That's right, I said it! I am a mama without a mama and I choose for it to be that way. Trust me, I do not like it, but yes it is a choice. The alternative is much, much worse. Most people do not understand that. I hear phrases like, "But she's your mom" and "She's the only mom you're ever going to have." Both of these are true statements, but she wasn't good enough. She took what that title is supposed to stand for and she spit on it. She is the only mom I will ever have, but she made my life miserable.
It wasn't always that way. I spent years thinking I had the best mom in the world. Things were rough, but she was doing the best she could and one thing I was never denied was her love and every ounce of herself that she constantly sacrificed for me. I was her fiercest defender when the outside world, including my own family tried to say anything about her. I mean, honestly, how dare they?! Here she was doing everything she could just to make sure I was taken care of. Until the day I realized she wasn't. I don't remember the exact moment I realized it, but I remember the exact feeling. I feel it to this day when I think about her. It's like a punch to the heart mixed with shame, hurt and anger.
Since I was about 10, I understood she had a mental illness. But, it wasn't that bad and it didn't affect the way she treated me. I was always #1. I came first no matter what. When we were living in horrible circumstances, it's because that's the best she could do and that was plenty for me. It didn't matter where we were or what shambles our life was in. We were together and my mom loved me with all of her heart and soul. In fact, she would die for me and I knew it because she had made "attempts" on her own life to save me from things I'm not willing to share with the world.
I took care of my mom as much as she took care of me and to me that's what family was. You stood by each other....no matter what. I didn't feel like I was being neglected or abused in any way. You're family. You take care of each other! Different members of my family tried to tell me what she was really like, what was really happening. I refused to believe it. She was my mom and that meant something. She would never lie to me, betray me or take advantage of me.
As I got older and moved out of the house, I spent a period starting to question. I still staunchly defended her, but there was starting to be some slight level of doubt. I knew our relationship was different than most, but that's because of everything we had had to go through together. We were closer than most. There were things I understood about her because I had gone through them with her when others weren't there. I had seen things and lived things most had not. She needed me. I couldn't abandon her.
In my early 20s things started coming to a head. She started putting me down and trying to put doubts in my head about my relationship with a man I loved dearly. How he might not be trustworthy. How he might be leading me to a path of danger. I tried to let it go. She started panicking if I didn't call to say good night EVERY night. I tried to let it go. When something terrible happened in my life, she belittled it and complained of her own life. I tried to let it go.
Around that time, she got committed to a mental hospital for the umpteenth time. I was understandably upset, but had been down this road before. I was there to support and help. She called me and asked if I would mind bringing up some microwave popcorn when I came to visit. Sure, no problem. Simple comforts. I remember this crystal clear. After getting buzzed into the unit and walking through the thick heavy familiar doors, there she sat in the middle of the couch with all her new "friends" around her. She had planned an American Idol party in the mental hospital. She was beaming. The night before she had been lying in the ER downstairs begging me not to let the doctor hurt her because he could not be trusted. He was one of "them." And now, she was the center of attention party planning away.
I walked down the stairs outside the hospital with my boyfriend. He looked at me and said 9 simple words,"I will not spend my entire life doing this." He was not threatening to leave me. He just was not going to spend his life taking popcorn to my mom in the mental hospital for American Idol parties. That was the first moment it dawned on me that that was an option.
It was shortly after that that some things started to connect in my head. Events in my life, conversations with my mom, things my family had said and things doctors had said. I will not go into detail about these things because some things are not for the world. The big revelation in my life was that my life was not at all what I thought it had been. My mother had created a whole big world for me to live in. An awful world that I had made the best of. A world I had found the good in. I went through some horrible and extremely traumatic things in my life. I never looked at it that way though, because it was just what it was. It was life, it was survival and it was out of anyone's hands. It just was. Until the day I realized that wasn't true. I did not have to go through any of it. She made it. She made me go through it. She essentially tortured me with fear for my life for my ENTIRE life.
Why you ask? Why would anyone do that? Especially a mother? Because I was her last hope, her last shot. She had run off essentially every one else in the course of her life, but I was her pawn. I was the one that was molded by her own hand to believe all the things she said and did. I would stand by her side to the end because that is what she had me for. She created me for this very reason. Does she have a mental illness? Yes! But this, this is bigger than that. This is the most selfish hateful person I have ever known in my entire life. Through her own case workers and mental health professionals, this has been confirmed to me, but in much kinder words, so I assure you I am not overreacting.
So, the day came where I was done. I cut her off. I changed my phone number and I moved on with my life....and I am in a much better place because of it. Some people said that would change when I had kids. They were wrong. I look at my children and I despise her even more. How could you take a tiny innocent person and treat them the way she did? Despicable! Some people worry that she will die and I will have regrets and things unresolved. The truth of the matter is I do not believe that will be the case. I have no feelings of want or need to say anything else to her and I honestly hope I never see her again.
My mom is living, but to me she is gone. She left the day I realized she never existed. I mourn for the mom I thought I had. I mourn for the loss of that person, because that person I loved fiercely! Heartbreaking as it is, she does not exist and she never did. I wish things were different, but they are not.
So when people say, "But she's your mom" and "She's the only mom you're ever going to have," when they look at me like I am childish and unfair and when they look at me like they feel sorry for me because of all the regrets I will have, I think one simple thing. You do not understand and you should Thank God for that!
I do not write this for sympathy. Trust me, I have an amazing life with that boyfriend that stood by my side and became my husband and gave me the title, mama! A title I do not take lightly. I do not write this to air dirty laundry either. I write this for the one person that might happen upon it and gain something from it. The strength it might give one person to know there is one other person out there that gets it. I have struggled a long time trying to figure out the best way to get this out and this is the avenue I ultimately chose.
To you one person, I hope you find comfort in knowing I am motherless because I choose to be and I am okay.
