Dear Mom

Almost since I started this blog, I've been trying to write an entry about my mom. It's not an easy thing to do. There's so much there, that it becomes this rambling, epic post that hardly makes sense. I can't say that this post will be any different, but today I have a real need to write about it, so here goes.

The other day, my mother's husband's daughter (I guess that makes her my step-sister. I've never even met the girl, and she's probably 15 or so years younger than me, so it feels really awkward for me to call her that.) asked me to be her friend on Facebook. I had no reason not to accept, and she probably won't even write to me so no issue there. In doing so, I found out my Mom has a Facebook account. All this time, and she'd never invited me to be her friend. I know it sounds silly, but it's my MOM. To be fair, she may not have known I had an account, but in all likelihood she did. I am friends with my niece (who practically lives with her) and I am on my niece's page.

A couple days later, my Mom asked me to be her FB friend. I'm sure she realized that I saw her on my step-sister's page, but then maybe I'm on the psychotic tip a little. Of course I accepted, she's my Mom. Here's the thing: I went to her page and she had listed my sister and my niece as her children. No mention of me. I am suddenly daughter-non grata. You can list anyone you want as your child, they don't have to be on Facebook. So even if she didn't know I had a page, she could have put me there. I can't see any way around this. To her, she still only has two daughters. I am just not one of them. Her granddaughter, (my niece) has somehow become her second daughter.

This may all seem silly and minor to everyone. Compared to everything else she's done to me, it actually is. To me, I think it's just the final acknowledgment that she really doesn't have any special sort of love or even affection for me. I'm just someone to whom she gave birth. A mentally defective person to whom she gave birth.

My Mom has lied to me, manipulated me, stolen money from me, had inappropriate relations with my ex-husband (while he was my husband), accused me of throwing myself at her boyfriend (ewwww), shamed and humiliated me, and so on and so forth. I could sit here for hours describing in detail the times she has deeply wounded me. To what end? To prove that she's Joan Crawford and that I don't deserve what she does to me? I finally have come to the conclusion that things are what they are. I now realize that not only is my Mom a really bad mother, she's kind of a bad person, too.

I was going to use this post as an open letter to my Mom. I can't write to her because there's no point to it. She would tell me that I was crazy and get mad. Then it would become a whole big family thing with my sister and my aunt involved. While I was writing though, I also realized I don't have any anger left in me to say anything to her. She's reduced herself to nearly nothing in my life by being the kind of mother, the kind of person she is. All my life I have forgiven her--no given her PERMISSION--to be the kind of person she is and treat me the way she has. As I grew older and more aware, I pulled away from her because she is toxic. A part of me remained the loving daughter because I always had a tremendous love for my mom. Over time though, she has managed to reduce that love, dismantle it, destroy it. She can say what she likes or think what she likes about me now. If I am not her child anymore, that is ok. I think I stopped being her child in my own eyes a really long time ago, too.