The Tyrant Gene.

I'm afraid I've inherited the 'TYRANT' gene. No not afraid, very very afraid. Very afraid indeed.

I can trace this gene back through my family tree four generations.

Both sides.

But I'm sure it's been lurking for much much longer. 'The force is strong with this one.'

My father has it. His mother has it, her mother had it. And I have it.

My mother doesn't have it. Her father never had it, and from what I know her grandfather never had it either. So why do I? Most importantly, how do I get rid of it for good?

If there is one thing I could change about myself (and there's quite an extensive list) it would be this. This compulsive overflow of (at times) feeling like shit, and making everyone in radius feel even worse. I've caused a lot of damage in my family, and I try to make good every time I see them. But I just bowl it all over, that what I've tried to rebuild. In an instant the dubious Jenga tower falls, my temper rises and the calendar flicks pages backwards and the years crumble by number and we've splat down in early twenties and mid fifties 2003 when I uncontrollably yelled at her and asked her 'What did he do to your brain?'. Who knew that this question, in the foul form of a statement would sicken and frighten me nine years later and most certainly for the rest of my life? My sister then (in instant karmic slather) came to me and asked me 'What did you do to mum? She's been crying all night. I found her sitting in the dark at 6 this morning. I don't think she slept. She was just sitting there, in the dark, crying.'

This tyrant wasn't an adolescent then, and isn't one now so no excuses. But a shadolescent is always just waiting in the wings when it comes to my moods. I'm short tempered, critical, I can be rude and un-kind. In a slither of defence, it's only when I'm super upset or frustrated that I behave this way. I know everyone can be short tempered, get frustrated and take it out on others. But I know better, and I'm pretty sure I do it badder. I'd truely like to say that I wasn't raised this way. But I was. I was bullied by a tyrant, who I'm sure spent sleepless nights wide awake feeling ashamed and undeserving of all the love and forgiveness they've been offered time and time again. Throughout this rearing I've embodied a more sophisticated version that shoots the same target causing even more damage to the women who loves them because the love being offered is more sacred and pure from a mother to her daughter.

Just like him I've been stripping my mother of any self-esteem or worthyness for as long as I can remember. And I've been feeling like shit about it for that long too.

You know it's hard for me to think that my adoring grandmother was the same (my other grandmother I can understand), she was pretty awful herself from all accounts. But Nanna Beck was apparently an over-bearing mother who wore her daughter down, and eroded her spirit so that she; an already shy girl, became a nieve one that would when given the chance jump ship and marry the closest tyrant to me. The one who taught me everything I know. Who was taught by his mother and her by hers.

Just for some context. All of this re-surfaced Saturday afternoon. A miserable day really. Eight days into the plague. I was feeling awful but getting a little bit better after slogging it out all week aching and feeling shitty in a job that is making me feel shittier. I was getting better, but also getting really fucking bored. Dan was doing a great job as tea-maker, tucker-inner, chauffeur and bitching slash winging board the week leading up to. But he had to leave me for London. So I came to mums to recover. I intended to make jam and bake a cake or two. I had the whole weekend to spare and I wanted to spend it with her before we went back to our respective schools after the holidays had finished. Now I'm thinking, I just should have locked myself away until I absolutely felt one thousand times better. Cursed the television opt something which is a favourite past-time of mine. But I didn't. Instead I made dates change and numbers descend. This time back to the mid nineties. Where I wasn't so much as a cruel tyrant as I was domineering and un-kind one. Maybe bratty is the best adjective here. Anyway without going into the details I think I have surmised that I was a terrible shit to my mother this weekend.

It's Tuesday night now and we're both in bed feeling guilty about how we've made each other feel. Me for being absolutely awful, and her for thinking she's made me feel awful by being truthful and saying that I hurt her. Which I did, as I do. As well as feeling deeply ashamed, toxic and very saddened, she doesn't have to worry about me feeling bad. I already do. I've felt like this for as long as I've been behaving this way and she's felt arrested and in a state of ill communicado.

If I was to excuse myself in a philosophical 'don't be so hard on yourself' kind of way, I would say that families fight. But it's more than that. It's just that some of us explode and expel, others burrow.

I've just said that to myself too often. It's not, and never was a worthy excuse.

I'm so very very sorry.