The Butterflywake 2

Chapter 2: Mother’s Ruin!

“There she goes again, my little girl!” thought Monica as she watched her daughter disappearing out the door.

“And here am I, left alone again!” she let out a deep sigh.

She rose after a moment, once she was able to muster the energy to get out of to the chair she seemed glued to, and entered the kitchen. She lit another cigarette, and stood looking out of the window in a daze, blankly staring at the overgrown garden in the backyard.

She stood there motionless and entering into a dreamlike state, she reflected on the day she gave birth to Sophia, in St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. She evoked her jaded memory – a late November day – when she was rushed into hospital….as her waters broke.

No, she thought, as she corrected herself; they broke earlier that day, replaying the events of that day in her minds eye, as she had done countless times before. Perhaps, she hoped that each time she revisited that place that somehow the pictures would fade, or the memory would alter into one that was not filled with horror and regret.

But the pictures remained the same, in fact, each time they become more horrific than before. And this filled her with even more shame and guilt.

She reminisced how she had tried to locate her ‘lazy, no-good boyfriend and the father-of-her-child’, to ask him to take her to the hospital. She had telephoned every pub that he frequented but was unable to locate him, so she was left with no choice but to walk the ten blocks, overnight hospital bag in hand, in the pouring rain to his local drinking hole.

Only to find him there.

Drunk!

Why did I end up so messed up, so lonely?

Standing outside in the pouring rain

People stare at me in pity or disgrace

They don’t see my unbearable inner pain

Became something so hideous, so vulgar

No more self respect or any pride

Allow a substance take over and control me

While it eats me up, I die deep down inside

Foreseen future, would I’ve walked another way?

Run away hide safe and sound

So I could not have developed a taste for it

Never a part of me, never around

Many tried to warn me of my choice

Nightmares awoke me, still I remained blind

Unhappiness surrounded me, misery

Still I must have been out of my mind

Stuck in this hell hole going no where

Trapped inside, fearful, scared, dread

Unable to escape nowhere to run

Wait for the day I’m no longer off my head

Messed up, confused, destroyed, broken, sad

Angry, lonely, worried, frightened, depressed, low

Nervous, pathetic, insane, desperate, distorted

Totally stuck, a bloody mess, I no longer know.

Sophia did not stand a chance when she chose this couple to be her parents, when her little soul chose her as a mother, and that monster as her father, she must have know she’d be doomed.

“Christ, I must have looked a sight walking into the Queen’s Head on that bitterly cold November day, a real ‘sight for sore eyes’”, she thought.

She visualized herself walking into the pub that day, wet, nine months pregnant, desperate and tearful, as her waters broke.

‘A sight for sore eyes’, was that not what her mother Margaret called her on a regular basis? Well then her mother would have been proud, her self-fulfilling prophecy had come true; she was her mother’s prediction.

“Oh get a grip, Monica!” “Stop wallowing in self-pity, things to do, people to see” she heard herself saying.

Her inner critical parent must have woken up with a sore head too. She listened to her inner dialogue and noticed how negative the voices where today. The same way they always where when she woke with a hang-over.

And today, this one felt as if it was the hang-over to end all others. Then again, she heard herself say those words every time she had a hang-over.

“Round and round the merry-go-round
will this madness ever end? 
Spinning round, out of control 
where will you land, no-one will know”.

Then her mind drifted back further, deeper into her subconscious, to evoke a suppressed memory, one she tried to forget. Nevertheless, one that haunted her eternally. She recalled the time she was shut away, and as the memory reached a ‘focal point’ in her mind, she felt herself turning cold, ‘cutting straight to the bone’, as a shiver ran down her spine. God, she felt so alone!

It was the time her mother had her locked up, the only way her mother could block out the truth, the only way she could life with herself was to blame her daughter for her shortcomings and lack of parenting skills. The time Monica was sectioned, and placed inside a “mental” hospital!

Another lonely tear, so boring

Woke up alone again, this morning

The last written tragedy!

Now I recognise, that’s me

Another destructive story

Will end, with no glory

I will not live without hope

And I will always cope

Why allow this loneliness?

Does happiness really exist?

Abandonment, fearful inside

Tenderness, I hide

Purest love, abused

Myself so pathetic, so used

Wish I’d stop this falling

Wait to hear, what’s my calling

No longer that strong

All those dreadful things I’ve done

Blame myself for my behaviour

Are you going to be my saviour?

