I guess I started having to deal with self-hate very early on. There is a very vivid memory of my mother telling me about this movie she had watched the previous night, about a father who had beaten his son's hand so much he had sent him to the hospital and in the end, they had to be amputated. I remember her so clearly in my head, that empathetic sadness in her expression, as she repeated the words the child had said to his dad in the recovery room: "papá, devuélveme mis manitos" (dad, give me back my ( little ) hands)
Even in that moment, 4 or 5 years old, I was conscious of two essential things about my mother: She condemned the judgement of the father, as she thought no child deserved to be punished in that way (with violence), and at the same time she fulfilled the role of the child's father and hit me repeatedly in a way I clearly did not deserve. That last part I know now, because the most terrible part is, as a child you also fail to realize your parents don't always make sense. And so in my idolization, I somehow thought I deserved to be beaten up because, unlike the child of the movie, I was nasty.
Now, at 23, as I think about all the things my mother told me that didn't make any sense; all the inconsistencies - when she talked to me about children's rights one second, then slamming my head against the wall the next, yelling slurs at me before I could even learn my ABC - all of those things, they make sense now. Because she lives in denial. Because all the times when she came to me with stories about other abused children what she was really saying was: "I am not like those parents, I am a good mother" and all the times in which she came into my room crying right after beating the crap out of me for something I hadn't even done, begging for forgiveness, all she was saying is: "Please comfort me, I am not always bad."
It's sickening. It fucks you up. Because before you even have the time to lick your wounds, you find yourself trapped again. Because forgiveness isn't a choice when you are as powerless as I was all those time. So you let your abuser hug you and cry on your shoulder and suck it up. And twenty years later you still hate yourself for it.
