The 90s

So it's been 2 years since I asked my mother politely to take my kids' photos off of Facebook because I didn't want the Facebook Corporation to own them. It was a reasonable request, considering that many other people share my concerns about Facebook and publishing personal photos online. I didn't ask her to get rid of the photos, just delete them off Facebook.

This was the email I sent her (Dec 10, 2017):

Good News! I just found this article and learned that Facebook now permanently deletes photos when you delete them rather than storing them on their servers forever.  

Here is the article: Your Photos Are Now Really Deleted From Facebook When You Delete Them

I regret rejoining Facebook and posting my kids photos, and I wish I had known about this sooner, but better late than never.

I will be deleting all of the photos on my Facebook soon when I have the time, and I would like you to delete all of the photos of my kids off of your Facebook. I don't want ANY photos of my kids on Facebook, even old ones that were taken before I told you that. I don't really care if you keep any of me.

I will logging back on to delete the photos soon and I'll check back later to make sure you have done the same, they should all be deleted before New Years Day 2018. I am going to find the time to do this in my busy schedule, and I expect you to respect my wishes and do the same.

Thanks in advance.

She ignored me, and when I checked in to see whether she had finally respected my wishes by August 2019 I wasn't surprised to see that she still hadn't, but I was just a little bit surprised to see that she had put up an old pic of me from 1999, without my consent of course (LOL, photographers!)

Everyone's talking about the 90s lately, and posting their old 90s style, so instead of posting a pic of herself she puts up one of me, which is typical and to be expected. But what's funny is that she puts up a really grumpy and overweight looking 13-year-old version of me, and it made me remember some of the things that might have given me that sour expression.

That year I was living in a tiny trailer with a couple of women, my mom and Jan, who screamed at each other and me all the time. Remember Faruza Balk's character in the 90s movie The Craft (I think I'm trying to look like her in this photo), she lives in a tiny cramped little trailer with her mother and her mother's boyfriend who makes inappropriate lewd remarks to her and she's going so crazy in one scene she makes all of the electrical devices spark? It was a bit like that. Only I couldn't cast a spell to make my mother's girlfriend go away. I guess I was waiting for my mother, the "Chicago tomboy" to stand up for me. That would have been a good time to prove she was a strong woman, because if you can't stand up for your only child, then what kind of a woman and mother are you, really?

The woman who was brought into my life at the age of 13 was constantly telling me I was overweight, and constantly getting mad at me for little things that I would say "wrong." She would get my mom on her side and I'd always end up having to write her out an apology letter. Not for doing drugs, getting bad grades or anything like that (I was a good girl!), it would be for stupid things like saying I didn't want to go out to eat with her or something like that. My mom would scream at me too, before and after Jan left our lives, so much so that our neighbor Tamara would come over and scream at my mom for not being able to control herself. She was the only strong woman I can remember who ever stood up to one of the bullies that I lived with.

At the same time all of this unnecessary drama was going on I would also hear from my mother on the regular that "I'm worried about your depression levels because of your dad." (That was when we weren't fighting) During a fight it would be "You're crazy just like your dad!" I was told that my dad was bipolar and schizophrenic, so the frequent suggestion that I might have these conditions, or that they might develop in the late teen years, was a bit irresponsible to say the least. I might have taken that seriously, being 13 in 6th grade and all. Like when a 13-year-old girl is repeatedly told she's fat so she stops eating, 13-year-old girls take things deadly serious, OMG. Thinking of myself in the future wearing a winter coat in August talking to voices in my head may have played on my mind while I was feeling low that year. Luckily I wasn't taking her too seriously back then. 

My mom played the schizo card frequently in the midst of our screaming matches over the years, which would always start from some petty grievance like me being a lazy teenager and not doing the dishes after school (I think I used to get overwhelmed at the filth). When the screaming would start I would lose track of what we were fighting about in the first place, and the schizo card was a verbally abusive cheap trick that she would too easily and often play anytime I'd go against her wishes. Instead of realizing I was a lazy teen or I procrastinated or maybe I didn't want to do things with her and Jan and I just wanted to hide in my room, she would resort to "your depression levels are worrisome and you might end up like your father." (Certifiably Insane) It all added up to me always wanting to be at my friends' houses, but most of my friends not wanting to be at my house during those teenage years.

I guess the idea that I would eventually lose control of my mind and not be able to function and take care of myself did stick with me for awhile, and the fear was always in the back of my mind until a gay friend in Seattle pointed out to me that my fear of "turning schizophrenic" was totally irrational and I had nothing to worry about. He pointed out that I kept myself and my apartment nice and clean, no one had any problems with me and I was always able to keep jobs and pay my bills. See until then every time I felt that dreamlike feeling that comes with anxiety, and is very common, the feeling would be worse because it would be compounded with the fear that I would lose touch with reality. Well that never happened, not even close, and I realized a long time ago that I was not, never was and never will be anything like the description I was given of my father.

So even though I've left these old fears behind a long time ago, my mother has continued to use the schizo card against me up to my last visit to Lopez, when she screamed at me once again "You're crazy just like your father!" I've already given up on asking her to respect my wishes about the Facebook photos, but I'm left to wonder, if I made the reasonable request one more time and asked her to respect my wishes as a parent once again, which she so far has refused to do, and we had another disagreement, would she resort to calling me crazy over the disagreement just like she has been doing since the 90s?