Need to numb this inner pain

Do people really say that I’m insane?

Abuse myself, to the extreme

More a nightmare, than a dream

Wake suddenly in coldest sweat

Surrounded by greatest regret

There is no where left to hide

Naked, stripped of all my pride

Every time I try to rise

Someone knocks me down to size

Pointless trying to resist

Not sure that I even exist!

She memorized the day, a memory it may have been, yet it felt as if it was still happening, right here, right now.

She sat in silence, darkness embraced her, as if it were a cloak that was placed around her fragile body to keep her motionless, and as she sat so still, she recalls feeling utterly numb.

Inside a freezing icicle, a makeshift tomb, a windowless cask, a room without a view! Staring blankly at the once whitewashed walls that encompassed her, she remained frozen, seated on the cast-iron cot. She remained focused on the tarnished walls.

The dirty smears had created authentic designs, pictures of distant anguish, pain-inflicted memories belonging to a pervious victim. Bloodstained paintings her predecessors had left, as reminders that they too had endured the same agony. She stared at the patterns.

This entertained her, staring at the filth that surrounded her, trying to create pictures as she use to do when she was just a child, whilst laying on the grass and starting up at the clouds. Then she was so free, now she sat still, inside this prison that she now called home.

Solitarily confinement, a place that feels so lonely, yet, it was strangely comforting. Sitting in this dark damp cell, where she was away from the madding crowd, the other inmates, the ones that were crazier than she, the ones who were completely insane.

The coarse fabric of the straight-jacket was rubbing against her ivory skin. Red, raw, infected abscesses had appeared lately, and as painful as they were, she enjoy the stinging sharpest, and the anguish they caused.

She rocketed away to a lullaby, which played sweet sorrow inside her head. The pain those bedsores inflicted, were a reminder that she was still alive, and the sharp pain prevented the internal torment that she felt.

The injustice that had been done, the reason she was in this hellish hole.

Inside reformatory
Suppression, exposed
Freedom so unrewarding
So I’ve been told
Horrific daydreams
Drifting toward pointlessness
Silent scream 
Tubes in every orifice
Feeds me morphine
Hurts me, it hurts me
White uniforms race around
Rocking me endlessly
Shhh, not a sound 
Staring blankly at them 
Staring blankly at me
They seem so intense
Wonder what it is they see?
Regression into pre-life
Before she was born
The pretty pictures I foresaw
Not countless snap shots of scorn
Pity, self-pity
Halt those relentless conversations
The ones inside my head
Bellowing noises, 
Won’t listen to what’s been said 
Cackling faces, tuning red
Shivering, ice-cold
Seemingly dead!

Stop – Rewind. Once upon a time there was a pretty child, with golden hair, so full of promise. A future immensely bright, a family so brilliant, yes, it was a picture-painted affair. Happiness was the measure of the day and life itself could not be any more perfect. Was this the past she knew, or a past she dreamt of, a fantasy, created in the mind of a child, who dare not face her reality?

Oblivion – a way of avoiding the apparent, perhaps she was too young to see the naked truth, and maybe she was too naive to notice the dysfunctional existence that surrounded her. Why the hell would she notice the truth, she was an innocent child?

However, just as every fairytale has a wicked witch, a beast of burden, this one was just the same, and the reality soon caught up with her, and she discovered that every cloud is dark, and contains no silver lining. This was how she remembered her past, as she sat in the dark, and the sound of silence was her only friend.

A red bricked house with a garden, paved path leading up to a wooden door, brass knocker polished brightly, happy families. “Let’s play happy families”. Sun shining into the bedroom as daddy came home to hug the pretty child, in the splendid house, in the functional family.

Then daddy died!

Those are the only memories Monica wished she could remember, her happier childhood, her innocence. Yes, those are the ones she held on to. But just as those faded holiday photographs lay up in the attic at her mother’s house, so too were her precious memories fading, the pictures all fuzzy and the colours no longer remained.

Then daddy was gone!

In his place, her mother chose a brute. Instead of a man, an animal to accompany her till the end of her days. But he left too, once the truth was out. But before that gracious day, Monica had to suffer at the hands of this monster, hands which maul, hands that touch in inappropriate places, hands to suffocate.

She recalls the day it all began, the day her role in life changed from innocent child, step-daughter, to lover, slave, and to the abused. She was five!

