The Algorithm Showed Me That I Am Not a Mirror, I’m a Problem

The algorithm has been doing its thing. My FYP has been videos and posts about narcissistic parents, the symptoms of CPTSD, coping skills for adult children of narcissistic parents, the ramifications of having a toxic partner, and so on. I love information, and information is power. But it is possible to have too much information. My emotions are on a rollercoaster ride, up one day with the motivational power of transformation. Down the next with the knowledge that everything in my reality is more messed up than it should have been.

Knowledge is a tool

I’ve decided that I won’t let the knowledge get me down. I am going to use it, like the tool it is, to process through the memories, the ones I have access to, and the ones I’ve repressed.

I find it reaffirming that other people are on the same journey as me. I mean, it’s not great. Why is there so much damage in society? It would be great if we could normalize taking care of your mental health to be better for the children you’ve brought into this world. Because at the end of the day, our being here was not our choice.

This one particular lady had a revelation that reminded me of something I’ve brought up to my sons a long time ago. I forgot the question they asked me, specifically. But I remember telling them that I suspected La Llorona was a misogynist at heart, and in turn, it translated to being angry that I was born a female child. Especially when I failed to conform to her strange normative value system.

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Monster behind closed doors

I agree with this person; it is very possible for a mother to hate her child. It is also possible that if that woman is an expert at masking her true emotions and intentions, she will appear to the world as a good mother, while remaining a monster to the daughter behind closed doors.

I do not know where the obsession with appearances began for my mother. There are a lot of issues with how she processes her own self-erasure, expressing contradictory beliefs that neither fall into the blanqueamiento (“whitening”) nor the anti-indigeneity of the Guatemalan people. Culturally, until very recently, it was acceptable to elevate those who appeared more white/European/Spanish, and to discriminate against those whose appearance leaned more indigenous/Mayan in looks. Ethnic whitewashing.

You’re a fraud

Instead, she has made a performative life, preferring everything that is more Afro-Caribbean. Everything from the looks, the culture, the art, but especially the darker skin tones and kinky hair.

None of which describes her as the most indigenous appearing member of her immediate family. Ironic because she made a point of telling me that other women preferred my father because he was more “blanco” than other guys. And that is why I was lighter than her and my brother.

I never saw it because there were plenty of girls in my Guatemalan kindergarten and first grade class who were considered traditionally pretty – they had straight hair, paler skin (didn’t tan so much in the sun as I do), and thinner frames. I’m a more athletic, hearty, peasant stock lol. But my mother would push her ideals on me.

Wanting to comb straight my naturally curly hair. She would insist on putting me in beauty pageants that I knew I would not win, a spectacle that even at the tender age of 6 I found far too objectifying. I hated every minute I was forced to parade around in my bathing suit in front of a crowd.

Make it make sense

But why did La Llorona force this on me? It never stopped. Her obsession with my looks and my appearance was very important to her. I was a tomboy growing up and didn’t care to cultivate my facade in the ways she chose to. I didn’t want to wear fancy clothes and shiny shoes.

I didn’t enjoy wearing my hair loose. She didn’t want to accept that my hair wasn’t like her hair, and no amount of combing, pulling, or cutting was going to force that. I also read an article where it described that mothers would use the hair, the cutting, combing, and bad care, as a form of humiliation to subjugate their daughters.

This would explain the 6th-grade hair-cutting incident, where she forced “bangs” on me and ruined my life for the next three years as I waited for my hair to grow out. My godmother, her best friend, owned a hair salon and had offered to show me how to care for my hair. My mother’s decision? To sneak up behind me as I sat watching television and take scissors to my hair to “give me the bangs” I had asked for. I hadn’t asked for them.

I had said I wanted to have a consultation to see if bangs would work with my hair type. After the cut, as I stood to assess the damage in the mirror, she laughed when I burst into tears to see that she had chopped so much hair off that what remained was standing straight up like a high-lo fade haircut for men. I was horrified. She said it served me right. I got what I deserved for wanting to assert independent thought.

Internalized self-hate

Her internalized self-hate meant that I was receiving conflicting beauty standards from her. She obviously can’t stand herself, hates the way she looks so much, that she idealizes appearances and cultures far removed from her own reflection. Yet, she treats me as if I were her mirror. Which may explain why she hates me while simultaneously pushing her idealized appearance expectations on me.

Was her intention to undermine my self-confidence and doubt my looks, instill a lower self-esteem, because I would never fit the random collection of what she considered “beautiful”? Mission accomplished. Outsiders said I looked like her, then she would tell me how she was never happy with her appearance and thought she was ugly.

If I were told I looked like my father, that was a no-win scenario too, because she would remind me how he was a pig, a womanizer, and lacked character. She said if I wanted to resemble that man, to go right ahead. Maybe I’d prefer to resemble him since I “hated her so much”.

Things did not get better as years passed. When I was married, I was in the military, so I was fit. I thought I’d be safe from her criticisms and comments on my looks. Nope. She would tell me, ” You’ve gotta look good, or he’ll leave you.” I may not have told her every little detail of the toxic crap he did, but I told her enough. She didn’t care as long as he stayed. He treated me like crap, and that didn’t matter. After the divorce, she still talks to him. I asked her why. She said, ” He’s the father of her grandchildren; that makes him special.” I’m like, he disrespected me? And his sons, where do you draw the line? Apparently, he is more important to her than my dignity.

Coping methods post-divorce

After the divorce, I was deeply depressed. Perhaps it is too soon for the past tense. I couldn’t confide in her, and I ate my emotions to suppress feelings. She didn’t care. She would openly ridicule my size as I put on weight, while actively feeding my pain. Like it was fine with her that I overate, as long as I was overeating what she fed me. That cycle continued for almost 10 years.

When I moved away from Texas, I was alone in Atlanta. Once again, removed by hundreds of miles from her. Something about being alone forces me to consider my mortality. I took command of my health and dropped 60 pounds. I have more to lose, but I already feel loads better and look way better too. For the first time in almost a decade, I feel more myself. Not a slave to these unhealthy coping mechanisms.

When I returned to Texas, the first time she saw me again after my weight loss, she got mad. She specifically didn’t mention the weight loss. She did not say I looked better or I looked healthier. In fact, she made a point to not acknowledge the change. But the first time she tried to force feed me when I wasn’t hungry, and I refused, THEN she had comments.

A different reality

I needed to take better care of myself. Was I sure I was okay? Was I sure I didn’t have high blood pressure and just wasn’t telling her? Was I taking medications? No answer I gave her satisfied her. If I denied having a medical condition, she just changed tactics and asked me something else. Or told me that I was starving myself, which wasn’t healthy (I wasn’t starving myself).

On the trip through Mexico, every time we stopped at the hotel for the night, she would be pissed if I wasn’t stuffing my face with the chocolate she brought on the trip, or any of the other snacks she packed for the road.

While she was here in Guatemala, if someone else remarked on my appearance, such as complimenting me for not looking my age, she would make passive-aggressive comments about it for the rest of the night. Tell me that I shouldn’t let it go to my head, that they were just sweet-talking me to manipulate me, and so on.

A problem can be fixed

It doesn’t matter. When I look good and feel confident, she has to undermine it somehow with snide comments like my worth is in my size. That men won’t look at me if I don’t take care of my appearance. So on and so forth. But the truth is, I look better and feel better than I have in 20 years, and it’s had a positive effect on my mental health. It’s all for me. I could give a shit if anyone else notices. And she’s not taking that away from me.