QUESTION:

Is it ever okay to play the pity card?

I hate pity. My mother, on the other hand, revels in it. "Woe is me" follows her around like a conjoined twin.

I abhor the idea of someone, anyone, feeling sorry for me; in fact, I go as far as detesting anyone who dares do so. Maybe it's pride. Maybe it's because I've stared at the abyss and despite the promise of peace I've backed away, preferring the chaos of living.

But I was forced to play the pity card the other day and... I am still reeling from it.

A set of circumstances: Moving house; tragedy overseas; my mother suddenly stopping her anti-depressant, sending her into a tailspin. Infecting, in turn, a father who woke from the fog that is his living enough to... rally to her side. Against me.

All this bubbled and broiled until the moment came when it spilt over. The moment found me in a narrow laneway, in Chelsea, the phone on speaker as I sought communication with my brother over a howling wind.

"We need to fix mum! Get her assessed or something. She's deteriorating!"

The timing sucked. All I got from him was a mega-dose of "Deal with it, it's your responsibility, I've got my own shit to worry about."

On the long walk home, Dylan unusually quiet after having heard the conversation and a dog intent on sniffing every pole and bush, I considered my options, some of them out loud:

"I can't tell Boyd and Moly to go! I won't!" (This because it had come as an order from a brother who whilst adept at putting out small fires, had no real notion of the inferno engulfing me, so, offered this up as an immediate solution.)

"We can put that door up. Lock them out of the back part of the house." (My father's propensity for sudden bouts of verbal vehemence and infrequent yet still to be wary of, physical threats, and having Molly, an under-age girl in the house- I could perhaps understand my brother's panic, since any incident would have us - and through us him - featuring on the nightly news- at the very, very least.)

"If it comes to it, I'll grab the two of you and go. Anywhere away from them."

"I won't let them destroy our good intentions. I'll put my foot down- set some rules..."

... But in the end... I played the pity card.

I say "played" because I was conscious of using my past to get a desired outcome in the present.

And it came at a cost. Reliving one's worst nightmares - even to gain an advantageous result - it still bloody hurts. It still brings the vortex of conjoined emotions: terror and ignorance.

I walked into the lounge room, stared both parents down and then starting with mum and ending with dad... sent them back to then. Yep. I became a little girl again, saying all I could not say- back when saying it could have perhaps made a difference.

I accused one of negligence and the other of misguided pride. I accused them both of not being there- times when I'd most needed them. In detail. In scene after scene as the film reel ran again in my head; its vividness unaffected by time.

I broke. I felt the inner shattering. The adult woman speaking in a child's voice. The accusations like the meows of the newborn kittens in my closet, separated in the tussle for a feed from siblings and the mother's warmth.

I ended with: "You couldn't help me. You failed me as parents. Open your hearts and help me to help Boyd and Molly now. You owe me this. You both owe me!"

(Boyd and Molly come from abusive homes. I had hoped to welcome them into a loving, caring one, till they'd healed enough to set out on their own.)

It worked. I knew it would. Back in my room, sobbing and fighting my way to the present and the goodness within it- Dyls came in.

"I had to do it that way babe, you understand? I had to make them feel pity and then guilt."

"I do, mum."

He was clearly shaken. He'd overheard most of it, I was sure, and whilst I'd told both boys of my early childhood, I'd not mentioned details, merely facts. They knew of my history but not of the dynamic within which I'd floundered most of my life: Denying the role of victim.

He'd stayed close all afternoon; his brother joining us in several games of UNO. My tears dried and the pressure on my chest eased and... I laughed with them, and my world slowly righted itself.

But it lingers. The thought I used my past to generate pity- this being the closest emotion to compassion I could evoke in both parents. Through instilling guilt!

I've never consciously done this before. My past has never served me as pity-inducer- quite the opposite in fact. I have been vehement in my denial of it serving any purpose other than to focus me on two things: Destroying terror and never, ever, feeling ignorant again.

It lingers and sure, it had the desired result. Both parents muted initially; the processing of what I'd once shared with them in general and the other day in obscene detail... I can't imagine where they both sought refuge and how they each justified their own ignorance. I hurt them, sure. I hurt me, in the process. But I also played them.

Mum walked in, many hours later. "I'll do anything you want. I promise."

"All I want is for all of us to live these last years together, in peace."

Guilt and pity.

Hateful to me.

What about you? Have you ever played the pity card?