Bad Dream

I dreamed of my mother last night. We were back in the old smelly apartment we lived in when I was in middle school. It looked the same except it was sparse and didn't smell of animal excrement. I had to ask her for some money for something. When I did, she exploded, but not like she did in real life. Her eyes were wide and vacant as she said horrible, cruel things to me, instead of squinted with rage. She would say these things to me and shove me repeatedly, a little more violently than in reality, and then psych me out, acting as if she were going to hit me in the face. The first few times, I dodged away from her and she would laugh. In real life, I would speak up about her abuse, and she would smile and scoff, as if what I had just said was the dumbest, most unfounded thing that had ever come out of my mouth and I was so stupid for thinking it that it was somehow funny. Later in the dream, I had had enough of her shit and started making ground rules. (My friend and I watched Mystery Men last night and I suspect this part was influenced by the Blue Raja's treatment of his mother.) 1. Don't come into my room without my explicit permission. (In the dream and real life, my mom would come into my room whenever she felt like it, whether the door was locked or not.) 2. Don't touch me. 3--she cut me off and began to badger me again. She once again threw her fist toward my face, but I didn't dodge. I stared into her eyes and continued with my list. When I was finished, I went off to my room and blocked the door with a bookshelf. I crawled out the window and went to see dream friends and complain about her. When I came back through the window, she was there waiting for me, the bookshelf nowhere to be seen. I yelled at her about it and once again began to recite my rules when I woke up.
I would love to yell at my mother for hours on end and tell her just how shitty and worthless she made me feel until my early twenties, but I'm not sure this will ever happen. Her reaction to me saying these things when I was younger was to go completely on the offense, tell me I was being disrespectful and dumping on her, or bust up crying and shout at me for a while. I wish I had had the knowledge to look at her and say, "No, you're being disrespectful, you're dumping on me every damn day that I live with you." But of course, she had me so well-trained that even the thought of saying such things made me sick with guilt. If I tried, I'd quickly lose my footing and fall completely silent, my head swimming to the point that pulling out individual thoughts would be impossible. I think that now I have the skills to deal with her reactions, but a part of me is still terrified by her. I would never even attempt it while that fear still resides in me.
We both loved the movie American Beauty and saw it many times. One time, we were watching it in the living room. It was the scene where Ricky Fitts's horrible military father comes in to be an asshole. "You know I don't like locked doors in my house, boy." he says. Ricky opens the door for him and without missing a beat, replies, "I'm sorry, I must have locked it by accident." "That's what I used to say to my parents." my mom said to me, a strange smile on her face. I thought of the locks on my doors, and how they didn't work. The metal and wood were always broken off from being kicked in too many times. It would happen that my mom would be screaming at me, trying to drown me in guilt, and I would stand and go into my room without saying a word. I would lock the door behind me and always hear her footsteps approaching. She would try the knob, sometimes knock, sometimes not, but she would always burst her way in and scream at me some more, her anger risen from me walking away from her and trying to lock her out. I was never safe from her, not even in my own room.
There was one time where this happned again, but the lock on my door was already broken off. I leaned my entire weight against the door. In some weird way, I thought she knew I would be blocking it with my body. I heard her approach and try the knob. She knocked and when there was no answer, she threw her entire weight against the door. It knocked me painfully against the wall, smacking the back of my head and neck. My mind raced with adrenaline and pain endorphins, my eyes closed and my hands reached awkwardly for the back of my head. Through the haze, I heard her stiffly ask me if I was okay. My survival skills were so keen that I ignored the pain and shoved the haze away. "Yes." I said, and went and sat on my bed. The screaming continued like nothing had happened at all.
There's no part of me that loves my mother anymore, and why should there be? In my twenty-three years of life, she has never once shown me that she really loves me. Instead, she has made me feel like the lowest being on earth, guilty of everything even if I wasn't around for it. She shoved me and molested me and screamed at me and then laughed cruelly when I spoke up about it. She is the most pathetic individual I have ever come to know. I tried to keep my standards low for her sake, I tried so damn hard to keep loving her, but her mind is so broken that she couldn't recognize it. I tried to help her out of her misery, but she blew me off. I tried. And now I'm finished with it.