Death Wish
#1: Through Her Empty Life
1976 to present, Michigan
By MILLIE UNDERTON
If you knew a person whose moods swung wildly from one extreme to another, would you want them in your life?
What if that same person called you hurtful names and exploited or even made fun of your shortcomings? What if you added needy, deceitful, and manipulative to the description?
I’m almost certain that most everyone reading this would cut that person from their life. But what if that person raised you? Gave you everything you ever wanted and never laid a hand on you? What if that person was your own mother?
That’s the most accurate description of my mother. I never wanted for anything as a young person. I had a great childhood until my early teen years, but her mental illnesses (depression and borderline personality) have festered, grown, and mutated, and she’s merely a shell of whom I remember from my early years.
I recently submitted to my deepest wish, which is also my darkest secret: I wish she were dead.
Almost every day, I hope and pray that she will die. Not a painful death but rather something quick. I want her to have peace, because the cruelty and negativity she spews is tainting her vicious life.
But I want her gone so I can be free of her insanity, cruelty, and misery. She has nothing positive in her life and lives only to suck away the happiness from everyone around her. I think about what it will be like when she’s gone, and it’s going to be like winning the emotional lottery.
She told me she might have cancer. I pray that it’s true. I hope it ends her suffering through her empty life because it would mean the being of a happiness I’ve never known.
Millie Underton is a corporate lackey-turned-freelance writer, blogger, and yarn artist (fancy name for crazy knitter) from the Midwest. Her mother has been diagnosed with dissociative personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. She does not have cancer, but she has been in two car accidents in the past three months, neither of which involved other cars. Millie Underton is using a pseudonym.
#2: My 350-Pound Sack of Dread
October 2006, Portland, Oregon
By AMY ARMATIS
I was happy when I heard the news. My father was dead.
My father died in a rural gray house weatherproofed with plastic sheeting and duct tape. Weeds bolted through the yard and into the rusted Honda Civic.
His body lay inside for a week. According to the sheriff, he died of a heart attack and weighed almost 350 pounds. They found no friends’ or family numbers, except my mother’s name from decades-old divorce papers.
A life of worries marched to the graveyard. As a teen, I worried about his response after I showed the social worker places he touched, places he punched. Lurking outside my window, he whistled, and I hid under my bed, terrified of what came next.
I feared that he’d use my adult writing, my words, as a map to find my home and my children. Is that bearded man him, making good on his threat to a 12-year-old girl outside a Motel 6? “I’d rather you were dead than know I can’t keep you.”
My mother called to tell me, thinking I’d grieve over what never was. Instead, I sighed and dropped my 350-pound sack of dread.
Today, when I see a bearded man that looks like him, I feel lighter. I’m free.
Amy Armatis started writing for publication after her father died. She’s a contributor to multiple regional publications, and she will have nonfiction articles in print in the next six months.
Posted by Common Ties on Monday, November 12th, 2007 | Email This PostThis entry was posted on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 12:01 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
6 Responses to “Death Wish”
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November 13th, 2007 at 11:02 am
For Death Wish: I would not trash a person with mood disorder or other mental disorders. I would try to convince that person to get help, and just as important, I would learn everything I could about the illness. Therapy might be an excellent place to start because you might learn some tips about how to respond to this person\’s behavior. My husband and I both are Manic Depressive, and we have worked together to cut down on the confusion and conflicts by doing this. At first, he didn\’t want to get treatment, but I kept on asking until he acquiesed. Good luck.
November 17th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Millie,as a person who has mood swings can be verbally abusiveat times,I have found that therapy helps,also haveing an understanding wife helps as well.My wife and I have been married 27 years this year. some times I’m incontrol of some of the mood swings and am working on the verbal outbursts that cause pain,I live in that glass house and will never throw a stone at someone who has trouble with mental illness. I also have seizures so haveing my lady in my life helps me inmensly.
November 17th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Amy,well your worries are over.Have you considered that your father may have had a mental proble,some people that abuse some one else can be ill and that causes the poseffiveness.I maybe way off base here.At least in telling your story and the fact that your Dad passed away will bring you healing.Mike G
November 18th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Millie I relate so well to what you have to say. Because my mother was like yours generous but all the other things too plus she beat me.
And she is dead now and I feel guilty because sometimes it feels so good to have that craziness out of my life. And even though I have mood swings myself at least I do not belittle and beat my children.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:29 am
December 4, 2007 at 10:08 am
Millie, I am that shell of a woman of whom you speak. I too suffer from clinical depression and PTSD. For twenty years now I have lived with the ache of guilt in my heart for the pain I have caused in my family. Though in the beginning of my sickness I was not abusive to my children, I simply was not emotionally available to them. Expecially my three young daughters. Unfortunately, I only have one daughter left now as her sibblings died within five years of eachother. My seventeen year old was killed in a crosswalk infront of her highshool. She had just begun to discover her mother was not her enemy afterall. My oldest daughter died just under five years later of a brain tumor at the age of twenty-five. I left my husband of 18years after the death of my daughter Kim, leaving my youngest child to live with him in the house I had brought all my babies home to. I could no longer live there. I truly understand the pain in your heart, for I see that pain in my last remaining daughter’s eyes everytime I see her. Her sense of abandoment from me kills what little bit of life I have left in me everyday. I’m not sure that she wishes me dead, but I know that I do. I pray for my own demise on a daily basis. Selfish of me I know, cuz I just want a way to excape the pain I feel and the pain I know I have caused others. Go on with your life guilt free Millie. Your mother wants you to be happy, trust me on this one! Good luck to you my dear.
December 22nd, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Millie, I understand how u feel. Mental illness runs in my family, and I suffer some myself. One family member is like what u have described. Sadly to say, I can’t forsee a day when she will ever be a productive member of society, or treat anyone with dignity & respect, including herself. I don’t wish her dead, but I also can’t say it would be a great loss if she were gone. She has threatened to off herself many times, probably just a cry for help. But no one can help a person who won’t help themselves. I have as little to do with her as possible, because I need to guard my own sanity. Fortunately, she has never had children. I feel sorry that u have a mother like this; you deserve better. Luckily, you can still remember the person she used to be, before the illness took your mother from you.