My Own Prison

It’s my son’s birthday weekend. We’ve been out all day, treated ourselves to pizza and beer, the kind of easy day that doesn’t ask anything of you. By the time I’m on my coffee, and he’s finishing his beer, we’ve landed — the way you do when you’re full and not in a hurry — in the middle of a real conversation.

I have never had trouble saying hard things to my sons. I know what it costs to have information kept from you, filtered through someone else’s agenda, handed to you pre-digested and shaped into whatever story was most convenient. La Llorona did that to me my whole life. So I went the other way. I talk to them. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Especially when it’s uncomfortable.

He told me recently that he wants to get to know me as a person. Not just as his mother, but as a person. Which hit different than I thought it would, because I am only just now getting to know myself again, too.

So I told him what I’d been figuring out.

I’ve been held captive by the trauma of my mother. I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to figure out just how deep in this prison I had been kept.

---

Sunday, December 21, 2025

I don’t know how she manages to suck the life out of everything, but she does. This is the final week that she is going to be here, and as expected, it is all going to shit. I hate that I have this relationship with my mother. Why does my one parent have to be a raging lunatic?

And why does this lead to me having so many fucking issues? I don’t even know where to begin.

Let’s start with the fucking bullshit she says to justify her hateful behavior:

Coming back from running errands and getting tired of her over-explanation of why she wanted to give the little boy who hauled 50lbs of dirt to our car a tip. This habit is something I think she picked up from my brother. He also overexplains and overjustifies his actions. I couldn’t give a fuck.

Half the time, I don’t even want to know why he does or says something. If I wanted a reason, I’d ask why. And I’m not asking, so why is he telling me? And after the initial statement, no additional explanation is needed. But it’s like they either like the sound of their own voice or they want my explicit validation, and when you don’t care about something, I’m not giving empty or false platitudes. Which is what she wants.

I am not going to be like, ” Oh, gee, Mom, you’re such a good person! OMG, people are so blessed to have come into contact with you,” and stroke her fucking fragile ego. No thanks. No need or want to do any of that shit. For real. But oh, do they try. And all they achieve is trying my fucking patience.

So here she goes. Over and over, patting herself on the back of her actions of giving this little boy 5Q in a tip (money I gave her btw), and I got tired of it. I was like, ” You and my brother do this every time. Good job on congratulating yourself, but I am bored of hearing you talk about this subject.” And then came the insults.

She says, “Oh, but I thought you were a writer.” Oh yeah? This is what she’s doing? Insult me, that’s a normal response.

She says if you’re a writer, you should listen to me. The things I say are interesting, and there is a story in there. Basically, she’s trying to claim that she drops gems every time she speaks, and I should consider myself lucky to hear her and that I should be able to turn her words into a story. Really? She is so self-absorbed that even the things that I like to do should revolve around her.

Let’s not even touch on the fact that she thinks that my saying I’m a writer is a made-up thing. Not something serious. It’s me playing around, and she’s humoring me by letting me entertain my hobby.
I would say that the things she says don’t hurt, and they don’t anymore. Not like they did when I was younger, and I mistakenly thought that a parent should love their children unconditionally.

That was before I became a parent and realized that there are all sorts of complicated feelings that come with being a parent of a child. And even more complicated are the many ways that we can fuck them up psychologically with our bullshit.

That was the reason I never wanted to have kids initially. I knew I wasn’t right in the head and that I had terrible relationship examples. But once I was in it, I was in it, and I tried. I swear I did. I was hopeful, and I was optimistic.

Until the toxic relationships with my mother, my eventually estranged father, and my eventual ex-husband killed the optimistic person inside of me.

Murdered in cold blood. And I have never recovered from that. It didn’t get any better. My youngest son hated me for many years and wouldn’t speak to me or want to be seen with me. And my eldest son blames his psychological problems on me and tells me that I am not his mother, and refuses to call me that because he neither feels love for me nor knows me at all. So I get called by my first name like a stranger.

Well, hurray for me. I didn’t want blind adoration, but what an insult. I guess that is par for the course of my life. Merry fucking Christmas to me.

And here we are today, a week before the imminent departure of La Llorona, and the holiday that brings me no joy due to its performative nature. The rage that watching my mother act better than everyone else (including me) induces in me. I am just trying to keep it together until I have to drive her to the airport and be free to try and live my life in Guatemala. Which has been in a holding pattern for literally 2 months.

2 months of psychological abuse, surviving with my mother and my son together in the same house. Some days I don’t want this life, but it’s the one I have, so I guess I have to live it.

This morning starts with a bang, with her questioning if I am awake. It doesn’t help that she engages in triggering behavior of watching the TV with the volume low, like her namesake, who also did the same shit and was a lunatic in her old age: my great-grandmother (on her side of the family – the father – I might add). But if I mention it, La Llorona will steadfastly deny doing it. Whatever. You can’t gaslight me. I know what I’m seeing.

Because La Llorona is so unhinged and full of hate (and probably other demons, real and imagined) that she woke up shouting about men getting into something downstairs and raving about serotes this and that.

I had been woken up out of a somewhat unsound sleep at 4 am and couldn’t fall back to sleep, so I was lying in bed watching TikTok videos with my headphones on. Because I have grown tired of her random outbursts and generally crazy behavior, I wasn’t going to follow up her shouting with an inquiry. Because what could she have been actually witnessing, lying down in bed with the window behind her and above her head, and the majority of the vecindad literally still asleep?

