I Love You, but I Can’t Be Your “Little Hero”

A story about my mom, mental illness & the impossibility of making choices for someone else

My dad took my big brother and left me and my mom when I was six. This wasn’t the first time he’d left, but it was the last. The thing I wanted most back then was to make my mom happy, and I spent the next 25-years trying to make that happen.  

When my dad left, my mom was still tangled up in the religious cult he had introduced her to. And because Jehovah’s Witnesses forbid celebrating holidays or associating with any “non-believers”— even if they’re family — we only had other Jehovah’s Witnesses to turn to.  

Everyone around me believed that the world was about to end. Whenever the wind would kick up suddenly or the sky would darken with heavy clouds, I believed that the end of everything was starting. My mind would frantically race as I tried to assess how good I’d been lately and if it was enough for god to consider sparing me.  

Me and my mom bounced around a lot when my dad first left. Staying briefly with one group of people I’d never met before, then moving on to another stranger’s home. This repeated several times because my mom would catch the people we were staying with mistreating me. She also told me that these strangers were spying on us and reporting details back to my dad.  

It took several years for this to happen, but there were a few months after my dad left — and before we met Richard — that I remember being happy. My mom and I had a small apartment, and my dad wasn’t around beating her up anymore. We had to depend on other Jehovah’s Witnesses for help with food and rent, but I thought we were doing pretty ok. This brief period ended well before it could be considered a new normal. I was about to learn how destructive the fallout from just a few choices can be.  

And the award for Best Actor goes to…

In the new congregation my mom moved us to, there was a man named Richard. Our Jehovah’s Witness brothers and sisters regarded him as an upstanding member of their community, and for some reason, he went out of his way to befriend me.

I was about nine years old. Richard would make plans to pick me up from home while my mom was at work and we’d go to the arcade. She and I had no money, so the quarters always came from Richard. Our friendship went on for a few weeks, and then one day I watched through the kitchen window as my mom walked him to his truck, and when they got there they started kissing.

Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t date like most people. After only three dates, the elders in our congregation started pressuring my mom to marry Richard. They said her choice was to marry him or end their relationship.

I remember crying at the rehearsal the night before their wedding. Richard’s behavior had subtly started to change as this day approached, and while I was too young to really put my finger on what was happening, I was afraid of what I saw. In tears, I pleaded with her not to marry him. I didn’t trust him and thought he was up to something. She listened to me sadly, but said that everyone was expecting her to marry Richard and she couldn’t tell them “no.”

A few years ago my mom sent me a photo album that covers that period. There’s a series of pages in it that she tied together with a sad face and an apology on the first page. These pages contain photos of their wedding.  

“These photos were put on these pages many years ago — I can’t look at them so I’m leaving them as they were. Mom 2012”

The photo album is filled with notes from my mom describing Richard. Reading through them is like hearing the commentary in a movie where the narrator gives insights because they know what’s going to happen.

“Wait til I let loose my true personality on to Wanda and Ryan… finally I have a safe place to let out all my inner rage and evil… and two trusting naive victims to target.… heh heh heh”

I find the look in her eyes at their wedding troubling and really telling. It was a look that only people who weren’t paying attention could miss.

There’s a photo of me where I can't tell if the photographer just caught an awkward pose or a candid moment, but it really captures how I felt back then. I felt powerless and removed — like I was just watching an avalanche of chaotic events happen around me, and no one seemed to notice the effect they were having on me.

My mom told me many years later that as soon as they left the reception for their honeymoon, the man she’d known vanished as if a light switch had been flipped. As they began their honeymoon, the persona Richard had introduced my mom to started to disappear.

"Money given to Richard at Reception by friends. He confessed later that had nobody given us Cash, we'd have had no honeymoon or money to begin any life at all.”

While they were dating, Richard made it look like he had a lot of money. He owned a business and drove a brand new truck. He showered money on my mom and me, and she began to see him as someone who would take care of us. She told me that was the main reason she married him. But within days of their marriage, we learned that Richard was in the middle of filing for bankruptcy. This was the beginning of a seemingly endless stream of evictions, disconnected utilities, having no food in the house, and moving from city to city every few months. That became our new normal.

But before that new normal had set in — back when they had just returned from their honeymoon and living together was new — Richard’s bizarre behavior began to present itself.

“And everything in our world (mine and Ryan’s) becomes poisoned and begins to unravel… to come undone in every way.”

One of the first tools of cruelty that Richard shared with us was what I later learned is called “gaslighting.” It started with our possessions disappearing. Things like our house keys or eyeglasses would suddenly go missing. We’d look and look and look for them with increasing anxiety, knowing we had left them in a certain location. Then the item would mysteriously reappear when we weren’t looking, exactly where we thought it should be. We both felt like we were losing our minds because we’d never encountered anything like this before. It took us a while to realize it was Richard.

