So. When i was about 5 years old (i think, the timeline of my memories of the younger years are pretty loosey-goosey) i remember sitting at the dinner table with one of my aunts making bead jewelry. We were pretty deep into it, had a couple of pieces already, and i started making a long, deep bluish lookin necklace. I guess i must have looked really srrious cuz my aunt asked who i was making it for.

I told her i was making it for mommy, and shit hit the fan.

(Now, my parents had been divorced since i was 3, and my fathers family wasnt exactly singing my moms praises as me and my brother grew up. They despise her to this day, and me showing any interest in her or anything to do with my maternal family ended up with long lectures and yelling that i was their daughter, not my mothers.)

So, my aunt tears the half finished necklace out of my hands, throwing it full force across the kitchen into the small laundry room, where it shatters on impact against the wall. She starts yelling at me, about how i should be making her jewellry and that my mother didnt deserve something made at my fathers house, etc. Etc. The whole time i was trying to pick up the scattered beads.

This single event helped me learn that praising anything to do with my mom was 'bad' and helped the brainwashing till i hit middle and high school. But looking back, i know now that i wasnt in the wrong for trying to do something nice for my mom, even if i was convinced back then that i was. Unlearning the teached hatred towards my mother, the backwards veiws of morality and the shitty coping mechanism i used to deal with the situation has been a journey, but now at least im learning that their world veiw isnt the end all be all. But it still hurts, thinking about how much i just wanted to make something nice and having that slapped out of my hands because they hated someone i loved. My childhood was filled wjth more shit like this, but this one event is engraved in my mind. Im working to go LC as soon as i get on my feet, and that day cant come soon enough.