So I don’t know how long I lay there, but I lost all track of time. I may have finished reading a book, I don’t know. But I was awake enough to consider getting up, especially since I had initially wanted to make brunch for everyone.

I should have known something was up when she was surprised to see me awake, and if I had been a little more aware and not in such a good mood, I would have noticed the demons spawn in her eyes as she chose verbal violence.

I was in the kitchen listening to music and dancing (something I miss doing because she doesn’t listen to any music or feel joy – because she is evil and can’t stand to see anyone not miserable like she is) when she’s like, ” What are you doing?”

I was like I’m going to make eggs. And in hindsight, that is when her guilt kicks in, because she says she already ate breakfast. So I tell her that I’m only making eggs and beans for my son and me. I think it’s noon. And when I am done cooking and pick up my phone to send him a text, I see it’s 9 am. Well, that’s not good. He’s definitely not going to be up. What am I going to do now?

And this is when she goes in for the kill of my good mood. She wants to buy another lock to turn this house into a prison like the one she resides in her mind. All because she believes that the downstairs neighbor has other people shacking up in his house. How? I have been here two months, and I’m a hell of a lot more nosy and observant than she is, and I have seen his son have someone over a whopping one time. She claims that she has seen strangers walking through the gates and the yard of our house. Somehow letting them in with keys.

Again. How? And considering the deterioration of her mind, I don’t have any faith that she is, in fact not seeing figments of her imagination. Because if she were in fact having a schizophrenic episode (undiagnosed), she isn’t going to believe me when I tell her there is no one there, because she would rather believe that I am lying to her than doubt the validity of her reality. Fantastic.

She needs to go away and take her poison personality with her.

I told her I was not interested in putting additional locks on any part of the house. No, I did not want to make the wall taller. No, I did not want to add barbed wire to the top of the wall.

What fucking nightmare does she live in where she wants to turn this walled home into a prison? Because it’s not a fortress if the “enemy” is inside the walls. Then it becomes Rorschach’s prison, and I am trapped inside with her. Fuck my life.

She then starts using the portable vacuum, which is loud in the echoey walls of the concrete kitchen – all because she wants to annoy me. Because if she can’t get her way, she’s going to go out of her way to get on my nerves. She actually said that.

Mission fucking accomplished, mother.

There is no winning with her. If I point out her childish behavior, she is proud of it and doubles down on the tantrum. If I ignore her, she acts out more to try to get under my skin. Either way, my day is ruined. It’s a masterclass in manipulation.

So I head back to the bedroom to sit in front of my computer and disassociate with my breakfast and my video game.

Speaking of the video game, that’s another thing – she asks me invasive questions like “Are you playing with anyone?” and why? Am I underage? Is she afraid I might (gasp) have friends who are not her?

Fucking hell. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of telling her anyway, that no, I am not playing with anyone because fuck that. She doesn’t deserve my honesty.

That is the hostile environment I have had to endure the past two months, but it’s just an overture of my entire life. Whether or not I actually reside in a building with her, it never ceases.

The only peace I get is when I don’t speak to her and live apart. Because if I answer the phone, or respond to a text — there she is. Ready to ruin my day with her pettiness.

And that leads me to what is happening this week. The ex came through and delivered the new birth certificate to me on Friday. Of course, in the afternoon and in a country where, the week before Christmas, everyone has lost their minds in the religious experience.

I tried to call as the woman requested, but that was not successful. So I planned instead to make the trip in person. Initially, I thought my mother would come with me. That was what I had decided yesterday.

But then, after her tantrum in the kitchen, I decided I didn’t want to handle my business with her in tow. I am sure she took what I was doing personally, as if I was giving her the silent treatment (which I wasn’t, I wouldn’t stoop so low). I actually was reading a book with my headphones on, so I didn’t have to hear her random bursts of insane laughter and constant muttering about serotes and whatever hombres she has conjured in her mind that are trying to talk shit or take away her shit – who knows.

All I know is I didn’t want to hear it.

Particularly because she is always mad at me for having the audacity to employ my free will. She lumps me into these categories with everyone else and will talk shit about me out loud and say things to try to start an argument. And frankly, I didn’t want to have my fragile peace disturbed.

I eventually fell asleep and saved myself the mental torture.

But there it was. A whole Sunday ruined. Her last Sunday in Guatemala, I might add. 5 days and a wake-up! The end can’t come soon enough.

La Llorona went through things. I don’t know all of it, and honestly, I’m not sure it matters anymore. What matters is that she never once stopped to look at herself. Never did the work. Never asked the hard questions. Just carried her damage through life like luggage she was entitled to dump on everyone around her, and kept moving.

I don’t get to do that. I won’t.

Generational trauma is a bullshit legacy, and my sons don’t deserve it. They’re still young men. Still figuring out who they are. And if I can be a real presence while that happens — not a cautionary tale, not another thing to survive — that’s the whole goal. I don’t want them hitting their late forties, wondering if they were ever actually in control of their own lives, or if every step was just a manipulation that traces back to me. That thought keeps me up at night more than anything La Llorona has ever done to me.

So I look. And the more I look, the more I find. The more I find, the more I have to process. It’s exhausting. Some days it’s genuinely depressing. But I spent decades running from myself, spinning in circles, because everywhere I turned, there was madness, and I didn’t want to face it. I can’t afford that anymore. The only way out is through.

I am not my mother. I refuse to be.