Because I Hate You by guest @RhiannonPaille

I’m so pleased to share my blog today with accomplished, award-winning author and all-around cool person, Rhiannon Paille. She opens up here about a difficult family relationship and how it has affected her throughout her life.

Because I Hate You

So small.

So invisible.

So wrong.

So inconsolable.

I huddled in my bed waiting for her to come in. My stomach was twisted in knots, my hands making fists around the comforter. I hoped she wouldn’t confront me. I hoped she would leave me alone. Her uneven gait pounded down the hallway and my breath hitched. My fingers cinched around the blanket as tears escaped my eyes. I didn’t know what I had done wrong, but the way she was acting, it must have been something. Maybe I forgot to hang my jacket up, maybe she tripped on toys I forgot to put away, maybe I left my toothbrush on the edge of the sink instead of putting it in its holder.

I didn’t know what I’d done wrong, but soon her voice was piercing the silence, and I was launching myself off the bed, ready to stand at attention like a soldier. My bedroom door was open and her face appeared. She was livid and I knew what was coming, only I was too small and too afraid to do anything about it.

I’ve never had a great relationship with my mother, but I can sum my mother up in two conversations.

Me: Why are you smoking?

Mom: Because I hate you and I want to die.

Me: Mom? Can we talk about boys?

Mom: Boys? I can’t talk about boys with you.

She got up, went down the hall to her bedroom and locked the door. She didn’t come out all afternoon.

I don’t know what I did to make my mother dislike me, but from my earliest memory the woman had a penchant for disciplining me. It went beyond normal mother/daughter disagreements, this was hatred and I was the target.

I suppose what made it worse was that it wasn’t just the way she was. My mother wasn’t an alcoholic or drug addict. She didn’t start smoking until I was sixteen. She cooked, cleaned, and worked part time. I had the pleasure of watching her carry on perfectly normal and healthy relationships with three neighbors, the neighbor’s son, my brother and my dad. She didn’t yell at them, she didn’t chase them around the house and eventually corner them for a beating, she didn’t raise her voice to them, or tell them what horrible people they were. She didn’t twist their arms, drag them by the hair, or make them sit in their rooms for two days straight.

It left me with a deep sense of ‘why me?’ If she could like everyone else, why couldn’t she like me?

When I told my mom I was writing songs she said, “You’ve only written one song, don’t think you’ll end up famous from it.”

When I said I was writing short stories she said, “We can’t afford ink and paper for your useless hobby.”

When I said I had a solo at a vocal jazz concert she said, “We have too many things to do to hear you sing.”

When I said I wanted to become a teacher she said, “University isn’t for you, you shouldn’t go.”

When I said I was psychic she said, “That’s bullshit you can’t be psychic.”

When I said I was opening a store she said, “You better not ask me to babysit.”

I didn’t break the cycle until I was an adult. I let the woman chop me down for years, making me hate myself, doubt myself, and hurt myself. I moved out at eighteen while working part time jobs, succumbing to bottomfeeding the way my mom predicted. I hit rock bottom at nineteen, finding literally nothing in me left to live for. I wasn’t well liked by anyone, I had a few boyfriends who had used me and thrown me away. I was not a pretty girl.

And then I met my husband. He saw all the suppressed ambition, all the subtle genius locked inside a tarnished and scarred little girl. He stopped me from doing something drastic like drowning in a bathtub of blood or putting a bullet through my skull. He made me go out, and slowly but surely he showed me a world my mother had hidden from me my whole life.

Granted, that world came with its own trials but I no longer had to live under the thumb of her crippling insults. I didn’t have to believe her bias view of the kind of person I was. I spent a long time redefining myself, in a period where my mother wanted nothing to do with me.

For the first few years of my marriage there were no presents for the kids, no grandparent visits, no family dinners. I tried to force a healthy relationship that was never going to happen. I admit, even though she abused me verbally, sometimes physically and always psychologically, I still wanted her to love me. One day we got into a fight about her doing me a favor and I finally understood it. She would never support anything I ever did.

I cut off from her. I stopped calling every time I felt that need. I told myself that if she wanted a relationship with me, if she wanted to repair all the hurt, she would have to admit she was wrong, and come apologize to me. For years it was always me apologizing to her, for things I didn’t know I had done wrong. Finally as an adult, I had to put my foot down and either have the toxic relationship, or live my life without my mom in it.

Three years went by, with minimal communication. Then one day she showed up on yahoo messenger of all places, and sent me an instant message asking how I was. I said I was fine. She asked if I wanted to bring the grandkids over for a visit sometime. I said, “Who are you and what have you done with my mother?” she said nothing. I said, “I’d love to come over!”

From there on she began working at repairing all the damage she had done. She began liking me, to the point where she even began loving me. Since then she has said a lot of things I’d been waiting a long time to hear.

“I’m proud of you.”

“I don’t know how you do what you do.”

“I’d never forget about my grandkids.”

“I wish I had half your initiative and ambition.”

While her complete one eighty still freaks me out, I’m glad she reached out. I’m happy with the way things are between us now.

AND… she’s become one of my best Beta readers.

Please leave any comments or questions for Rhiannon below.

Find her amazing books here:

YA Fantasy:

Surrender (The Ferryman + The Flame #1) on Amazon

Lantern & Poison (The Ferryman + The Flame #1.5) on Amazon

Justice (The Ferryman + The Flame #2) on Amazon

Blood & Gold (The Ferryman + The Flame #2.5) coming March 2013

YA Dystopian:

Death Sentence (Last City on Earth #1) on Amazon

East Side Boy (Last City on Earth #2) on Amazon

Carnival (Last City on Earth #3) on Amazon

Non Fiction:

Integrated Intuition: A Comprehensive Guide to Psychic Development on Amazon

Follow Rhiannon: Twitter, Facebook, Blog, Website

If you’d like to read Broken Pieces, click for a free sample on Amazon (no Kindle required – they have free apps for any smartphone, computer, or tablet). Thank you!

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