The Worst Part

I always seem to find myself in arguments with my mother. Most of the time, we both make pretty good points for both of our sides and enter the argument with an open mind. We also tend to walk away from the argument on good terms, even if we have to agree to disagree. But there are times - way more than I would like to admit - when we get off on a topic that we totally and completely disagree on, and there is just no way we can keep emotion out of it.

Like I said, we usually walk into arguments with an open mind, so the first couple of minutes of these arguments will be civil, if not pleasant. However, when we come to the point where we're really getting heated, all civility is left behind - by my mother.

I will start making a point and she will interrupt me before I can even finish one sentence, already insisting that I am wrong and why I am wrong. This is, to say the least, frustrating. It also makes a rush of emotion - bad emotion - well up inside me, making me want to retaliate.

As she is going on and on, I sit there, trying my best to keep my face blank and ignore the fact that she is refuting something I wasn't even about to say as if she knows every thought i have. I wait patiently for her to finish before announcing that she had no idea what I was about to say. I then start to finish my previous point...

...when she, yet again, interrupts me. The whole process repeats itself.

You might be wondering why it is that I don't just get up and walk away if this is so frustrating to me. The only answer I can give you is that this is one of my pet peeves - probably because my mom has been doing this my whole life - and I'd like to try and stop it.

I will finally break, exclaiming, "You have no idea what I was about to say! If you would stop talking for a minute, I could finish what I was saying and then we could have an actual discussion."

She will usually back down and let me finish, but then she begins arguing again, using metaphors and analogies that have nothing to do with what we're talking about. I will tell her so, usually angering her.

And that's when the worst part happens. She will then say something like, "What you're saying makes no sense. I don't understand how you can come up with such faulty logic." But what she says isn't what gets to me. It's the way she says it. She might as well be saying, "You're a moron."

Okay, I don't mean to brag, but I'm smart. I have a 4.0 GPA, graduated in the top ten percent of my class(only because I have a medical condition that keeps me from having perfect attendance and they knocked my grade down for that), and have been praised by most - if not all - of my professors for how bright I am. I also happen to be a very logical thinker, as my Critical Thinking professor pointed out. So, I know that I am not a moron, nor do I have faulty logic(most of the time; I'm not saying that I am never wrong because I am sometimes).

So, it kind of hurts to be called stupid by my mother. I've worked very hard to educate myself, not only in school. I am constantly looking for new information to store, using the internet to my advantage to gain knowledge about different subject of varying degrees. I like learning. Being called dumb makes me feel as if I do all of that for nothing.

Lately, this has been bothering me more and more. My breaking point - the point in which I had to write my feelings down in order to help me deal with them(right now) - came this morning when my mom and I got into an argument. She did this tactic yet again and I feel horrible.

Let me back up, though, to when the breaking point began. It was last month. For some time now, I have been considering quitting college. I know that a lot of people think this is a stupid idea, but I feel as though it just isn't the right choice for me right now. I want to try other things - careers that I would actually enjoy doing - before settling for something safe. I was talking to my mom about it and I brought up one of my points: the fact that I am having to pay for courses that will not benefit me and my career choice at all.

Colleges make you take core classes that don't have anything to do with what you want to do with your life. If your majoring in English, why do you have to take math classes? Why can't you just take all the English classes that would benefit you and get your degree? I'll tell you why: because colleges want to bleed every drop of money that can get from you, whether it will benefit you or not.

When I first started school, I hadn't even thought about all the classes I would have to take that wouldn't benefit me, but I was already appalled at how much money I had to spend there. I was paying $3,000 a semester and at least $500 for books. I also had to buy a laptop because I wasn't living on campus and we didn't have a computer here at home; it was $400. I'd thought that was all I had to pay, but no. They then tell me that I have to pay $180 for a fucking parking permit. I had to pay to park at the school I'd already paid to attend. What kind of bullshit is that? They don't even make it easy for you to get one, either.

I won't get into that right now, though, because it's not important. Anyway, I brought this up to my mother and she just kept saying how the classes would benefit me, I just wouldn't know it until I finished school. Well, I'd already taken 8 different classes and they hadn't benefited me at all. I took Intro to Psych, which was really a once-over of human anatomy and one chapter on psychological disorders, things I already knew from high school and my own research. I took Sociology, which was a bullshit class. Basically, all my classes were horrible. They didn't even challenge me.

