Angry and unforgiving.
Nov. 30th, 2012 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nimthirielThere are a lot of things I despise my parents for. There are a lot of things they did wrong when they should have known better (yes, they should have; I often told them precisely what they were doing wrong and why). But there is one that makes me really angry and makes me truly despise them: Ruining my relationship with music.
I fell in love with the viola when I was 10. I got some lessons at school, and my mum saw how much I loved it so she paid for private lessons for me. So far so good. The problem is that she also gave me mixed messages about it. On the one hand, she paid for lessons and bought sheet music and generally gave the outward appearance of supporting it. On the other hand, she always told me it was a hobby and could never be in any way a serious pursuit. There was no money in it, it was not a career option. And then she'd yell at me and call me names and guilt trip me for "wasting" all the money she'd spent on my lessons, even well after she stopped paying for them. I'd end up playing just to make her shut up, but I'd be playing angry and not because I wanted to. I once managed to briefly convince her that she had no right to complain if she wasn't paying for my lessons any more, because it was entirely my responsibility to either practice or not. That lasted all of 3 days before she shouted at me again for not practicing. I think she just used it as a convenient excuse when she felt like shouting about something and exercising control over someone.
So now, I can't play. At all. Any instrument. I either get horrible memories of being shouted at and called nasty things, or I feel nothing at all. I get no enjoyment out of it either way. It's a sad and sorry way to be, and I have only one person to blame for it: My horrible, abusive mother who cared more about controlling me than about actually doing what was best for me.
It's a wonder I didn't turn out even more messed up than I already am.
I fell in love with the viola when I was 10. I got some lessons at school, and my mum saw how much I loved it so she paid for private lessons for me. So far so good. The problem is that she also gave me mixed messages about it. On the one hand, she paid for lessons and bought sheet music and generally gave the outward appearance of supporting it. On the other hand, she always told me it was a hobby and could never be in any way a serious pursuit. There was no money in it, it was not a career option. And then she'd yell at me and call me names and guilt trip me for "wasting" all the money she'd spent on my lessons, even well after she stopped paying for them. I'd end up playing just to make her shut up, but I'd be playing angry and not because I wanted to. I once managed to briefly convince her that she had no right to complain if she wasn't paying for my lessons any more, because it was entirely my responsibility to either practice or not. That lasted all of 3 days before she shouted at me again for not practicing. I think she just used it as a convenient excuse when she felt like shouting about something and exercising control over someone.
So now, I can't play. At all. Any instrument. I either get horrible memories of being shouted at and called nasty things, or I feel nothing at all. I get no enjoyment out of it either way. It's a sad and sorry way to be, and I have only one person to blame for it: My horrible, abusive mother who cared more about controlling me than about actually doing what was best for me.
It's a wonder I didn't turn out even more messed up than I already am.
