Mommy Issues: I Feel Like She Saw Me As Competition

I feel like she almost saw me as competition

What would you say is your best and worst memory of your mom?

Best: I remember before, when my dad was still around, she used to play video games with us. That was the only time I ever saw her being childlike and not really stressed out. I understand, to a certain degree, why my mom is the way she is. Because she’s had a hard life. She still has a hard life. She really battled depression a lot. Those are like my best memories when we were younger. She used to take me and Roger to the drive-in movie theaters with my dad.

But girl, my dad told me—and this just shows how children just don’t know stuff—My dad told me that he used to be getting high on crack in the bathroom while we were at the drive-in. Girl, I don’t remember that. I don’t remember! I just remember us being at the drive-in. She would pack a dinner for us, fry a whole bunch of chicken and we had our lawn chairs.

All of her boyfriends had either infidelity or serious substance abuse issues. My dad was physically abusive. One of the things I remember was her stabbing him with a fork. He still has the scar.

Why do you think she made those choices with men?

My grandma was so strict, they [Phylicia’s mom and her siblings] just decided to rebel. And with my dad, it was basically the idea of what people have with Whitney and Bobby. You know Whitney was already wild. My mom wasn’t really wild. She was pretty suburban and then my dad came along. And my dad is fun. And I think I kind of inherited that from her too. I date people just for thrills not really for any quality. She just wanted a break. Having two children and being with my overbearing grandmother. I remember when she used to kick me out of the house and I had to stay with granny, I hated it! My dad was her escape out of that house even if it wasn’t a good situation.

Worst memory: I would say like high school and all the fights we would get in and her calling the police. I feel like she was trying to sabotage me.

Why do you think that was?

I feel like she almost saw me as competition in a certain way. She was never ever able to leave. She went to Tennessee State for her freshman year. After two months, my grandmother literally called her and cried every single day. And she came back and she dropped out. And never went back. My mom was still applying to college up until a couple of years ago but she was just never able to stick to it. My great aunt was a professor at Tennessee State so she had moved to Nashville and everything but granny just kept on calling and she came back. And that’s when she started having children.

Even when she dropped me off at college, she wrote me a letter and left it on my desk, basically apologizing for how she treated me or whatever. But I feel like some stuff is unforgivable. Like my dad, he wasn’t there. But that was different. I’d rather be abandoned completely than to mistreat your own child. Even though he wasn’t there, he’s never mistreated me outwardly. At this point, it’s like a tolerance thing.

Did you relationship get better once you were in college, not living under the same roof?

Oh definitely! I can never live with her under the same roof with her again. Because it’s like everything she does reminds me of how she acted before. And I feel like if she’s repeated an action that she’s done before then she was never sorry for doing it the first time.

When you read the letter she wrote to you in college, was it healing for you?

I was like, ‘At least she wrote the note.’ But no. My dad wrote similar notes. My dad was in prison until high school graduation. Some of them I read. I never responded to them or anything. I feel like when people apologize, it’s more for themselves than the other person. It’s like I see that you’re apologizing but it’s not helping me with any of the issues that I have. I have a whole lot of post traumatic issues that I have to deal with because of that. So it’s like it’s nice that you’re taking time to work through your issues but I still have issues that I’m working through. And it’s not really forgivable. Ok, it happened. I appreciate this. It helps me tolerate you more but there’s some stuff that I’m never going to get over. And I’m not going to throw it in your face outwardly…like for instance my dad, we get along fine until he tries to tell me how my childhood was when he wasn’t there. I can tolerate you to a certain extent but you’re not going to tell me how I’m supposed to feel about certain things and you’re not going to tell me how something was when it wasn’t that way.

I feel like that, to a certain extent, has also affected my relationships with other people. I end up being way too forgiving of people and I tolerate them more than I should, when I should just end it based on treatment.