Mother's Day Confessions

We have not spoken in years, but I wanted to say Happy Mother’s Day and that mom you are still loved. Despite the fact we cannot get along I wanted you to know what you're about to read, I’ve written with love. It is enclosed with secrets that you are unaware of and that I never saw as being important enough to discuss. I hope you read this with the perspective of me being thankful, for giving me the best part of you and that is your strength. I am dedicating this written piece to you, my favorite girl, the only one in the whole wide world I ever wanted to be my superhero.

You had me at the age of fourteen and I was immediately given to Rosetta for adoption. I lived in Marcy Projects in two different apartments that gave me a complex with white and yellow walls. Rosetta’s unmatched artistic style of abusive acts, and her descriptions of who you were as a person left me severely depressed as a child. I was secretly traumatized to the degree that I found gratitude and a love/hate sense of appreciation for the walls.

Mom, I had gratitude because they were the only thing that caught some of the licks from her belt buckle. I had a love for them when they gave me privacy and allowed me to love and comfort my little sister, Nicky. They embraced me, gave me privacy, while self-soothed with harmful self-afflicting behaviors, and for that. I will forever be grateful. These walls hid not only the affection but could drown out the screams for help from Keona when Uncle Jr raped her, on my birthday. I had profound hate for these walls because they kept my abusers safe, and stored many abusive events that took place that I have blocked out but wanted to tell you about. Those walls met the faces of many women busting their lips and cracking their noses, all from my uncles who cared less about a woman’s safety.

Mom, these apartments held many stories of how you were described to be my worst nightmare. I was given no pictures of you to see so verbal descriptions were shared. Your avatar was carved into my spirit as having a light-skinned complexion, heavy hips and thighs, and feet that were so heavy when you see stomping my brother in the face, his eye was blacked, nose broken, and both lips disoriented. I was told your eyes were demonically created and that it made you look inhumane, they were large, and could be seen in the dark. These images were told in dark settings, spoken from the drunkest nights from her vodka saturated tongue, and during her undiagnosed bipolar episodes that lasted for hours.

I want you to know that I secretly held you close to my heart and that despite the horrific ways you had been described to me, I held the belief of having a mother that was somewhere loving me and missing me. I was never angry about your absence, the moments I was told you cared nothing about having me or coming to see me and was only concerned with men; I kept your existence angelic mentally. I was not even able to shake when I found your journal, proving you’re your focus and endurances to keep safe with the men I was warned about. I kept my faith in you, I was patient about your understanding of your decisions and held your journal in secret until I was able to see you one day.

I could never express the amount of love I had for you. I just knew that if I held your secrets at such an early age and did not permit anyone to have the satisfaction of having the permission to embarrass you, all my traumatizing experiences you would find a way to remove them from me having to carry any further. Mom, I fantasized about you coming to save me at the time you saw to be fit.

So, mom, I kept the traumatic events of being molested by my two uncles a secret and decided I would never tell Rosetta. To wait for you regardless of how long it took, was the best decision for me. I stored all the details of when I was grabbed by the vagina by an individual, I have blocked out who was one day, supposed to be just teaching me math. I made the agreement to follow the instructions of the other uncle, to never speak of how he found satisfaction in giving me oral sex beneath the dinner table. I wanted you to know that I was a strong mommy, that I did not scream, the sexual abuse went on for years with him. I could not wait to tell you how I much I was wounded, but a warrior because I did not permit it to break me.

In addition, to all the abuse while living with Rosetta, I secretly suffered from very horrifying, disturbingly vivid, undiagnosed schizophrenic hallucinations. I was hallucinating, of distorted people touching me. I saw monsters’ demon-like beings, who would just sit on my bed and leave me physically paralyzed for hours in the night. I thought of you often during these confusing times, and some nights I was able to cope with the images because visions of your face comforted me.