“How could the ‘nicest guy in the world’ and ‘our best friend’ hate us all of a sudden? Ryan and I could not understand what was going on… for a long time we didn’t believe it. It made no sense. We hadn’t changed yet everything around us had. The insanity of a sociopath had entered our naive and innocent world. For a long while we pretended all was well. I think we lived in denial and shock… and fear. I know I did. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde lived with us.”

It’s so interesting for me to look back on her notes now and see how often she refers to both her and I as “victims,” “naive,” and “in denial.” I was 10-years-old. She was 40. I wasn’t “in denial,” I was 10.  

There are photos throughout the album where my mom manipulated pictures of Richard. I think she thought it was… actually, I don’t know what she was thinking. I don’t know what her intention could’ve been for putting that in photo albums that she was giving me as a gift.

Richard: “I will destroy this family.”
Me: “He’s my best friend.”

It was during this period in the photo albums that she got pregnant. I think the pregnancy solidified in Richard’s mind that he’d really trapped her. His subtle weirdness quickly escalated to other forms of psychological and physical violence. Without provocation or warning, Richard would start screaming and cursing in such a crazed manner that he’d lose his voice. It was normal for me to be in my bedroom with the inescapable sound of them fighting coming through the walls, and then everything would shake with a loud smash and the sound of breaking glass. Richard was prone to dramatic displays like picking up their dresser and throwing it across the room. He was small, but he was very strong.  

Even though this sort of stuff was happening at home, Richard was very skilled at mimicking normal behavior when it served him. And for some reason, my mom would play along. They hate each other with such vicious intensity, so it’s surreal to see photos of them sitting with her sisters and their husbands looking happy together.

“Another Academy Award Winning Performance By Wanda Chavez… oh yeah”

My little brother

I was twelve-years-old when Nathan was born. This was also when my mom told me she was going to kill him and herself.

I didn’t have any advice for her or ideas for other options. I didn’t even know that what she was telling me was inappropriate. She raised me with a belief that the quality of her life was my responsibility, and she was telling me that the only answer for them was death. I started thinking of ways to help end their lives painlessly.  

I remember laying in bed one night staring up at my ceiling. I did this a lot because I loved finding little animals or faces in its popcorn pattern, but this time I was also trying to devise a plan to help them die peacefully and be free. “Poison? I wonder if poison would… no, that would hurt. Maybe I can suffocate them in their sleep? Or, would… I don’t know what to do.”  

I imagined what going to prison would be like. I knew there was no way I’d get away with doing this, so it was a necessary part of being her savior. There’s a photo of me from this period where my mother wrote “my little hero!” underneath it. So I didn’t invent my belief that she was my responsibility — it’s what I was taught.

My mother’s despair, her telling me she was going to kill herself and my little brother, and the insane violence and gaslighting I was witnessing . . . it was too much. Being twelve and having nowhere to go or anyone to talk to, I started to act out in ways that angered my mom. I’d talk back. I’d express hurt and anger. It got to the point where she couldn’t hit me hard enough to feel satisfied. She tried, but told me that hitting me so hard was hurting her hand. So she asked my big brother for help.  

Back then, Jeremy was working as a fire extinguisher technician, and as such, had a lot of equipment on hand. He gave her one of his replacement rubber hoses to use on me.

I have no memory of what I said that set her off that time, but I can still very clearly see her storming out of my room and disappearing into the living room. A moment later she came barreling around the corner carrying something I quickly recognized from the times I got to help Jeremy with his work. There was no way to get away from her in that tiny room and I knew what she was intending to do. I backed up into my open closet, curled up into a ball, and tried to protect myself as she beat me with the hose.  

An ending begins

I wish I could look back at that period and say that things got better after that, but everything got much worse. This was just before the Northridge earthquake of 1994, which is where we were living. Our home was condemned because of the damage, and I went to live with my dad and his new family. The home he took me to was where he was molesting a little girl, which he’d later go to prison for. Jeremy turned our mom in for child abuse, and she went on the run with Richard and my baby brother in an RV they’d borrowed.  

The eight years that followed were so chaotic it’s hard for me to piece together the timelines. Some of it blurs together, and other parts felt like they’d never end. But time passed, and I eventually was old enough to move away from all of those people.  

When I left, there were years where my mom didn’t know where I was, years where we didn’t speak, and then years where I was trying to help her again. When we were speaking, she started countless conversations where we made plans for her to escape Richard.  

When I was about to turn 30, I was living in Oregon. My mom was still back in California. She started reaching out for help again. It had been years since she left the cult she was a part of for nearly three decades, but she never left her husband. She was once again desperate to leave, but she was isolated and had no idea what to do.  

I kept her and our relationship at a distance — both geographically and emotionally — but despite everything from our past, I still wanted to help her. Saving her had been a virtually lifelong project for me, and things had come to such a head with her situation that I thought I might finally be able to fulfill that dream of mine.  

