11/23/2023
The hardest thing I’ve experienced in this life is to be the child of an addict.
Understanding the levels of pain, abuse, and suffering of this experience has been one hell of a challenge.
As a child I didn’t understand what was happening, only that my mother wasn’t there for me.
Her lack of presence in my life caused me confusion, anger, and unimaginable sadness.
At the time I didn’t have the capacity to understand why I was being kept away from my mother. I only understood that it caused me great pain.
Our long distance phone conversations always ended in tears. And on my short every other weekend visits, I cried myself to sleep when I returned home.
Those every other weekend visits came to an end at age five. And there were times when I thought she might be dead.
In my 14th year my mother and I began to build a close relationship. She was one of those “cool” parents. And as a teen girl, I thought that was “cool”.
As I grew older I began to learn how not so cool my “cool” mom was.
I was aware of her history with drugs and alcohol. She had written me letters about her childhood and her life experiences in detail.
However, she came into my life portraying a sober, Saved, changed woman.
I believed her. I took her in. She took me in. We lived, loved, laughed. We had good times, and bad ones. We raised my sister as a team, or so it seemed. We were a family.
Looking back on those years, I can see that her sobriety wasn’t real. Those years were filled with lies, deceit, and manipulation.
She played the part of the mother I wanted her to be all my life, but that wasn’t her. Not really.
In fact, the mother I wanted her to be was never a possibility.
You see, my mother suffers from mental illness; bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety. All of which lead her into addiction and a self destructive lifestyle.
Based on the information I’ve gathered, I believe my mother became this way because of severe childhood trauma.
She grew into a person who lacked self love, and she learned to navigate through life in survival mode. Manipulation became a tool to keep her head above water in any situation.
When faced with her behaviors, shortcomings, failures, truths, lies, addictions, or anything that resembled intervention my mother would run away from it or internalize it.
She grew sick of trying to live up to other people’s expectations of her.
After all, she only wants to be loved and accepted as she is. And no matter what she did, she always seems to fall short.
I feel great empathy for my mother and the place she holds in my life today. The truth is, she has no place in my life.
In my 29th year I became pregnant. And I made a choice for my child. I chose that my mother would no longer cause me to be a wave of emotions, a constant chaos, and spontaneous combustion.
My mother was never my mother. She was not a provider, a caregiver, or a nurturing matriarch.
I could not imagine allowing this woman to assume the role of grandmother to my unborn child. How could I, when she had not even been a mother to me?
What I did imagine was her and I to continue a toxic relationship, off and on, in and out, up and down. And I made a choice that my daughter would not experience that version of me or my mother.
I chose to protect my daughter from all the pain, suffering, abuse, and sadness that I experienced in my first 29 years of life.
Removing my mother from my life has been one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make. It would be easy to accept her back in, and continue on our destructive path. It’s all we’ve ever known.
The hard part is creating space, distance, and healthy boundaries.
To this day, I hold a soft spot in my heart for my mother. There is a place inside me that still has hope and wishful thinking.
I imagine I will always have that place in my heart for her. She gave birth to me, carried me inside her body, she was my portal into this life.
Although I may never have the courage and strength to invite her back into my life, I wish her healing, peace, happiness and love.
I write my story today to help me process all the emotions I’ve been feeling lately. I hope that it reaches someone who needs to hear it.
And if you or a loved one suffer from addiction or mental illness, I pray that you find deliverance and strive for mental health support.
Today and everyday, I choose peace.
Happy Holidays to you all!
