softlywithhissong:

um…

This one… hit way too close to home. I’m gonna try and find some way to express my reaction and analysis…

But I need to warn you. I’m probably going to overshare here. This chapter was like a gut punch. It confirmed my worst fears and brought up a lot of feelings regarding my own personal childhood trauma, issues, PTSD, and continuing struggle to… have some semblance of peace of mind.

So… let me start by explaining why the previous glimpses of Sangwoo’s mom sent a chill through me. Women are capable of being abusive too.

It wasn’t really understandable to me what was wrong with my own mother until I was in my late 20s. Not that long ago. It’s only recently that I gained some knowledge and perspective that leads me to understand that my mother struggled with mental health problems that could have (and should have) been diagnosed earlier (but weren’t) along with her own childhood trauma and issues.

My mom’s mother (my grandmother) is an abusive and manipulative person. She is emotionally and verbally abusive and she was physically abusive.

My mom married my dad in her 20s and had me and my younger sister. Then she had a… delusional break with reality when I was 7 years old and my sister was 3. When putting us to bed, she suddenly dragged both my sister and I to the car (unbeknownst to my dad in the other room) and drove off screaming and crying with me and my sister screaming and crying in the backseat. (I have PTSD flashbacks and start crying uncontrollably now when I feel a little rushed from home at night. Even if it’s to go on a planned family vacation.)

1. The Oh family is in the car on their way back from a family trip. And it’s adorable. The dad is being a good dad with Sangwoo so far and he’s the one that shares a resemblance with Sangwoo again. Either Koogi drastically changed how Sangwoo’s dad is drawn or the abusive dad is a different guy. A different “dad”. Remember: one unidentified male body was found at the house while Sangwoo’s dad’s body was by all indications driven up to the mountains and buried by Sangwoo and his mom.

2. The mom is mentally somewhere else and slow to respond. Which has me scared. The dad gets her attention and is clearly making an effort to spend quality time with his family. “I’ve been too busy to take care of you two,” he says. Was this an early warning that he knows she needs looking after and can’t be trusted alone with Sangwoo? She agrees to another trip. The dad asks, “Really?” He blushes in excitement. This guy is looking to her for consent to vacation plans, which reinforces my suspicions that this is not the same guy as the abuser. As busy as his job might make him, the dad makes clear to his coworker/boss (and us, the reader) that time with his family is his first priority, so his responses to work-related stuff might be delayed.

3. The mom goes upstairs into Sangwoo’s room and closes the door behind her. Oh god. What she’s about to do is premeditated. She tries to smother Sangwoo to death with a pillow. Ugh. So, it’s not just abuse, but attempted murder. WHY, EUNSEO, WHY? “Looks like we won’t get to go on another trip again.” REALLY? Ugh! And the dad finally discovers what’s going on and stops her. But how long was Sangwoo oxygen deprived? This and the trauma of his mom trying to kill him definitely contributed to Sangwoo’s emotional issues. He scratched her trying to get her to stop, so he was definitely aware enough to know what just happened. She begs forgiveness and says she is “really sick right now.”

This hurts. We know based on previous chapters (and the rest of this one) that Sangwoo’s mom’s mental health is a continuing problem. Which is sadly realistic. She’s not just “really sick right now.” She’s not going to stop being sick. She’ll have some good days but she’ll also likely have more episodes. Her issues seem to go beyond possible post-partum depression. I was 7 when I first witnessed my mom have a full on delusion-filled break with reality and she has had multiple more episodes since. She drove us in the middle of the night to her old friend from school’s house and fervently claimed that our dad was THE devil – not based on anything he’d done or said and not just claiming he was bad but she believed he was Satan (for real) and forced us to pray frantically with her on the way there, with this friend, and later (once this clearly freaked out friend urged my mom to go to her parents house) with my grandparents. Including my grandmother who stoked this religious fervor. My mom claimed our reality of events wasn’t right and she was actually with some other guy. This was delusion. A recurring delusional fixation. This other guy didn’t know she existed. Unfortunately, even though my dad tried to figure out what was going on and work out whatever had gone wrong (at this point, people thought it was a relationship related breakdown), things devolved into a long and drawn out messy custody battle and divorce. So we went back and forth between my dad’s place and my grandparents house, where my grandmother started physically abusing my baby sister. Which I told anyone who would listen about, including CPS (who did nothing) and my mom (who would brush it off and think more about how it would hurt her custody case) and my dad (who fought harder for custody, but the courts favor the mother even when she can’t provide a safe environment). Long story short, we ended up ferried back and forth every week (split custody) until my dad got me a car and after another incident of abuse, I packed my sister and I up and refused our ever again living in the same house with our grandmother. My mother has had several severe delusional episodes since which has led to brief institution stays, including a hysterical pregnancy (where it’s psychosomatic and all in her head). Yeah. So, the whole family keeps an eye out now for any signs of “off” behavior. Including some “mercy killing” talk which scared the fuck out of me.

This is why unreliable narrators scare me. My dad was the parent we were safest with. Delusions distort the perception of reality and mix everything up.

So things could be really distorted in Killing Stalking.

4. Things to note: The kitchen used to have a rug. Sangwoo’s mom is physically abusive (the murder attempt), negligent (doesn’t have any idea whether her son went to school or not), and emotionally manipulative and abusive. “Dad’ll get mad if he finds out I’m sick.” Did she poison him? Is this a Munchhausen Syndrome thing? Or another murder attempt?

5. Sangwoo cringes when she says, “I love you.” She said “I love you” to the guy she’s cheating with too. Now, every “I love you” Sangwoo hears is suspect. This is devastating. Not only does this emotionally cripple him, it hurts any potential relationships and trust he could have had with anyone else. Explains a lot. Cue the maladjusted psyche.

6. Oh god. Emotional manipulation. “You believe your lying dad more than me.” This hurts too. I’ve heard a variation of this. It’s pushing you to choose a parent. And the sad fact is – he shouldn’t believe her. She lies. She’s mentally unstable. And she says, “Come down to the first floor at 12.” Which,

THEORY: leads me to believe she and this guy she’s been cheating with are going to kill Sangwoo’s real dad (the one buried in the mountain), replace him with the new “dad” who will become abusive – the “dad” Sangwoo will eventually kill (the unidentified male body), and who knows what happens to her! Does she just leave? And consistently request “Killing Me Softly” to be played on a certain radio station at a certain time?