History - Part 9

Fear. I can't remember not being afraid. I was controlled by fear. Every breath. Every step. Anything could happen, which usually did.
Something that got overlooked one day would get me smacked across the house the other day. Probably why I can't handle surprises that well. I need to know all. Need to have the illusion of having control.
And every time I try to explain fear I get distracted by random memories that haunt me and want to get out (probably why I'm trying for three days already to get this one done!).
I wasn't afraid of the punishments, well they would hurt, but I knew they were coming. I only didn't know what would trigger them. A random remark to visitors, a plate that wasn't thoroughly cleaned, a dustbin that I had forgotten to empty, a missing teaspoon, being late. I constantly needed to race all the things in my mind to check and double check and triple check if I had done something or forgotten something that would get me smacked. If all was well my mother would make something up that was bad that day or that she had forgotten to smack me about the day before.
The short periods where we managed a truce were also the most unnerving. It could hit me anytime, I was constantly on the edge. Each moment where I relaxed and not paid attention to what I did would backfire at some point. And I never saw it coming. Just one day my mother would stand there in the kitchen to block my way and explode on me. I had promised to behave, to be a good kid, to listen, to do as told, so whyyyy hadn't I. And no matter I knew that was coming it always was when I least expected it somehow. The panic of rethinking all I had done or not done. What had made her explode. Because she insisted I tell what I had done wrong and saying something different than she had in mind would get me double punished.
And I can't seem to catch the feeling in words.