silent treatment

The silent treatment was (and possibly remains) my mother's favorite 'punishment'.

I quite honestly don't know if she even knew she was doing it - she'd just walk away, leave, right in the middle of something as if you had just horribly offended her or said or did something absolutely unspeakable.

I don't know if my brothers had this same experience; my sense is that she reserved her greatest contempt for me, the one who was supposed to be an extension of her right arm, her auxiliary emotional unit. I keep struggling to find words to express this particular feeling and experience - of being cast out by the one whose - loyalty? I most needed. By being repeatedly cut off by that very person whose well-being I was most responsible for.

And how backwards it all was - that MY needs, I, the CHILD in the equation, never got to put my own needs first and foremost. That I was always and forever GUILTY for having any needs at all, whatsoever, and for having the unmitigated temerity (?) of expressing said needs to the aforementioned (so-called) 'parent'.

I wonder how many times I'm going to have to repeat all this beore I'm finally DONE?