Emotional Abuse

Anna’s mother is a good cook. Or so she thinks she is… It has moved to the extent of being an obsessive compulsive disorder. She cooks and cleans to perfection, even if there was domestic help to do it, feed and pamper a male member of the family (husband, son, grandson, son-in-law, whosoever lived under the same roof) and thinks life is all about that. Any female who wishes to get counted in life, needs to do this.

Unfortunately for her and others, Anna has different tastes. She enjoys reading and writing. She learnt to cook, for the creative satisfaction of doing an exotic dish. She dabbles with many other creative arts, works hard in her profession, but her mother thinks she is no good. As circumstances would have it, she lost her father and brother early in life, and has to let the mother stay with her. Her husband has a soft corner for all senior citizens in general, and cares for her mother, quite well.

Anna knows nothing about a mother’s love. She has only seen an adversary staying under the same roof, who tries to ignore, belittle and criticize her or create cold war situations. Anna is never able to speak a complete sentence in the house, as she is interrupted and opposed before the end of it. The local culture does not allow her to send the mother to a seniors’ home. She read all about emotional abuse, and then realized this was it. She is a victim of it, not just all the people she reads about in stories.

Anna is intelligent and strong-willed, and has created a life for herself, outside the ambit of others’ opinions. She spent several years thinking that she would live after her mother died. At one point, she gave up. She now knows that she will have to die first for liberation, not her mother.

The oxymorons she wrote for herself –

dying to get out of the cemetery she lived in

finding life on the other side of death.

 

Sunday Writing Prompt