TW: Abuse
Even the word pathetic sounds pathetic don’t you think? Pathetic comes off to me as something of low value that holds no standard of life or even a strand of importance.
Pathetic life? That sounds even more absurd, doesn’t it? A life that seems meaningless.
Let me give you a narrative about “a pathetic life.”
Imagine you grew up in a poor rural area surrounded by dense tall green trees towering with predators; the societal unsaid rules beneath the shadows. Having to live a congested life in a tiny, patched house with lot of people. Seems like no privacy, doesn’t it? Rarely trying to learn new things. But you learn violence; discipline because it’s what you know, it’s what you have seen.
Being a kid, wanting to run outside and play seems fundamental. Coming home to an angry mother who labels abuse; violence as discipline. Oh, she fears what other people, what neighbors would think and truly the fear of judgement. You are young and curious, so you learn that she; “my mother is right.” You think to yourself why should other’s opinion matter and you grow up; you adapt to it and you now become her. You fear what others think. (so what are you called people pleaser ha-ha not to others) Others think you are disciplined because you know to live within limits. Since you don’t dare to question it, what other people think becomes your own thinking.
You come off to adulthood fresh 20 where careers skyrocket which is pretty vulnerable stage of life. But not yours because you are a young girl waiting to be married off. Remember that what others think about is important.
You don’t have the right to question it because your mother is right. People older than you are always right. Don’t you remember silly?
You grow up thinking my mother is always right. Her violence is your discipline. You follow her into it. You turn 20, 3 months later, you’re married. Your mother-in-law becomes your new mother. She is mean and wants you to know your place.
Your MIL has faced things and now she wants you to also suffer. Your MIL has faced being an orphan, a cheating, alcoholic and abusive husband, poverty; drowning in debts, a dead son in an accident, dead kids due to sickness and her own free spirit being trapped in a loveless marriage.
You are naïve but she is right. Why? She is a mother figure to you now. She says mean things and you tolerate it because you know your place. You don’t know any better because you are young and she is older than you, so she is right.
You know how to cook and clean and that’s the only thing you have learned your whole life. To serve your in-laws. You are 21, you are pregnant. You are struggling financially with the family. But at least your arranged husband loves you, right?
You find chats from his ex-lover asking for your husband’s wellbeing back and forth on his phone. You are helpless, weak and pathetic.
You think “why should I back down?” and go on a popular chatting app and find a guy to talk to. Your husband finds out he is mad, but you beg him and apologize why? because again you are helpless, weak and pathetic. You have no one else to turn to.
You are no longer familiar from home, from whom you used to call mother and from whom you call mother.
It’s ok though at least you have a loving and supportive dad who has shown nothing but love to you. You deeply appreciate him. He has taught you to remain human and have emotions unlike your mother.
Huh? You find out your dad has passed away. Your child is in you. Your husband doesn’t trust you enough. You are left alone, lonely and pathetic. You don’t have a safe space.
Your mother is left weak and people don’t pity her but pretend to be. Why? Because your sister didn’t know to live within limits like you. She didn’t care what others thought so others looked down upon your family. So, she listened to her heart and eloped.
You couldn’t see someone you idolized your mother feeling that way because she was always right. So being her is your ideal role. You couldn’t tolerate that.
You become aware of what you are feeling. Your in-laws’ reputations aren’t great too. Because they rebel against society unlike you who is supposed to within limits. So, you decide that your child that wasn’t born will be like you.
You give birth, you love her and adore her. She is getting older and she needs senses. So, every time she doesn’t know how to stay within her limits you discipline her like your mother did to you.
But your daughter is a girl, and it should matter to her what others think like it does to you. But she doesn’t seem to care. She is constantly in a banter and arguing with you about the social roles your daughter should show. She doesn’t want the stereotype entitled to her.
She just wants her mom; you, to understand her and be able to share her troubles but you are just like your mother; full of anger and resentment for the society you care more about than your own daughter.
Your daughter isn’t like you, she knows how to deal with her troubles without resentment, but you make her miserable because she isn’t like you. A disciplined, pathetic daughter.
She isn’t like you, and she knows not to pass along the pathetic life. So, she swears to herself to never think about others’ opinion. She won’t care about it nor today neither ever will.
You now have an amazing husband because you stayed within your limits and you both are great partners. Your daughter also has a good dad, but he plays the role of better husband now.
He also doesn’t care about how his daughter feels. He cares about his wife, that’s you, which is good but alongside he has also lost his precious time to spend time to be with your daughter.
He isn’t like your dad to your daughter though he never raised his hand, but he also didn’t say anything. So that feels worse for your daughter. Your daughter never felt the love like you did from your father, but she is grateful he made her get everything she wanted from money but at the cost of the title “Daddy’s little girl”.
But deep inside you are insecure so you reflect it on your daughter, but she doesn’t care what others think. She feels safe with her own self, unlike you who now is middle aged with no concept of fun, friends but “just what they will think?”
Your daughter doesn’t wake up early like you did because she didn’t follow your discipline. You care that these words may go out so you get enraged and say things and words that aren’t pleasant to your daughter “valu” basically hoe, slut or prostitute. There goes her dignity that flowed out like water in seconds.
She fights back for her, which you never did for yourself, so you get enraged that your discipline didn’t work out. You get mad and tremble from anger show much you get red because what will happen if these words get out. WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK?
So, you start shivering from anger, you shove her onto the walls behind closed doors. You slap your daughter tightly to get senses into her. You pull her arm tightly and tug her shirt onto the wall with wide eyes and red face. You start to choke her neck, but she calls out her dad, so you don’t get too unalive her even though how much you want to because she simply can’t understand your discipline but deep inside, she wants to unalive herself with her own hands not by some monster like you.
After this incident, she truly fears you. She truly fears that her mother is like this, but she will never fear what others think. She has no hope from you and wants to leave this miserable world because you feel harsher than what this world could offer to her.
You fear everything and most importantly fear of judgement. Pathetic.