29 HUMILIATION
There are different degrees of public humiliation, and some are worse than others.
The humiliation from slipping on the ice or tripping over your own feet is commonplace and we have all experienced that moment of “I hope nobody saw that.”
The humiliation from walking around with toilet paper trailing from the bottom of your shoe.
The humiliation of a clingy sock being stuck to your butt.
The humiliation from realizing you don’t have enough cash to pay for your groceries, and your credit card is declined.
The humiliation of falling into a bucket of ferret poop and not being able to tie your jacket around your waist to cover your wet ass.
These are all instances of passive humiliation. The universe is simply working against you. Peel off the toilet paper and move on. But then there are examples of deliberate humiliation.
Mean kids at school who make mooing noises when you walk by.
Teenagers who grab onto the lockers, yelling “Earthquake!” as you move down the hallway.
Strangers who puff their cheeks out at you as you pull up next to them at a stop light.
People who have the nerve to take something out of your shopping cart and act like they are doing you a favour.
I suffered the greatest humiliations from my mother, who had no qualms about hollering to me from the other side of a store, “Dana, the bras are over here!” or “Dana, I found the pants you like in a size 18!” My mother isn’t oblivious to how embarrassing she can be; she deliberately discounts my feelings, just as she minimizes my accomplishments.
“Why the fuck can you not remember what it is I do?”
I said this after I’d already slammed the phone down, frustrated by yet another conversation with my mother. It’s been like this my whole life: she calls, asks me some perfunctory questions about my life, my work, my kids, my husband (but only when she is not mad at him and needs to gossip) and then she moves on to tell me about the wonderful lives her friends’ kids have. How successful they are. How they ask their mothers to travel with them.
Because they have mothers they actually like, I think.
Today, for the 30th time, she asked me how the insurance business is going. I paused, wondering for the 30th time if this was a classic symptom of age-related dementia, but I dismissed that. It was a classic symptom of my mother who can’t retain the fact that I haven’t liked purple onions since I could chew my own food, let alone the fact that I don’t work in the insurance business. I am a legal videographer, sent by lawyers working on accident insurance cases to record the medical appointments of plaintiffs. I record legal depositions, sometimes in very high-profile cases that people are talking about and that she has read about in the newspaper. It’s not complicated to remember what it is I do.
I’ve always been jealous of the parent-child relationships I see around me. Parents who are present and supportive. Parents who drop everything when a child is in need. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-30s, married to Jeff with two kids of my own, that I began to understand the nature of my parents.
My mother has never played a game of chess, but she managed to checkmate my life until I realized I didn’t have to play the game her way. Her moves are calculated, her words evasive, but she backs me into a corner every time. I have spent my life apologizing for things that needed no apology: I’m sorry I went out with my friends (when you wanted me home to make sure I recorded Dynasty on the VCR). I’m sorry I bought you the wrong dishes for Mother’s Day (after I took public transit to the store, switching busses twice, carrying an awkward and heavy box). I’m sorry I was mean to you (after you killed my high school social life). She has revised history to serve her needs, and has denied saying hateful, hurtful things to me, like what she said at the dance recital. That comment has stuck with me and every time she casually tosses a snide comment in my direction, my defenses go up. My mother stopped talking to me during my first pregnancy because I was moody and yelled at her. My husband can vouch for this one. We didn’t speak until I called to tell her I was in labour.
“Are you calling to tell me, or are you calling because you want me there?” I paused for a second, contemplating how to answer. No, I didn’t want her there, but this was her first grandchild and I felt a duty to her.
She came to the hospital, and while I was floating in epidural bliss, she proceeded to explain to Jeff how much I owed her for what she gave up for me. She denied this conversation later, just as she changed the fact that she stopped speaking to me, to shift the blame my way. She has no qualms about leaving spiteful messages on voicemail, and I have played some of these for my husband to prove to him that I am not making it up.
Hi Dana. I just wanted to let you know that I no longer have a daughter. Have a nice life.
Hi Dana, I hope you are happy with your new family, since you find so much wrong with the one you already have.
Hello. In case you were curious, I got rid of all the things you left in my house. Goodbye.
Her tone is always a combination of condescending and sarcastic. It’s a tone I have been listening to my whole life. It signals that my mother is trying to control the situation and punish me for something I may or may not have done. There is nothing nurturing or sensitive about her. For years, I craved the kind of loving relationship I saw my friends had with their mothers. I did everything I could to please her, to make her love me and want to spend time with me. I absorbed her emotional problems as my own, trying to heal them and show her I was worthy of her love. I let her control everything in my life, including my relationship with my father.
I’m done now. I’ve grown up. I’ve put my big-girl panties on. She no longer gets to decide where the conversation goes and when the conversation ends. My life happens in my voice now.