But my mother wouldn't listen. I guarantee you that she didn't hear a word I said. Instead, she told me that I was the one who was hard-headed and wouldn't listen. She gave me this whole speech about how I was stubborn and that once I had made my mind up about something, I wouldn't listen to a word another person said about it.

I took offense to this. See, I've always prided myself on having an open mind. When I get into an argument with someone, I listen to what they have to say and think about it before responding. If I can't refute what they've said or they can provide evidence that backs up their claim, I will gladly bow down and accept defeat. So, what she said hurt and I told her so. That ended our conversation.

That still hadn't caused me to reach the beginning of my breaking point, however. That came later that night, when I was talking to my boyfriend and the argument came up. My boyfriend had been in the kitchen - which is the room next to the living room - making dinner for everyone, so he could hear everything we were saying. To my amazement, he agreed with my mom.

This made me question everything I had previously thought about myself. Was I really stubborn like they said I was or did I just come off that way at times? Maybe I had this picture of myself that was totally wrong. At that moment, I told myself that I would try not to get in any arguments with anyone in my family again.

But then the argument this morning happened. When all was said and done, I wound up crying in my bedroom. I am so tired of being treated this way.

Here's something else that bothers me about the way my mother treats me when we butt heads:

It seems - at times - like my mother has alternate personalities. Most of the time, she is praising me on my accomplishments, telling me that she is so proud of me and the woman I have become. She'll tell me that I am the person who brings the most joy to her life. She's even said - and I quote - "I always thought there was a reason I was brought into this world. I was brought here to bring you into the world."

The switch completely flips, though, when we having differing views on a subject.

Here's another example: the only computer in the house is still just my laptop, which I am using now. I allow everyone else to use it, on the condition that they not eat or drink around it and make sure(with my security system) that the sites they want to visit are free of any and all viruses before they go to them. My little brother, though, sometimes forgets about these rules.

I believe he has ADD, even though he's never been diagnosed. He has trouble paying attention to anything for a long time, even if he's interested in it. He mainly jumps from playing video games on his Xbox 360 to watching YouTube videos about playing games on an app on his Xbox. Every now and then, he will watch TV. When those options aren't interesting enough, he wants to use my computer to play other games, mostly ToonTown or random games on Cartoon Network's site.

A couple of months ago, I caught him drinking a Dr. Pepper right above my computer. I gave him a warning, letting him know that if I saw him drinking near my computer again, I would take it away. An hour later, I found him - again - drinking the same soft drink over my computer. This time, he actually dropped a couple of drops on the keyboard. Although it was nothing serious, I had given him a warning about it, so I took the computer away.

That evening, he became bored with his video games and Xbox altogether. He couldn't find anything interesting to him on TV and was bothering my mom, asking if he could use her work phone to play games even though she was on call and needed her phone. When she'd finally had enough of his pestering, she called for me and I immediately met her in the living room. She asked if my brother could use my computer and I explained to her that he was not allowed to use it for the rest of the day and the next day because he'd broken one of my rules twice.

At first, that was no big deal and she let it go. But a couple of hours later, she began begging me to let him play on my computer, saying that she thought that was the only thing that would get him away from her. I insisted that he wasn't allowed to use it, that there were consequences for breaking my rules. She threw a fit, calling me a bitch. I didn't respond and, instead, went to the bathroom. I could still hear her and my brother talking because the bathroom is right down the hall from the living room. My brother asked my mom why I wouldn't let him use the computer - even though he was sitting right next to her when I explained it - and she said, "Because she's just like her father. She expects everyone to do everything for her, without giving anything in return."(my parents are divorced, for obvious reasons).

This is just not true. I do tons for my family. I help with the work around the house, I run to town whenever my family asks me to, and I help take care of the vehicles I use. I've paid for all the gas I've used and gotten a new set of tires and an oil change for one of the vehicles. I do help, as much as I can.

So, I really don't get it. How can someone go from calling me the "joy of my life" to a bitch, someone who never thinks about other people?

This hurts me so badly. It hurts even worse to know that my own boyfriend agreed with her. I can't help the tears that roll down my face as I write this. I also can't help the thoughts that race through my mind. "Am I a horrible person? Do they really think so little of me? Should I just...give up?"

I have no clear answers right now. I may never get them. What do I know for sure?

Some people are assholes.