i am slightly triggered and i am not sure why. i can't deal with the thought of my mother's denial of what my father did to me. it's been well over a year now since i stopped going home. does she still have herself convinced that it's all a charade? that i am still just doing this to hurt her? that i am making it up so i have a reason not to go home?

i want more than anything to be able to go home.

i have faint memories of telling her once before. the summer i turned thirteen. the day i disappeared. she literally did not see me for weeks, but the abuse stopped. and when it started again, i became a person again. i am scared of becoming invisible.

it can't happen like that now, can it? there are other people who care so much more than she ever has. about me. about who i am, what i think, what i feel, what i want for me, for my life, for my future. my mother only ever seems to care about how my life will reflect on her and her parenting skills.

she had to have known then, she has to know now. there had to be visible evidence of it. she's not blind. she just didn't want to acknowledge it. or maybe she was blind when it came to that. denial isn't just a river in africa anymore.

i learned well her lessons of denial. i can pass as a normal reasonably happy human being without much trouble in public. quiet, yes, but quiet is acceptible. untrouble. intelligent. it doesn't matter how depressed and scared and sickened i am on the inside, as long as it doesn't show. as long as i am the shell of the perfect daughter, there is a chance. there is hope.

i am desperate for her to love me for who i am, but i know that will never happen.

"i feel stupid and contageous"
nirvana

snacks: turkey and cheese sandwich, chips, chocolate (i am craving cookies)
noise: star wars: the empire strikes back
paper: a room of one's own, virginia woolfe


terribly adorable pictures of the new baby (now with even more terribly adorable pix!)

my tori sTori

(and thanks to skorch for the cool background)