Dear Mom,

I love you, but I hate you as well. This love/hate relationship with you is tearing me apart, even if I convince myself I'm totally over you. You were never a good mom, you did almost everything wrong that a mother can possibly fuck up. You were an alcoholic and drug addict my entire life, and although I know those substances are addicting, it doesn't change that your addiction scared me as a child and teen. Remember when you threatened to rip my arms off when I threw your alcohol away, how you smashed my phone to pieces after I called police? Remember how when you saw my self-harm cuts you stabbed a knife into the table and dared me to kill myself because "if I really wanted to I would've done it already?" And remember when you told me you wished I had come out a boy, or that you didn't think I was really into girls, or that you wanted children out of me even though I don't want any? Remember when you "joked" by calling me retarded and fat, when you smacked me in the face and spanked me? And I bet you remember your own jealousy towards any positive figures in my life. Therapist? Doesn't know what she's talking about. Best friend? She's doing my job when she shouldn't be. Guidance counselor? He's the one causing problems for you, not me. You blame everyone but yourself, or you blame your sad little childhood on why you had to make mine equally worse. "B-But I was beaten by your grandpa and raped by xyz and traumatized" shut the fuck up. I don't care, none of it was an excuse to ruin my life since the day I was born. I joke that God didn't even want you to birth me, because there were so many complications during birth that it seemed like He was almost trying to kill me and save me from you. Hey, I guess you could call me a sacrifice, because after my birth I messed up your uterus so much that you could never have kids again. But why me? Why couldn't you have aborted me, you were still so young and living with family and financially unstable and mentally ill and going to college. You aborted to others, why was I the baby you felt was destined to ruin? It's not fair, why couldn't I have gotten a regular mother? Why did I get some mentally ill narcissist who "loves" me but treats me like a punching bag. I'm glad you're gone from my life, but now that you're on the streets doing God knows, I'll never stop being afraid. Will you break into my home to try and repair things and take me away? Will one of your drug dealer friends go after me if you fail to pay them back? Will you talk too much about me on the street and somebody comes here trying to rob me? Who fucking knows. You always were so talkative to your friends about me, painting me as an angel yet treating me like disposable trash. Everyone blames your bad decisions and actions on the substances, but you're still a bad person sober. Angry and impatient and bitter, you walked around our house like a raging bull then complained that i locked myself in my room too much and didn't talk enough to you. I hope when you're out there prostituting and doing drug deals and stealing from stores, you remember the little girl you failed back home, the little girl who at one point loved you unconditionally and let you take advantage of. You had a fucked up past, but you could've bettered yourself, used it as a lesson. Instead, you decided that I deserved the same pain you received, put me through hell and back just because you never wanted help, from me or the rest of the family or friends or professionals. I sincerely wish you had a better life, a better past and a life where you never had me and pursued a career as an art teacher. But you did this. This life you lead now is all you. I didn't do this, this isn't my fault, I was a bystander to your own self-destruction. I'm glad you're suffering, because you deserve it, you deserve it after ruining my life and filling my past and memories with disgusting rotten patches. You better not show your face even once around me, never try to reach out or see me. You'll just be damaging me even more than I already am, and if you loved me so much you'd want to avoid that. Instead, I want you to disappear. Leave me and my family alone, go start a new life somewhere that is far away from us. Go destroy yourself completely or better yourself, I don't care. I just never want to deal with you again. You failed as a mother, and the trauma of what you've done will weigh on me forever. I want to make my life better, to progress towards a future NOT full of yelling and broken glass and slammed doors. I long for peace and calmness, something I'll never ever get with you. Even if you did fix yourself up for me, my mind will never forget what you've done. I'll always be scared of you and angry at you and repulsed by you. So if you heal yourself for good, do it for yourself, but don't do it for me. Your efforts won't be rewarded, they won't even be acknowledged. Because being better isn't about recognition. I love you, I'll never stop.