But while working on it, earlier, all of a sudden I had added in a quickie flash of what seemed like his mother trying to smother him, while he was injured, and is stopped by Danny. I didn't mean to, because this is a real trigger for me.
My own mother tried to smother me, when we were living in San Diego. I was six months old and sick...hell, I was born sickly...and she was probably going through postpartum depression, which wasn't paid much attention to, back then. She'd never been the strongest, emotionally, and she was close to the edge thanks to that.
I would not stop crying and she had learned my father was fucking around on her. He'd even knocked up another woman. So she put a pillow over me and was pressing down when, apparently, someone dropped a pan in the next apartment and the sudden, sharp noise startled her out of her mood. She took me to a doctor. Found out I had spinal meningitis. I got meds. And she moved us back to San Antonio.
My folks were divorced a few months later. I didn't see my father, again, till I was 21.
When I was 10, she told me about this after one of her breakdowns. She was hospitalized a total of 5 times, starting in London. Twice in San Antonio. Once in Grand Forks, ND. And the last in Glendale, after she and my father had remarried and were trending towards divorce, again.
I handled it. I thought. I dealt with it throughout my life. But suddenly comes this attempt by Ma to smother Brendan, in his flashbacks...and I think that kicked me into this funk. I don't want to use it...but it's right for the story. It's right for Brendan. It's just...it's not right for me.
But it's staying in.
It's staying in.
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