Recurring dreams
Nightmarish escapism
Haunted whispers 
Resounding 
Through these bones.
Blood rushing 
Inside the pathways 
Of my veins
Heart pulsating 
Heaving bosom
Louder, faster 
Yet so cold.
All consuming 
Fear and dread
Twisted laughter 
Constant drooling. 
I wait as
The door swings open
Enter monster
Green eyed
Lamb disguised 
In wolf’s ski
Beast who comes 
To eat my flesh.
Only hope is to survive
Before my nemesis 
Comes to wake me
Please don’t let him
Take me alive.

“Who would ever believe your lies, you filthy little bitch” “Everyone knows that you are a compulsive liar”, he’d say.

These words became – ‘her mantra’ – as she had heard these lines so many times from the all powerful man. This monster, who sat in her father’s chair, ate at her father’s table, and slept in her father’s bed.

This evil man who violated her on every occasion that he had, this man of the cloth, a preacher man, who would they believe?  A child, who was constantly in trouble at home and school, or this man of God? 

She did not stand a chance.

How much more would she need to endure, before the life was drained out of her, until she had lost all hope, and drifted so far outside of herself that she was unable to return, to go back inside her own mind. She had tried to run and hide countless times, but he always managed to find her and bring her back home again. So she learnt to leave her state of mind, and drift to another time, another place.

Sometimes she could even see herself on the ceiling looking down at another young child, lying on a bed with a brute of a man soiling her, a little girl that was not her; she wondered who that little girl was and why she did not scream for help.

Why she chose to say silent and still.

And she was all alone with these thoughts and feelings, as she had no-one she could confide in, no-one would believe her, the man of faith had told her so, so it had to be true.

“Children should be seen and not heard!”

“Honour thy mother and thy father!”

“Don’t speak, until you are spoken to!”

“Enough.” Monica heard herself scream.

I’ve probably woken the neighbour again, she thought. Oh well, she’ll have another complaint to make to the council against me. She moved away from the window, opened the fridge and reached for another can of strong cider instead. Her mind started wandering again, and this time she thought of what the neighbours must think of her….

“Why doesn’t she just stop drinking, she has a child and should be grateful”.

“She should be a proper mother!”

“I heard she had another fella’ over the other night, ooooh, she is a real slag!”

These were the words used to describe her, or so she had been told. She knew that these were truthful assumptions, which her ‘friendly’ neighbourhood made, on her behalf. They were right, some on them, most of them; they had her ‘well and truly sussed’.

What did they really know about her life? They were quick to judge her but they were not there to see how hard her life had been, what she had had to deal with when she was young.

How she ran away from home at her first chance, fleeing the cruelty and abuse, and leaving her hell behind. Straight into the arms of a man and suddenly, unexpectedly, before she knew it, she was pregnant.

She was, however, not ready to bear a child, nor did she request motherhood, and she most certainly did not choose to fall pregnant at the age of sixteen. Regrettably, she only saw Jake for who he truly was when she had informed him that she was “with-child”.

She was only a child herself, when she discovered that she was pregnant, she was so ill-informed concerning the ‘birds and the bees’, and even less informed regarding contraception. In all honestly, she was hardly prepared for a sexual relationship, however, she was so willing to please Jake.

Then there was her fear of abandonment, a dread that forced her to cling on so tightly that she would have done anything for him, and she did. He was fifteen years her senior, and on the third night of their ‘courtship’, after pouring vodka down her neck in bucket-loads, he forced himself onto her and they had sex!

She was so ‘out-of-it’, she did not realise what was happening at the time, but she loved him, she needed him….she needed anyone! Jake was so charming and kind, thoughtful and loving, when she had first starting going out with him; or was that how she chose to perceive him at the time?

Possibility the latter!

A girl so young, why only a child, and all she wanted was someone to love her, someone to notice her, someone to care. Therefore, she needed to limit her choice and choose wisely, ‘cut the crap’. She chose the first person who came along and showed her any form of attention.

Monica craved attention! She was starved of affection as a child.

Remembering her past, she wondered why she had allowed herself to end up in such a despondent state, what was she thinking?

Was she just a little girl seeking her ‘daddy’ in every man she encountered? If so then was that the reason she needed to sleep with every man who glanced her way, or offered her a sympathetic phrase of comfort, or pledged to shower her with tomorrows so full of promise?

