow; I was sure of that. I also knew that he wouldn’t leave without a fight and I really didn’t want to hear his constant bitching as he packed up his stuff, if he even packed up at all.

“This proves that you don’t get it. This situation isn’t something that can be fixed just by you leaving for a few days!”

I’m pretty sure those words weren’t verbatim as I was still sobbing when I choked them out. But it was clear enough that it got the point across.

“Then why are you leaving then?” He countered.

What happened next was a mixture of tears, incoherent words as I tried to tell him exactly what I thought of him. I remember being angry at myself for not being to form words coherently, for not being able to think straight and for not being able to tell him exactly how much he’d hurt us all this time.

Eventually, he gave up and we quickly made our way to the car park and got the hell out of the building. Mom didn’t want to go to grandma’s house as she originally said and risk my father finding where we were, so we spent a week in Melaka moving from one Airbnb to another.

It’s been weeks since then, and my mom has been teetering on the edge of whether to go through the divorce or not. My sister, on the other hand, was rejoicing her newfound freedom from our dad’s oppression and was encouraging their separation. We’ve avoided all communication with my dad and haven’t talked to him since.

However, things aren’t so simple on my end. I’ll admit that since then, I’ve started to come to terms with his actions and behaviour, and how wrong he actually was to treat us that way. I’ve come to terms that what he was doing was irrational, that it was born out of a place of deep-seated insecurity that then encouraged this egotistical personality to form which seemed absolved him of consequence in his own home.

Unfortunately, the feelings that I have towards my dad isn’t so easily resolved. I‘ve often heard from my friends and family about how similar the two of us are both in appearance and personality ever since I was a kid. How my attitude and disposition was exactly like his. I also knew that I was secretly hoping that my mom wouldn’t go through with an official divorce and would agree to separation instead, because despite the emotional and verbal abuse, I still loved him and I can’t help but remembering his ‘good’ days and the rare moments where he was actually a good dad to us.

It left me wondering if I could ever truly free myself from his influence, if cutting him out of my life would also be like cutting out a part of my own self.