Shaped By Adversity

March 18, 2021...a date still fresh in my mind, because it was just over a month ago. It is the day my mother died, two days after being vaccinated for COVID-19. I was in the middle of getting my CPR and First-Aid certification when I got the text. "Momma died...", my baby sister had typed. At first I didn't know how to feel.....I drew a blank in the beginning, felt nothing. Then, the nothingness turned to sadness, the sadness to anger, but not for the typical reasons you might expect.

See, I am the fourth of eleven children born to one woman; an oversexed, abused, crack addict that had eleven children, and didn't raise a single one. My oldest sisters grandparents raised her after her father failed at raising her when he decided to ship her away when his wife was abusing her. The oldest boy, he was handed over right after he was born. Next came another sister. She and I are only eleven months apart. I was raised by the sister of my mother's godmother, and suffered unimaginable abuse; physical, mental, and emotional. Our three younger brothers and our youngest sister were raised together by their dad. At that house, our brother molested out sister, and when myself and my oldest sister spoke out, we were demonized for it by their dad and our mom. What a shame. The boys were also physically abused and worked like grown men. Another sister and brother didn't find out about us until adulthood, and since I've gotten to know them all, its been downhill.

Sans the three brothers and sister, none of us were raised together. We are virtually strangers. Imagine my chagrin graduating high school and finally being able to meet siblings that my narcissistic adopted mother kept me from for sixteen years thinking our union would be sweet, just to be highly disappointed. Our relationships with each other are so dysfunctional it is mentally draining. I've had to learn to maintain very distant boundaries. I've had to learn to stick up for myself. I've had to learn to constantly fight through depression, anxiety, and PTSD, all things directly caused by my mother abandoning me at the young age of two.

When I told my mother about the abuse I faced growing up, it took her a while to get it. She apologized, but she still chose to remain friends with the very women who abused me. My mother laughed at my failures and my pain, the same things she cried about people doing to her. I tried so hard to get her to see how toxic she was, but she was so used to abuse, trauma, and making herself small to accommodate other people, that she just couldn't see it. I WISHED death on my mother at one point. I was angry. I still am, because she died without giving any of us any answers.

When my mother died, I had to listen to other people tell me and MY siblings how much of a mother she was to them, when she was never one to us. She abandoned all of us. She brainwashed the rest of my siblings and manipulated them against me. They are all still grieving her. For me, this is my second time grieving, because I had already buried her in my head. I then had to see her be buried in real life, only to leave me grieving again for the positive mother/daughter relationship that I never had. She made me no longer want it anymore.

It's been a little time, but the death is still fresh. However, with some time I come to realize that my mother was incapable of actually BEING a mother. The love I wanted from her, she never received. She was raped by her own father. She was abused and drugged by men. She looked for love through sex, something I've found myself doing many times. The generational trauma is evident. But it's because of her that I can understand all of this.

Mother, thank you for giving me the tools I need to heal. Through your own life, filled with angst and turmoil, thank you for showing me how to be strong. Thank you for teaching me that no matter my storm, my child will never get my rain. Thank you for leaving me with an abuser, it taught me that I never want my daughter to experience the horrors I have. Because my relationships with my own siblings are strained, thank you for teaching me the type of family ties I want to build for my own family. I didn't come from a good family, but a good family will come from me. Because of your choices, I have learned to set boundaries and love from a distance. Thank you for teaching me to never put my needs before those of my child. Because of what I've gone through, I've learned to speak loud and proud in defense of myself and others. Thank you for teaching me what type of mother I never want to be, but giving me the courage to grow into the mother and woman that will be the best example for my own daughter. Thank you for what you could do and what you couldn't...Thank you.