Domestic bliss
Does not exist
No matter what they say.
The countless nights
I had to feel, the force
Of your fist against my jaw.
Broken ribcage
Five times, maybe more.
Green eyes, once shining
Have deaden.
My once attractive appearance
Has turned into bruises and marks 
While scars are now imprinted
Upon my ivory skin
Beauty, now deformed.
Yet, I allow you to enter
as if, I begged for this all.
Sirens surrounding
flashing blue lights
As I lay in a pool
of my own blood.
Fading in and out
Of consciousness
I watch, as they take you 
away for sentencing. 
How long can they 
keep you from me
the moment you escape
the long arm of the law.
You’ll return in a rage
to destroy me once more.
Once strong, I would hope to
fight back, and to prove
I have a choice.
Not to be so abused
but to stand up to you. 
With all of my might
and knock you right down
for justice, my right.
To be free, from this 
domestic violence
no-one should endure.
What I need to face
laid here on the floor
no honour or grace.
As the drag you away
the monster you are
the one who had just
jumped on my head and
Smash in my face.

“Sad, pathetic, you are so goddamn pathetic”, her critic voice bellowed louder than ever as she swigged another mouthful of pure poisonous liquid.

They say history repeats itself. Well her mother Margaret was an alcoholic, and suffered constantly from depression and, painful for Monica, she was emotionally unavailable. She was about most of the time, somewhere in the house, drinking, entertaining men, sleeping.

Those are the memories that Monica will forever hold of her mother, along with her mother’s other personality traits – self-centered, sarcastic, dogmatic and cruel.

“There you go again, speaking of your mother in such an immature way!”

“You should respect her, she gave birth to you.”

The voices again, telling her that this was all her fault.

If she had only been a good girl, then her mother would have loved her. She blamed herself for her mother’s unhappiness, for her mother’s drinking and depression. Time and time again her mother had informed her that if she had not been born, then her mother would have been on stage.

“If it were not for you”, became her mother’s mantra all through her childhood. So much so that Monica believed it was all her fault.

Anger inside
Eats me alive
Sweet memories
Childhood bliss
Not my memories
Not in my youth
You told me lies
I asked for truth
Roses are red
Bruises are blue
A slap in the face
For me from you
My low self esteem
This lack of worth
My broken dreams
All screwed up and insecure
Distrusting loveless life
Just as you told me
Still cut like a knife
Roses are red
Violence is blue
A punch in the face
For me from you
The future is bright 
Amount to nothing
My destiny is golden
Die with nothing
You gave me life
I asked for nothing
You gave me nothing
I got what I had coming
Roses are red
What can I do?
Sweet memories
of families - blue

Sitting at the kitchen table, she was suddenly transported back to another memory of being a child. She must have been seven years old, and she saw herself sat with her back against her bedroom door, hoping her fragile, slender body would be able to keep the adults at bay.

She recalled her mother’s heckling, that haunted smoky chuckle, which sounded as if it was a merciless howl, exorcised from a witch’s parlour.

She recalls the fear that consumed her, as she floated away into a dreamlike trance until she was upon the ceiling looking down at a little girl, sat silent, in terror. Who was that little girl that she saw sat there, where was her mother, why was she all alone?

Why was she crying? Were those tears leaving salty tracks down her little innocent face? As she tried to block out her feelings, while blocking out the noise, the voices of all these adults as they laughed at her.

So sad, so pitiful, so very alone.

Her mother’s taunts where not the only fearful things she needed to deal with on a regular basis. No, there were the rest of her mother’s many boyfriends, who decided that she was more entertaining and fulfilling than her mother was in every way. And so they would abuse her while her mother turned a blind eye, as they would fill her mother’s pockets with ‘gold’, they would fill Monica’s life with fear and loathing.

The countless times she was forced to do unspeakable things to entertain these men, as they entered her room, and would do as they chose. While her mother lay in a drunken stupor in the next room, snoring as if she were a fat hog that had been drugged and was in a deep sleep.

Whenever she hears her mother snore, the sound of her mother gurgling is the noise that to this day still haunts Monica, and causes her to want to vomit. It is no wonder that she grew up to be a the way she is.

“Ring-a-ring-a-rosy 
a pocket full of posy 
A-tissue, a-tissue 
the walls fall down”.

