I needed you. I needed a Mom more than the average little girl.
I had an ugly father who treated me like I was an object and not a person. I needed a mother in that dark childhood home of mine. I only get one childhood. I only get one father and I only get one mother, and I got you as my mother. I was belittled, ignored, hurt, made to feel desperately alone, by my father and my mother cried to me about her own troubles.
I needed a mother who defended and protected me. I was believed, in all that I told you, by you, as long as I remained tethered to you and your troubles. Once I achieved a loving teenage relationship, you shifted. You chose to become mute about both of us being abused…until you needed to use it as a negotiating tool, later in life.
The key to all of my pain is you. I deserved to be loved. I deserved to be championed by you, as we clung to one another during my fathers uglier moments. I had one father and you chose him to remain in all of our lives. I became targeted by him, as I began to talk back and not allow his treatment any longer. My scapegoat role began as a teenager and I felt like I was being spied on, by you. You shared confidences with him. You saved yourself at my expense.
I needed you. I needed defending, but when that never happened, my wherewithal happened.
I felt so alone. I had no one to talk to, so, sometimes the only thing that listened to me were the pages of my many journals. I needed kindness. I needed someone to tell me that life would get better and that person should have been you. You believed me, until my father lured you into his narcissistic web and built you into his teammate against me. How could you do that? How could you simply walk away from me? I’m an adult, but I’m forever your child. The change in you was so disappointing. How did I become the enemy? How did the one who could have pulled all of us out of there, become the so called bad guy?
I attempted consideration for a person who never considered my feelings, as I allowed you to repeatedly stay in my home, as I was a young widow. I refused to be you. I wanted to help you. I needed to be a better me, a me, who would not hold any of my past against you. I loved you, but you used me. I sheltered you, but you left me. I offered to let you live with me and years later you rewarded me by vanishing from my life over night.
I’m still a better me, but there is a limit. That limit I created was due to you. You stepped all over my heart and feelings, as you fully clothed yourself in your narcissistic role of supporting our abuser. But I’m the “bad guy”. I’m “bitter”. I’m the family black sheep. I stand out like a black sore thumb, of a sheep, in your narcisstic flock.
It’s been 13 years since you vanished. I don’t need you. A month after you stopped calling, I released all of it.
After 11 years of your vanishing act, I wrote a memoir. The memoir was to have been about my husbands tragic death, but my past peeked at me from the recesses of my mind, as I wrote. It all came tumbling out. I read over every letter, note and journal entry. The threat of your lawsuit, from years past, blanketed me as I remained vigilant in the sharing of my childhood mental, physical, and emotional abuses. And the one constant? You never telling me that you loved me. Before I began my memoir,
I also read Tom’s yearbook paragraph to me, and it brought it all back…”Someone really does love you, me!” And there it is, love, such love. He loved me where none of you ever had. He listened to me and told me that life would indeed get better. He apologized for all of your ineptitude. He was a shiny light in my dark world. A teenage boy, helped me. And that’s not being bitter, that’s me feeling eternally grateful that he found me.
I needed you. You weren’t able to be the mother I needed, not even close.
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