I just woke up from a dream that posed the question: what if my father was my birthfather, and how would my mother have handled it?  Like, what if sent my father a letter stating I was his daughter, how would my mother have reacted? 

First of all, she'd have completely victimized herself for having been cheated on.  And for that, I would not have blamed her. But eventually, she would have forgiven him, and instead, turned her wrath on me, because someone would have to pay for making her a victim.  And I would have been the fruit born from that unholy union (most likely from a hooker or a drunk at the bar) and I would have never, ever found my way into her heart.  Hell, I can't find my way into it now even though I'm completely bought and paid for (I was purchased by them at 18 months old) with her money.  Had I been from a woman before they got married, I don't think it would have been any different.  I do wonder if I have a sibling in Vietnam, born around 1968, as I have no idea how my dad would have kept it in his pants for an entire year without my crazy mother being around to deter him.  Anyways, I know the answer to this: 

Every single wicked stepmother trope that's ever been made by Disney or otherwise, is 100% true.  I would have been Snow White and my mother the evil queen (though I liked a bit more trouble as a kid than Snow probably did--though I probably would have run away to live with a group of single men living in the woods because that's how dumb I was, just like Snow).  And my father would have just let her do whatever she liked to me.  And if I think the shit she has talked about me in this lifetime was bad?  Imagine if I were some illegitimate love-child born out of an affair my father had while married to her.  Wow.  I can't even imagine what she would have said about me or done to me.  I mean, she's already obliterated my reputation as-is, so I think her only step above that would have been to destroy my life completely.  I would not have wanted her for a pseudo-stepmother in any form.  What a crazy thing to dream about.  And my father would have just let her do it.  That's how they were with one another.  It was some kind of unspoken rule that they each allowed the other to use me as a verbal, real, or abstract punching bag for their rage and self-hatred.  Not at first, but eventually, that's what I became to them, an object in which they could release the pressure valve of all their anger, regrets, and everything else onto.

I used to get angry at the guy I had a relationship with that I thought was my birthfather.  Because he let his wife run his life so badly that eventually he stopped talking to me.  So I reached out to his children instead (something I said would not do, but eventually did because it had been years and he refused to respond to me anymore).  But that would have been what my dad would have done, too.  He would have let my mother run his life and she would have made him stop talking to me and would have complied.  So that makes a little less angry at the other guy (even though he wasn't my real father, we both thought he was).  To know that it wasn't just him, that too many people on this earth live in these types of relationships.  That they live their lives missing out on soooooo much just because they cannot stand up for themselves.  

These people, like my father, like my almost-birthfather, teach me that I can't live my life missing out on stuff just because of this reason or that.  I have to live my life to the fullest, as much as I possibly can.  These people teach me how I do not want to live.  My father died young (in his fifties) regretting so much of his life.  I can't live that way.  I refuse to.  

And it's funny to think about that if my mother hadn't purchased me (yes, I know she adopted me, but she's a sociopathic narcissist, and everything to her is transactional), she'd have zero love for me.  If I were her, even though I'd have been very angry at my husband for cheating (because that was what my dream was about), I could have found love for me.  I could have treated me well and even saw me as family.  Maybe not some sociopath kid (like how one of my mother's stepchildren is), but me?  Definitely.  So, I guess that's the moral of my dream (or what I want to take from it), is that I am worth loving, even if she can't love me.  I love me, and that's all that matters.  

I have to start living my life like that, now.  I have to treat me as though I am my own mother.  And feel the love I would have given me during my entire life and act like that's what I had, instead of what I actually had.  I am not saying play pretend.  

I am saying to replace her hate with my love.  

Because I deserve it.  

I am going to attempt to bring myself out of my prison and stop fearing being around her.  I know I've said this a hundred times, to take up space in my own life, but it's hard.  Especially when you don't like your mother and everything she does triggers you.  But lately I've been feeling like I don't want to hide anymore.  And I want to speak up when she does trigger me, so she can stop.  The more I speak up about something, eventually, she quits.  Although only after having to fight my way tooth and nail to get there, but it's worth it once I am there.  But I'm going to try again.  Because I am really, really tired of feeling like I do not belong in my own house or in my own life.

PS: I also had a dream where my mother was opening and closing the garage door with the remote like a crazy person, and I kept yelling "Stop that!  You're going to break it!"  But she refused.  I can't even have her not annoy me in my dreams.  So much fun LOL