The Hidden Note

Summary

A 13-year-old, facing verbal and psychological abuse from their mother, writes a note to protect themselves, which is later discovered by the mother who claims it was a joke.

Abstract

The author recounts a period of intense emotional abuse from their mother during their early teenage years, which escalates to a death threat during an argument. Feeling genuine fear and without a reliable support system due to their brother's heroin relapse, the author pens a note attributing blame to their mother should any harm come to them, only to have the mother find it, dismiss it as a joke, and demand an apology. The incident underscores the child's vulnerability and the breach of privacy when the mother reads their personal writings, reflecting the broader issue of psychological abuse within the family dynamic.

Opinions

The author believes their mother's threats were exacerbated by menopause but lacked understanding at the time.
The author initially dismisses their mother's threats to leave as idle, indicating a history of such statements.
The author feels that the mother's discovery of the note and subsequent demand for an apology were a violation of their privacy and emotional safety.
The author harbors anger towards their mother for invading their privacy and not taking responsibility for her actions.
The author's brother, though struggling with addiction, is seen as a potential protector and source of comfort.
The author reflects on the incident with some perspective, recognizing their own dramatic reaction but also acknowledging the real fear they experienced.
The act of writing about the past incident is cathartic for the author, providing a sense of release from a burden carried since childhood.

Fearing for my safety at 13-years-old

When I was about 12-years-old, my mother started becoming angrier and more abusive (verbally and psychologically) towards me. My sister was almost 16 and she wasn’t taking any more of her crap. My brother had moved out many years ago. I was her only target. I now know (or, I can infer) that her emotions got more intense because of menopause. But, back then, I had no one to explain it to me. I only watched her become more irritable every day that passed.

One day, during one of our typical fights about my choice of clothes, she began crying hysterically and saying all sorts of things. That she was tired of us, that she was going to leave, and so on. I had heard those “threats” numerous times, so I wasn’t concerned. However, this time she added a new threat to her repertoire: “I’ll kill you.”

I remember the panic I felt. I couldn’t understand if she was just saying that to scare me. Seeing it from my perspective at my current age, I know she just wanted to scare me. In that moment though, as a 13-year-old child who had been through lots of physical and verbal abuse from her, I couldn’t tell if she actually meant it or not.

Usually when things got rough at home, I would call my brother and he would help me calm down. However, during that period he was going through one more of his heroin relapses and he could barely hold a conversation. A few months prior, I had watched a movie on the TV where a girl who was being stalked by a man hid a letter explaining that if anything happened to her, he should be investigated. I decided I should do the same thing.

I took a scrap piece of paper and wrote something along those lines:

Today, DD/MM/YYYY, mom said she’ll kill me. If anything happens to me, she’s responsible.

I hid the note in a box on my desk.

A couple days later, I got home in the evening after my guitar class, and I found the note on my desk. My mom had gone through my stuff and found it. I didn’t know how to react, so I took the note to the kitchen sink and burned it.

A while later, she told me that she was expecting an apology. Apparently, she was “just joking” and wanted to know if I had told anyone else about her “joke”. She asked me to apologize because I hurt her feelings. I was angry at her because she went through my stuff, but I didn’t say anything.

I had already learned many years ago that none of us were allowed to have “secrets”. One time she had bought some diaries for my sister and me, and since I was too young (7 or 8), I was only writing about how my day went, how my cat Toulouse was doing, and so on. My sister had written something about a boy she liked. We understood that our mother had been reading our diaries all this time, because she confronted my sister about her diary entry. We never used the diaries again. I knew, therefore, that nothing could be kept private. I don’t know why I believed that my note would remain undiscovered.

The next day, after finishing school I went over to the payphone to call my brother before going to my grandparents’ house. I told him what happened and he was furious. He said that he would talk to her, but I begged him not to do it. I was afraid that she would get even angrier. He said that I should call him immediately if anything like that happened again. I felt calmer after that. I don’t know if he ever confronted her about it. We had many arguments still, but she never “joked” like that again.

I understand that my reaction could be considered as a bit dramatic. Or, it could be that I didn’t really know how to write about the psychological danger I was in and I took the first chance I got to externalize it when I felt that I was in physical danger.

Even though nearly 20 years have passed since that incident, writing about it today wasn’t easy. I knew I would have a hard time connecting to that piece of my inner child, but as I write those final lines I feel that a weight was lifted off of my shoulders.

Thank you for reading.