I have recently had some talking therapy and it has made me think again about my mother's behaviour when I was a child. I hadn't thought of it for years but now that I have again I am becoming increasingly annoyed and upset with her as I feel it might have been abusive. But I just don't know.
When I was growing up, it was just her and me. My dad left when I was 6, and we moved into a small flat with one bedroom. My mum made huge sacrifices for me, including sleeping on a sofa bed most nights for over ten years and working two jobs to keep food on the table.
But the more I think about her behaviour sometimes, the more I worry that there was a sexual element that I either didn't realise at the time or wanted to ignore. Examples are as follows:
- She kept what I now know was a vibrator in the bedside drawer in my room (the only bedroom). I can't remember when I realised what it was, but I was told not to touch them and that they were for grown ups, and I do remember knowing what it was at some point.
- She kept a pair of VHS videos in the sock drawer (this was the mid 90s). When I was old enough to be left at home alone I watched them out of curiosity, and discovered that they were porn. This was my first exposure to anything like that, and I think as a result I had an unhealthy relationship with porn in my teens.
- She was naked round the flat a lot. At the time I didn't think anything of it but now I wonder why that was. Sometimes she slept in my bed with me whilst naked, and although I must stress that I can remember absolutely no sexual physical contact on these occasions, why would she do that?? She also didn't respect my privacy in this regard at all, and would often come into the bathroom when I was using it, well into my teens when I was not a little girl any more.
My mum has always been a great mum. And I remember nothing that you would say was actual acts of abuse. But the more I think of it the more confused I become about why she would have exposed me to these things and behaved in this way. I don't know what to do about it. Should I mention it to mum? I get that she was an adult and I get that we lived in a tiny flat. But why did she not hide things more? And the nudity thing bothers me too now. It's a fine line between having no body shame (fine) and being inappropriately undressed (not fine).