She remembered how she hid in the darkness of her bedroom every night, and listen to her mother announce at the top of her voice how her daughter was her ‘mothers ruin’, as she sipped her gin and tonic. The irony. She wondered if her mother even saw the irony. She doubted it. Her mother was not the sharpest pencil in the box, or the brightest star. No, her mother did not shine.

Nonetheless, Monica was extremely clever. She excelled in every subject at school and was always top of the class. Yes, Monica was going to be a star! That was what all the teachers thought. However, just as her little girl misfortune, she did not stand a chance, as she too had not chosen wisely when her little soul decided to become the child of her mother.

Suddenly, Monica felt a cold shiver run down her spine.

“Oh my god!” she thought. “I am repeating history, I am becoming my mother. Why on earth did I not see this before?”

With that thought, she ran over to the kitchen sink and threw up, the taste of cider coming up through her nostrils, as she heaved up the remainders of the can into the sink, all over herself and the floor. She broke down, and sitting on the dirty kitchen floor – Monica wept!

She cried her heart out!

The reality that she had skilfully kept at bay was not longer staying dormant and the truth was pouring out of her ever pore. All that suffering that she had experienced as a child, that very suffering that she was forcing her own daughter to endure. All that pain came oozing out, as she realised she needed help.

“Someone, anyone, please help me to help myself!” She cried out for a hug.

She laid there for two hours sobbing her heart out, letting go of twenty years of inner pain. Letting go of all the hurtful times she felt abandoned by the father her mother refuse to mention, let alone talk about. She was dismissed if she tried to enquire the where-a-bouts of this mysterious man, this man who had left her in the claws of Satan’s daughter.

She let out all the anger and loneliness that she had ever felt, not only as a child but as a young woman too. She let it all go.

In complete desolation, she lay on the floor in the foetus position, rocking herself in an attempt to calm her soul, and find some solace within.

“Hush-a-bye baby, 
on the tree top.
When the wind blows 
the cradle will rock………” 
Knock 
Knock, knock!

“Monica, are you home?” Alice shouted through the letter box.

“Crap!” thought Monica, as she leap up and tried simultaneously to wash the vomit from her nightdress, face, hair and the floor.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” she muttered under her breath.

“I am coming Alice, hold on a minute”, she shouted at the front door, hoping that Alice would not make the short journey around to the back door.

Once Monica had reclaimed herself sufficiently, she made her way to the front door and opened it. Alice stood in the door way, her compassionate smile and friendly face greeted Monica.

“Everything OK?” she asked.

Monica gestured for her to enter and the moment Alice had stepped inside the door, Monica broke down. Alice suggested they go sit down and then empathically listened to Monica’s grief. Monica was able to expel all her painful memories for her witness to hear, and thereafter she felt validated and relieved.

She asked Alice what she needed to do to rectify this tragedy she had created, no longer did she want to bash her head against the wall, nor wake up inside this hell which called itself her life.

Broken

I feel broken

 you look broken.
Frustrated

nothing said

words unspoken.
Confusion

devastation

heartbreaking.
Not my life

forgiven

forsaken.
Hollow eyes

hollow soul

hollow look.
Not the person she used to be

I shook.
Shaken, shatter, stir,

something’s wrong.
Lost, torn, lost,

worn, lost, gone.
Different, changed

such a shame
Excuses lame, not a life

just a game.
Gob-smacked

speechless
Smoked smack

outrageous.
Stolen, disappearing

vanished
Sad, down, hurt, clown

banished.
Unknown, unrecognisable

disguise
Untruths, fabrication

plain lies.
Bullet proof, no rescue

no saviour 
Distant, anger, fury

bad behaviour.
Wash my hands, walk away

leave, go
Participation of this destruction

no!

No, today she wanted to do something different, today she wanted to change her destiny. Alice had a great insight into addiction, and was able to signpost all the different services there were available to Monica. They discussed a day programme, nonetheless, Monica felt that this was not the best option; she thought if she was allowed to come home at night, she could not guarantee her actions.

She feared that if she left alone with these thoughts any longer, she feared for her life.

After much debated and discussion, they both decided that a residential rehabilitation programme would be more suitable. However, the downside to this decision was that Sophia would have to go into care for the twenty weeks that Monica needed to attend the programme.

Monica felt numb, as fresh tears made their way down her bony cheeks. She knew this was the only way, but this would break her little girl’s heart….