When I got off the phone with her, I contacted several friends to ask about resources that helped women escape domestic abuse. This produced a lot of leads that I researched and contacted. I called organizations spanning from California to Oregon because she expressed interest in moving to Portland with my little brother to be closer to me. I was getting good information, but it was going to be a difficult process with what little resources we had.   

Then a real breakthrough happened. Word of our situation made its way to a wealthy couple who frequently contributed charitably to causes that help abused women. They wanted to help us and asked to speak with me. We set up a time for a phone call, and I had the opportunity to tell them what was going on with her and what I was trying to do. After hearing my story, they offered to give me $30,000 — cash — to get my mom out of there.  

I was floored. What had just occurred created a quantum leap from a situation where my mom would likely bounce around in government-sponsored programs (which was understandably very frightening to her), to one where we could do things on our terms. We could find her her own place to live, and she’d be able to have her familiar possessions with her.  

I didn’t tell her the news for a few days. I needed time to sleep on this development, process the information, and start hammering out the details if I was going to go forward with this opportunity. I decided I would. My plan was to fly down to Southern California, and while her husband was away at work, bring a group of people to load up her and my little brother’s lives into a moving truck. Then we’d disappear. I priced apartments in the Portland area, looked at services in Oregon that could help place her in a job, and researched healthcare options that could help cover her medical needs.  

I was ready to tell her the news.  

I called her one morning, and when she answered asked if she was safe to talk. Using coded language, she indicated that Richard was nearby and listening. I told her to stop what she was doing, get my younger brother (who was about eighteen by then), and drive someplace where they could speak to me safely.  

We hung up, and I waited for her to call back. In my mind, a movie started playing. A movie where I saw my mom finally blossoming into the woman I had seen the potential for throughout my life. The woman who would appear for brief moments of beautiful clarity with a keen understanding of what was going on. I saw the possibility of her spending the rest of her life in safety and peace, and I was willing to do whatever it took to help her achieve that.  

The phone rang. She and Nathan were parked in her car a few blocks from their home. I asked her to put me on speakerphone so Nathan could hear. I started laying out what had happened. How we’d been offered a huge sum of money, what I had found out in my research, the part of Oregon where we’d find them a new home, the colleges Nathan could look at attending, that I would do whatever was necessary to make this work, and that I’d assemble a group of people to move them out and be there for their protection in case Richard came home early.  

I finished relaying all the news, and then stopped talking. I expected to hear bewildered appreciation and excitement from them, but instead, what I heard was fear. Fear, and then a refusal to accept this opportunity.  

My mom couldn’t bear the thought of moving from the three-bedroom house they were renting into an apartment. She couldn’t bear the thought of taking Nathan away from the few friends he’d made recently. She couldn’t bear the thought of being responsible for her own income and well-being — even if we had enough money to last a year while we got her on her feet. Even if I was committed to doing everything I could to make this work.  

I was angry. In that moment, I felt that she’d been lying to me my entire life. Every time she said how desperately she wanted out. How all she really needed was some help and loving-kindness from anyone in order to escape a lifetime of abuse and misfortune.  

I realized later that she wasn’t lying when she expressed those things, and there was no sense in blaming her for it. A lifetime of abuse and devaluation from others takes a toll. But, this experience changed something in me. A door I had left open to her for my entire life began to close. This was the last bit of information I needed to know — beyond a shadow of a doubt — that I had done everything I possibly could to help her.  

One last visit “to say goodbye”

Things changed between us after that phone call, but we were still in fairly regular contact for the next couple of years. Then one afternoon I got another call where she told me she wanted to kill herself again. About how she would’ve done it a long, long time ago if she wasn’t so afraid she’d mess it up, survive, and wind up incapacitated and at Richard’s mercy.  

None of this was new, but as it had always been, it was difficult to hear. Then packages started to arrive at my apartment. They were filled with some of her most prized possessions. A tiny plastic treasure chest that contained all my baby teeth. Knickknacks I had given her when I was a little kid. Art projects I’d made in kindergarten. I took this as her saying that the end was approaching, and she wanted to be sure these treasures weren’t lost with her.  

Adding to this was her decision to do something I knew was really difficult for her. She had always been afraid of flying and had only taken her first plane ride (accompanied by Richard and my little brother) once I’d moved to Portland. But now she was going to take her second flight ever — by herself — to come see me and say goodbye “one last time.”  

I understood. She’d told me so many times throughout my life that she wanted to die, and I had no judgment at this point. I don’t believe it’s my place to say it’s “wrong” for someone to choose to end their suffering in this way, and her life was a constant source of misery for her. So I agreed to help her plan this trip to Portland but told her it wasn’t a good idea for her to stay with me. My plate was already overflowing as I did my best to navigate extreme health issues, and she was a very intense and overwhelming presence for me. Being around her exacerbated my health, and I knew that if she stayed with me my ability to be present and in control of my responses toward her would probably fail.  

