To the Woman Who is Biologically My Mother: an Open Letter

This is the fifth letter in a little series that I'm currently doing. Each letter is to a different person who has "wronged" me at some point in my life and I'm basically pointing out why I think that "wrong" was bad and how it's came to have effected me today.

Like the last letter I wrote, this one is to someone also very important in my life, and this specific person is someone who should have probably always been there for me, but hasn't. As most of you readers know, I have a very back and forth relationship with my mother and she's the topic that I'll be covering today.

As always, I'm not here to bash the other person, just put my thoughts on the table so that I can walk away from them, and try my best to live a happier life, even if this person continues to hurt me in the ways that they have.

Thank you all for reading.

Other Open Letters:

To the Girl That Broke My Boyfriend's Heart
To the Boy Whose Heart I Broke
To the Man I Cheated With
To the Woman Who Was Supposed to Become My Primary Mother Figure

To the Woman Who is Biologically My Mother:

We've been clashing heads for years now, but I'm just going to start with the beginning of it all; the mess that you more or less started and have kept going on since... Mainly because the young mind is impressionable.

You left my father over some silly little accusation that happened just less than a week after my sister's second birthday. As the story that I've been told goes (because my memory has been wiped clean of this incident), your aunt accused you of sleeping with her significant other, you came home upset, packed a bag, and ran away to Ohio for a week without telling anyone where you were going; not even my father who was left with the two daughters you shared.

When you came home, you were served divorce papers because all of the things that you had been doing came to light. While you two had been fighting constantly, you were also going around and chatting with other men online, and by doing that, you ruined your second marriage.

On top of that, when it came to court and custody battles, you handed us over to our father, which made my sister and I a part of a statistic that I later learned was out of the norm. See, most mothers end up with custody of the children, but alas, we didn't. To be honest, I'm really not upset with that, my sister and I have turned out to be pretty good kids; we've both had a semi-happy life (not happy for multiple reasons though), but we ended up with who we needed to be with.

Now, to quickly skim through the continued portion of this unhappy history, you met a guy, you moved three hours away with him, had a baby, he got arrested for child support, and you returned. Half-sister grows up, you continue going around with men, start dating someone 10 years younger than you (he was 25, I remember very well), and he ends up sexually assaulting the one child (when she was 2) you had custody over (not before going after me first). You were deemed an unfit mother, her father gained custody of her, she lived a rough life, you went to a mental hospital a couple times, continued dating around, got custody back of my half-sister after she was revealed to be living in a bad home, and then everything just went downhill from there.

You lost her when I was 8, and got her back when I was 12. By that point, my sister and I were seeing you every other weekend and you had told me every graphic detail about the custody battle you were having over my half-sister. At the time, you had told me that you had fought for my sister and I when it came to yours and my father's divorce, but that was quickly deemed a lie when I got my hand on the court documents.

We've stopped talking twice times in my short life; first when I was 13, and the second when I was sixteen. We reconciled for a short time when I was 15 before I cut the cord again, not to hear from you again until I was 17. In those two times we've stopped talking me, you've disowned me both times, but I had a good reason for leaving.

You've always wanted to be the center of attention. If it isn't about you, then it should be. I'd be telling you something about my life before you ran right over what I was saying with something about you. You consistently put down my father, your exes, and people around you. You'd ask me, a young child, for money that I got for Christmas. You'd have me watch both of my younger siblings while you slept on the couch. You were off your meds and your bipolar rage was uncontrollable.

And that's just before you disowned me at 15.

Now, it's all sorts of things, which will lead me to a retelling of the past experiences.

My sister stopped seeing you before I did, but I was afraid to be at your house alone so I invited my best friend. She came over and after she came with me 3 weekends in a row, you told her she couldn't. On top of that, you said that we couldn't sleep on the same bed because you thought that we had "feelings for each other." While I did have feelings for her (not at that time), it made me afraid to come out to you later on in life.

You threw a glass at my head during one of your bipolar fits. I walked out after that.

You blocked me on Facebook five times in a span of three years. When you "friended" me again and I saw that you were engaged to someone else again. I asked you about it over the phone, you called me a disrespectful child. You had your future (current, soon to be ex) husband get in the middle of it and you wouldn't rationalize with me like a grown adult.

You borrowed more than $250 from me in two years; I never saw that money again even though you always tried to pay me back.

You tried to guilt trip me into giving you more money, but I didn't do that and felt like a piece of crap kid because her mother didn't want anything to do with her unless she had money to give her.

You wouldn't wash the dishes; you'd have the dog lick them clean, then put them back in the cabinet. I can't even think about that without dry heaving now.

Speaking of animals, you'd have too many, never clean up after them, and the whole house smelled like ammonia, another thing I can't stand the smell of. And to this day, your whole house still smells like it.

You didn't attend my 8th grade graduation because of some stupid beef with your father's side of the family. While I still talked to them, you didn't come because you were too afraid that they'd show up.

...and on to more present things:

You put me down as my half-sister's (she's 12 now) emergency contact at school. When I got three calls in one day about my half-sister, I was the one to discipline her, not you. Going onto me saying, you're having a child you didn't raise, raise a child who you are.

You continue to borrow money from me. When I tell you to keep what you owe me since you blow you disability checks in one week somehow, you disagree and demand I come over to get the money.

You have me pay for your cigarettes sometimes, which, if you quit smoking, then you'd probably have money to buy actual things, like food.

You rely on me to listen to what you have to say, while running me over when I'm trying to say something. You say you have no friends, but I don't think people like to be around you since you have a tendency to be manipulative.

You have decided to make me in charge of things in your life. An example of this is the witness paperwork for your upcoming divorce. You want me to fill those things out, even though when you and him separated, the two of us weren't talking quite yet.

The only time you contact me first is when you want something. You never just contact me to see what I'm doing or how I am. I always ask you, “What do you want?” in the midst of bullshit conversation because I just want to cut to the point to where I usually tell you no and then you decide to ignore me for an unspecified amount of time.

Now, I'm not pointing out the flaws because I've got something against you because I don't. I love you and I want to call you my mother, but you've never seemed like that to me. You have this concept in your head that you are my mother, but that's only in blood relation. In honestly, you've never done much for me, to help me; it's always been how I can help you.

I really am trying to hard to keep you in my life right now, but I'm tired of feeling like I'm being used over and over and over again. I'm tired of getting frustrated with you at every second of the day and most of all, I'm tired of feeling like I needed to write this letter to get things off of my chest because I can't say them to your face.

You've done a lot to hurt me my whole life and I know that may have not been your intentions, but you did. You brought me and my sisters into this world and you're living on the fact that we may just be here to help you, not how you can help us. You've made a lot of mistakes, and all people do, but I've forgiven you time after time again for what you've done, only to watch you do the exact same to me months/years later.

I live with this fear of abandonment because of you. I live with the fear that I'm going to be unhappy when I'm older because of you. I'm afraid that I'm going to regret constantly cutting you out of my life, or cutting you off for good because I'll lose the concept of what I have in my head as a mother. I want you to care for me, but some days, that just doesn't seem likely.

So, I'm glad I could get this out.

I'm sorry if these words hurt you.

Kayla V