I’m 28 with a lot of unhealed childhood trauma (like many of us). My mom was addicted to pills before opioid addiction was really known/talked about.

As a kid I just always assumed my mom was sick. I just didn’t know what exactly was wrong. She would have baskets filled to the brim with different prescription bottles. I really didn’t have any reason to question it.

She was also bulimic around that time and would throw up all over the bathroom and then pass out. (Guess who was left to clean it..) And at 12 years old I started being a mother to my 9 year old brother and my mother.

I remember waking up covered in pills and her nodding in the corner mumbling about not being able to find a certain pill. The very first day of middle school she passed out while painting my nails and I ended up missing the bus because she never found out where the bus stop was, her solution was asking a RANDOM women to take me to school. ALONE. At that time she met a random man at a gas station and somehow got him to move us in with him the next night. We weren’t homeless but she had free range to do what she wanted if we weren’t living with family. So that was her solution. And it didn’t happen once it happened TWICE in the same neighborhood. The first guy was in a wheel chair but would come out of his room every night to watch me sleep(we slept on the living room floor). I would wake up to the smell of cigarettes and as soon as I’d open my eyes he’d be there. I told him to stop and his response was (you’re too beautiful when you sleep.) I later found out that my mom offered sex for us to live there and when she wasn’t giving I. He’d set his eyes on me. He grouped me, at 12 years old. The second man was a Vietnam vet and his as was CRAZYYYYYYYYYYY! Like pulled a knife on us crazy. He would call us stupid mother fuckers, and again my mom was offering herself to him. Why do I know that? Because she woke me up out of my sleep one night high as hell and told me all about it. I was 12!!!!

I can write a book about it all, from making me drive an hour to “hang out together” only to be made to drive to her plugs house, being in cars with drug dealers she couldn’t pay and genuinely fearing for my life. Her lying to the guy we both went to for weed and saying I would pay off her debts and never telling me she was saying that to them, so when I’d go they’d be expecting a lot of money from me. Her calling me stupid and randomly beating the shit out of me because she’s also bi polar.

In a nutshell. She was never there and when she was she made my life hell. I remember in 10th grade she called me at school just to tell me she didn’t want to be in my life anymore. When I was pregnant I freaked out and wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep the baby and asked her to keep it a secret until I told the dad. My family and extended family knew all about my situation the next day.After doing all of that she disappeared until a few weeks after I had my son. She almost dropped my newborn on the floor because she nodded out mid sentence. The next time I saw her was at his 2nd bday where she showed up 30 mins before the party was over. She was nodding out and trying to cover it up by talking to my co workers and friends WHILE NODDING OUT!

I cut off all contact after that. 3 months later she got someone to put her into rehab where she got clean and stayed clean. My sine is now 5 and has a close relationship with her. And I love that for him. She goes to the park, cooks for him plays with him and does everything any devoted grandmother would.

I guess my inner child is trying to come to terms that I’ll never know what that feels like, I got non of that growing up. My brother did but never me. I was called fat, asked gIve up my dinner most nights because she spent most of the little money we had on buying pills but my brother still needed to eat.

It’s hard because I know she’s sorry and people fuck up and she’s clean now, but I still struggle so much as an adult and parent. I’ll catch hugging my kid and thinking “ I never would have gotten this from her”

I feel guilty and want to let go of this jealousy because I know it won’t give me a new childhood .

Thanks for reading this