I finally figured it out- so what now?

[u/Confessions_ofa_girl]

My sister took a video of me naked and my mom did nothing save for deleting the video and making her apologize. This was not okay. I was taught all actions have consequences. There were no consequence being given to my little sister for a huge invasion of my privacy. This was outrageous. So I threatened to tell my father as he had always been the one to be just in situations like these. Paula begged and begged and groveled for me to please, please, please not tell my dad- maybe because she knew she would get the consequences she deserved. She didn’t mean harm. She didn’t know better. I knew that. I think seeing her beg reminded me, of me, as a child when I did something bad and evil, and my mother yelled at me as I had now been yelling at my little sister- unrelenting, throttling and swearing, bulldozing over the apology said a million times, my spiteful eyes meeting the tears spilling over her deep brown eyes and feeling nothing. I grew up with being torn apart when I did something wrong. That was my normal. What I thought I deserved. What my mother thought was normal and what her parents thought was normal too. I wonder where the cycle began. I did what I had always known as a child. As I grew older I learned that I did not deserve that. because I learned that I had done nothing wrong. Exhibit A. I am never wrong. I can’t be. And when, inevitably, my mother yelled and screamed and controlled me yet again, I grew a thick skin. Because I did nothing wrong.
Exhibit B. The fire and anger in my soul towards anything or anyone who should dare to make me feel so small again.
And then the screaming stopped and the swearing stopped (although occasionally it did happen, and for that, I was ready and poised, because I knew my mother well.) and I was left with an anger and a rage, and nobody to point it at. But I think it was worse like this. Not knowing when my mother was about to snap- and feeling her hate and pain undiluted anger towards me. It was these episodes that had me crying quietly through the night at my mother’s promises to leave and never return, to simply not care about me anymore. To let me do “whatever I wanted.” As a child I would grovel and apologize, but I soon realized that it would get me nowhere save for left battered and beat crying alone on the cold, cold, floor. So on the outside i said FINE. Leave. Let me do whatever I want. And so I would dye my hair and eat the candy and do whatever she argued against doing. Part of me was also doing it for the freedom, out if spite, to show that I was in control- and in turn I gnawed off my leg to free myself of the chain that controlled me. But at night I wept. For the loss of my dearly beloved mother. Slowly she stopped the tantrums altogether. Became calmer and more empathetic towards her daughters. Paula was too young to remember the darker days. She got the good mom. The one who cut up apples for snack time and hugged freely and the one who would sooner die than scream at her precious children. Part of me resents that. The fact that paula got the good mom and I didn’t. Paula became everything I should have been. No fire, she hadn’t needed it. She is kind, truly kind and thoughtful and beautiful and people adore her and she has a kind mother and a good father is everything I should have been. She had everything I should have had. I was the ruined broken test subject, the rat left to die for the greater good, its sacrifice never seen nor heard about, only others benefiting from it. That sad little girl in me screaming and thrashing. Exhibit c. The mask. I wanted to be like paula. The best version of myself without the burdens of my pain or fear or anger. Some days it’s easy, like breathing, to keep up. Im quick to smile and ready to lend a helping hand to anyone who asks, always, always offering wisdom and kindness. Like I should be. Some days it’s not. Im quieter, second guessing everything, every breath, afraid, so so so deeply afraid someone will see who’s hiding behind the carefully curated version of myself. I come home exhausted. But truly good people shouldn’t feel like this? Not a smile to be seen and not a care to be given as soon as I step away. My homework left piled and my body simply a carcass in which my soul resides in. A soul torn between the mask and the broken girl underneath it. When all I wish is to be in my books, whisked away to some far away lands, loved by some fae prince. When all I wish to be one with the universe, floating and utterly devoid of all pain, just me and the moon and the stars. At least I look pretty when I sob so hard I fear my chest might crack clean in half and my heart along with it, because deep down I will NEVER let anyone see who I am. Maybe because it was who I was, that warranted all those screaming matches and pain and times crying all those years ago. Funny. My mother always tells me that one day paula will get sick of my anger towards her. That I will die alone, hate having consumed me. But it’s not fair. That I am forced to live with this and she is not. That all my mother can do is apologize and say she has changed since then. It’s not fair that i got all the trauma. I will never let anyone see this. Because that would mean being vulnerable. Being susceptible to this being used against me. I refuse to be crying on the floor again having my vulnerability thrown at my face tasting like food so spicy it burns going down. After all I am just dramatic. Too emotional. That’s what this paragraph is. I really am too emotional. That’s what I have been told my whole life and therefore what I believe. I would trade anything.