Why Hurt People, Hurt People

Australian-Canadian artist Fariha Róisín opens up about sharing a troubled relationship with her mother and on why true feminism is unlearning our beliefs of maleficent women

- Fariha Róisín

For all intents and purposes, my mother is a maleficent woman. She’s brash, she’s harsh—for years she played the supervillain in the destroyed fairy tale of my very real childhood. She was beautiful as she was domineering; cunning as she was sweet. It was a mixture of mischievous abuse, and absolute control. I had no life under her rule, everything was terrifying, and I became used to the experience of having an entire life floating on eggshells.

As I never knew how to truly absolve her for her sins—I hated her in private instead. However, even knowing that my hate was justified brought me no peace.

Sometimes I would see these sides of her, sides of purity, of innocence, of a naivety so deep, that it would hurt me. What had she seen, I would wonder? What does she know? Her bitterness about life was a resonating force, but never an illuminating one. Everyone was suspicious to her, every one a possible sneak, an interloper. Someone to hurt her once again.

I wouldn’t have an answer until my father would write to me and my sister, in 2013. It was a brisk day, I remember the leaves were beginning to blossom. It was early, early spring in Montréal, and as I sat facing the road, the last remaining slight slush of snow on the pavement trickling into the drain, my father’s email hit me like a boom.