I PROMISED MY PAIN WOULD END WITH ME

I lost my mother before I even knew what life without her would mean.

She didn’t walk away. She didn’t abandon me.

She died.

But that didn’t make the grief any softer.

That didn’t make the silence at night less loud.

That didn’t stop the ache of needing her through every heartbreak, every birthday, every ordinary day that life kept throwing at me.

Death took her but pain raised me.

And when I say pain raised me, I mean I was raised by someone who only knew how to hurt.

A woman who should’ve been a second chance at love but became my deepest wound.

My stepmother didn’t mother me.

She broke me, beat me, silenced me.

She called it “discipline.”

But it was punishment for simply existing.

I was forced to grow up too fast.

I learned to keep my voice down, my head down, my spirit small.

I became the “good child” to avoid the bad treatment.

I learned how to protect myself not with love, but with survival.

And even when I grew up, even when I left her house and created a new life…

She still lived inside me.

Her voice echoed in my mind every time I made a mistake.

Her coldness became the wall I built around my heart.

Until one day…

I became a parent.

When I first held my daughter, I was terrified.

How do you mother a child when you were never properly mothered yourself?

How do you speak gently when your childhood was filled with yelling?

How do you protect when you were never protected?

That’s the thing about trauma it doesn’t go away just because you love someone.

It lives in your body, your reflexes, your fears.

It whispers in your ear even when you’re trying to be kind.

It tells you: “You’re not good enough.”

“You’re going to fail her, just like they failed you.”

But in that moment, I made a promise to God and to myself:

“The pain ends with me.”

“She will not spend her life healing from what she didn’t create.”

And so began the hardest, most sacred work of my life:

Healing while parenting.

Loving while still learning what love even feels like.

I had to unlearn everything that pain taught me.

I had to teach myself how to hug without flinching.

How to apologize without shame.

How to be present, not perfect.

There are days I still struggle.

Days when my voice rises before my heart catches up.

Days when I cry quietly after bedtime because I know I could’ve done better.

But I always go back. I always try again.

Because she deserves wholeness.

She deserves a mother who sees her, hears her, fights for her.

I pray a lot.

Not because I’m weak, but because I know the strength it takes to break a generational curse.

I don’t just pray for patience or peace.

I pray for courage.

The courage to face my triggers.

The courage to forgive the woman who hurt me even if I never hear “I’m sorry.”

The courage to look at my child and say, “You are safe. I will never let this world break you the way it broke me.”

This journey isn’t just about being a better parent.

It’s about being a better human.

There are so many of us people walking around with bleeding childhoods, pretending we’re okay.

We laugh in public, cry in private.

We become strong, but not always healed.

And then one day…

We’re given a child.

Or a partner.

Or someone who loves us unconditionally.

And suddenly, we have to choose:

Repeat what hurt us or rise above it.

To every man and woman out there

Every firstborn who had to be “the strong one.”

Every survivor of emotional abuse.

Every parent raising kids while healing from childhood pain

I see you.

I am you.

And you are not alone.

You’re not weak for feeling overwhelmed.

You’re not broken beyond repair.

You’re not a failure if you have bad days.

You’re just someone doing something incredibly hard:

Changing the story.

I may have lost a mother.

I may have been raised in shadows.

But I am walking in light now.

Because I chose to fight.

Because I chose to heal.

And most of all…

Because I chose love.

The kind of love that is soft.

The kind of love that apologizes.

The kind of love that sits on the floor and plays.

The kind of love that listens.

My daughter will grow up knowing pain exists but she’ll also know peace is possible.

She’ll understand what love feels like because she lived in it.

She’ll have hard days but she won’t carry wounds that aren’t hers.

Because I did the work.

I cried the tears.

I stood in the fire.

And I came out holding her hand not my trauma.

This story isn’t just mine.

It belongs to everyone who’s ever said:

“This ends with me.”

It belongs to everyone who is healing loudly, lovingly, and honestly so the next generation doesn’t have to.

If you're still in the fight, still figuring it out day by day, just know this:

You're not behind.

You're not alone.

And you're already changing the future one choice at a time.