I know I’m not the first to write about this but I’m late to this show and tonight was the night I saw S2E6 and met Carmy and Sugar’s mother. Oh how infuriated and wronged I felt watching that woman make sure everyone had to feel not only as miserable as she does but also scared, paralysed by anxiety, guilt, you name it. I am so so thankful that a piece of fiction finally captured my reality. For years I gave detailed descriptions and even recorded arguments but never captured it like the show did. That was her. Even if my mother never drove a car into a wall and is not an alcoholic. It was still her (at least her worst parts) there. And Christmas is always the perfect timing for those attributes to show. She never disappoints. My mother is not diagnosed because obviously she doesn’t see a therapist, she used to self medicate and cry scream and complain but never get help. Watching the episode, I’m Carmen in the sense that I got out and moved to a different city (and have contemplated moving to a different country). I also live for work. But I’m also Sugar trying to fix everything, although I admit I don’t find the empathy in me anymore. I like to think I’m also someone I didn’t see in the episode, someone building something so so different, maybe like Tiff did. Life hasn’t been so easy lately, in spite of therapy and medication, a good partner and friends. There’s an emptiness I struggle to fill, a restlessness I can’t shake off, and my own set of mental illnesses that make life really hard sometimes. But I tell you this, I will make it, get better, be happy for longer periods of time, build a healthy family. I will offer myself that. This family won’t be my only family. This episode is a reminder of what I don’t want and also a reminder to be kinder with my own path. I don’t know any of you here but I’m hopeful that just by being here we are saying to ourselves we deserve better and we will get it.