Thread by @SharonJ03626335

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My first memory of my mother, Joyce, was when I was three years old. We were at the grocery store. I was walking in front of the shopping cart while pretending to put items in because I was being the mom in my fantasy. I heard my mother say, “Be careful Sharon. If you keep

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walking in front of the cart you’re going to get hurt.” I heard her but her warning didn’t resonate and I continued playing make believe. Soon after, the shopping cart hit me, hard. I looked down to see that both of my ankles were bleeding. I looked up at Joyce and she said,

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“I told you that would happen.” I could see in her eyes that she had done this intentionally. She had the look of righteous indignation, as though it served me right to be bleeding since I obviously hadn’t listened to her. I remember deciding there and then that my mother

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couldn’t be trusted. Every day I was with her, for the next fifty-four years, there wasn’t a time that she didn’t live up to that. I find it fascinating that she assumed my three year old brain would absorb everything from hearing something once. Joyce felt entitled to her

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anger as one might be when interacting with another adult who has repeated the behavior that displeased her, many times before. The fact that I was a small child seemed to escape her entirely. My second memory of Joyce is her helping me make my bed. The following day I made my

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bed on my own. Satisfied with my work I was leaving my room, a smile on my face, excited to show my mother what I had accomplished. Before I got out my bedroom door Joyce suddenly appeared, her face riddled with fury. I stopped in my tracks, my smile dropped away and

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I was instantly on guard. “Oh I see! You’ve known how to make your bed all along! You were just manipulating me into helping you!”  This was only my third memory of her, the second being taught how to make my bed. It seems absurd to imagine I was tricking her into doing

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something that I obviously knew how to do “all along”. All along? How long is “all along”? I was only three years old. But just like at the grocery store my mother seemed to think that I was born with an adult’s brain and the life experiences that one possesses in order to

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function as a proper grown up and I should already know all of this. So this means from my first memory I learned I could not trust my mother and needed to stay on guard 24/7. From my second memory I learned how to make my bed. And my third

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memory taught me DO NOT LOOK FOR APPROVAL FOR ANYTHING AND DO NOT SMILE IF YOU’RE HAPPY ABOUT YOUR WORK! Our survival instinct is a fast teacher.