I found her a nice hotel, rented a car in her name, booked her flights, arranged for her to have transportation from her home to the airport, and made the other necessary arrangements. My plan for this trip was to do everything I could to give her as lovely an experience as possible. I wanted her to feel safe. I wanted her to feel cared for. I wanted her to experience as much beauty as might still be able to get through.  

When I picked her up from the airport, it was clear how absolutely broken down she was — how frail and thin she had become emotionally and psychologically. She spent much of the trip crying and telling me how much she wanted to die — how she felt that whatever was left inside of her was disintegrating.  

I took a lot of photos during that trip, and they’re misleading. They’re in places like my favorite restaurant, favorite coffee shops, and the Portland Rose Garden. Places that I loved and wanted her to experience. I would try to make her genuinely smile when we were taking photos by being playful and funny, so many of the photos give the appearance that she was happy. But on either side of the photos, she was talking about killing herself, expressing resentment that I was trying to make her laugh, and anger about how I wasn’t spending enough time with her.  

If memory serves, she was here in Portland for about a week. She would vacillate from anguish, to lashing out at me for not doing more for her, to expressing gratitude for what I had arranged, to disgust in me for not spending more time with her. For as long as I can remember, interacting with my mom has felt like playing Russian Roulette. I never knew what was going to come out of the gun, and the bullet that came out of the chamber when she arrived in Portland was of the worst variety.  

When she left here to return home, I believed there was a good chance I’d be hearing in the near future that she’d killed herself and possibly her husband. I didn’t realize this until much later, but she and I both intended for this to be our final “goodbye.” Either she was not going to be around anymore, or my willingness to continue a relationship with her would expire.  

My communication with her trickled to a stop shortly after she left.  

Hug the Universe

I launched this website on my birthday in 2016, a couple of years after the last time I saw my mom. The intention was to share insights that’ve helped me survive and overcome some very difficult things and to share some of the characters and cute things I’ve created.

In my inaugural post, I explain the intention behind this website and my motivation for starting it. In it, I mention that “I was born into an extremely abusive family with mentally-ill parents.” That wasn’t meant to be cruel; it’s simply a fact of my life that virtually no one knows. It’s been very difficult knowing how to talk about things like my experiences with my parents, being raised in a religious cult, or the life-altering illness I’ve been struggling with for the past ten years. Mainly because I’ve always been too afraid of retaliation to speak out. Any time I would try to express my emotions or communicate to my parents the effect they were having on me, they would tell me that what I had seen didn’t happen, or I would be attacked and things would get worse. So I learned early on that it wasn’t safe to let anyone know what was happening to me.  

The day after Hug the Universe launched I received an email from my mom: 

"IM [sic] NOT MENTALLY ILL AND I NEVER ABUSED YOU. YOU ARE CRUEL AND A LIAR"

When I got this, I hadn’t spoken to her in probably two years. I never responded.  

And then several months later I received another email from her, this time pleading with me to let her back into my life. 

"I always have loved you and I always will. I hope you will let me back into your life one day. Please let me know what I can do to repair our relationship. I cant figure it out. I realize that I wasnt the Mom that you wanted. Im so extremely sorry for that. My whole life has been a series of mistakes and failings. You deserved better than me. I know Im obsolete now, you dont need me. Im hoping there was or is some little thing about me that might motivate you to let me into your life? Love, Miom" [sic]

The pattern with her has always been a wild vacillation between attacking me and pleading with me to take care of her. There’s a book about Borderline Personality Disorder that’s called I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me whose title brilliantly sums up how my mom has always treated me.

It took me thirty-four years to fully separate myself from the family I was born into. I still have sporadic contact with my younger brother, but our mother so profoundly interfered with our relationship as he was growing up that we’re more like acquaintances than family.

What he knows about me mostly comes from what she’s told him. Has she told him that I’m a “liar,” or that I’m a “hero”? Since those are the two lenses she’s always seen me through, I imagine it’s a combination of both.

As you can imagine, being “loved” in this way is terribly confusing. For a long time, I was very wary and kind of repelled when anyone said they had some of that “love” stuff for me. But my mom and dad’s behavior taught me how important it is to pay attention to actions, and not just words. It took me a long time to figure this out, but actual love is not clinging, restricting, destructive, or harmful. Love is healing, beautiful, expansive, and freeing.  

I’ve not experienced much of the latter, but there’s still time to change that. I’ve also learned that someone cannot be truly loved unless they’re truly known, so part of opening myself up to fully healing is not being silent anymore about who I am and where I’ve come from.  

Thank you for reading.

Until next time, be kind to yourself, to each other, and go make your dreams real.