Growing Up with a Bipolar, Schizophrenic Mother

When I was 14, I took a razorblade to my left arm and carved a "V." It stood for victim, because that's what I was. I was a victim of my mother's rage, of the sickness that still plagues her mind to this day.

To this day I can't tell you exactly why I did it. I was hurting and in pain, and maybe I wanted to focus on the blood running down of my arm instead of her hateful words for just a few moments. I might have done it to show her just how much she had wounded me, to mutilate my arm as she had done my soul. The most terrifying rationalization is that perhaps I felt like I deserved to be injured at that moment, convinced of my worthlessness by her scathing screams.

My mother will tell you that we had a very good relationship up until I was 11, but the truth is that the abuse started before I was even old enough to remember. I always thought my mother was normal, though I knew she had the potential to be very cruel. Throughout my childhood she often called me names, such as "tramp," when she was angry with me. I didn't know what that meant, and I didn't know it was unusual. As I grew older, her insults grew colder and meaner. "Bitch" and "whore" became my nicknames, and I began to realize that she was different.

She used to rage on and on about little things, even going so far as to accuse me of doing the same for simply asking a question. "Anybody go on and on about anything," I can hear her saying over and over again. When I was little I thought that it was true, that I was just too persistent, that I talked too much. Maybe I do. As I got older, I remember thinking "You are the only one carrying on!" The word for that, I later discovered, was hypocrisy, a trait which my mother takes to the extremes. She frequently accuses others of comitting her crimes.