September of 1997 arrived, I was now thirteen, and you were given custody. I was conditioned to be a people pleaser and I desperately wanted to please you, in every way. I made sure to keep the house clean, mopped the floors, religiously kept the kitchen clean, did laundry, and monitor your facial expressions for peace. I held an immediate desire to share my stories of trauma, Nicky was the priority, and I was fine with that. If it pleased you to not acknowledge that I didn’t have any stories of abuse, I was fine with that too. I was focused on expressing with my body language, that I’ve been waiting for you, and just wanted you to love on me when you were available.

I was intentional about how I responded to you. during the first several months of my time with you. I needed you to know that I wasn’t angry at you for taking so long. I spoke to you with respect, and made sure I was saturated with all my love when I called you “mommy”. The remains of my inner child’s innocence held so much trust in you to be a loving mother. It brought me closer to you, to hear you speak openly about all your abuse, abandonment, hardships, pregnancies, molestations, and other traumatizing events. I comprehended that I needed to have more patience for you. I secretly, made it my responsibility that you would never experience abandonment from me.

After hearing your unfortunate stories, I felt my traumas weren’t that bad. So, as time passed, I tried not to take it personally. I stayed grounded, and resilient, and tried not to internalize any indirect emotional abandonment. However, it was difficult to ignore how you started to reveal how my presence, made you uncomfortable. I took note of how you would look at me if I laughed at something. You made it strongly clear that you held space, to offer me emotional availability. You never had to explain to me that is how you expressed, your love to Nicky. My intuition warned me that I was not safe and that I was abandoned again.

I protected the image of you for years. You traumatizingly introduced, unfathomable ragingly abusive versions of you. Versions that I had was warned about by my previous abuser. You have subjected me to violating episodes that secretly deteriorated, my mental health further. My learning abilities and my social skills were severely compromised. When the visits from child protective services were called, I kept my promise to never abandoned you. I lied for you. I thought that if you saw I could take abuse, you would stop and eventually love me.

Mom, I try to tell myself all memories of you aren’t bad. I reminisce about you spending all the rent money one year, on Christmas gifts. The year we lived in a Florida shelter makes me smile sometimes too. When you were ready to spend the security deposit money for an apartment and take us to Disney World. We hadn’t found a place yet, and everything seemed to be going wrong. The call for desperate measures was being demanded, and an emotional rescue was needed.

I’ll never forget these types of moments. These are the times when you operated like that superhero, I always fantasized about. But my mental health was taken for a ride while living with you and Rosetta. Unfortunately, I begin to remember the days that you’ll never apologize for, and we’ll never discuss. Nights like when I came home from my EMT externship. Beaten with an extension cord that was dipped in boiling water. You stripped me, instructed to open my legs, and vaginally spread me apart to confirm my virginity. It’s a scene only those damn walls witnessed, and once again sending me no rescue.

My body had reached its full capacity of being violated and as an adult, I was unable to be confident in my physical appearance. I struggled severely on a sexually intimate level. My first lover of fifteen years was unable to see me naked, for any reason. If he had to use the restroom while I was showering, the lights had to be turned off. I made love with the lights turned off because my facial expressions would have told truths, but I wasn’t ready to tell him. I reached a point where I wanted to numb the pain of feeling so alone. It led me to overdose four times and be hospitalized countless times.

In June 2020 I lost my god-brother Marquis to suicide. He sat in his car and shot himself in the head. I watched his brain matter be wiped off the windows, and large bags be filled with napkins saturated with blood. I identified his body at the funeral home and lowered his body into the casket while screams echoed throughout the church. I saw things I did not want to discuss with anyone but you. I knew you did not have the emotional availability for me. To have you watch me fall apart and not offer to pick me up; was not an option.

I leaned on my best friend Andre. He got me through a very dark summer. Andre deceased from liver failure in October 2020. After losing my brother, Andre, and several others to sudden and unfortunate deaths. It opened my eyes and made me see life from a unique perspective. I began the process of healing and making room for myself to enjoy living. I study all the ways I can recover from all that has happened.

I have finally gained peace in peace in my life. I have been diagnosed with Schizophrenia/Bipolar 2, I am on the right track with medication, and I have a great medical support system. I got married. I am a woman of leadership, and I am becoming a business owner. I am also about to receive my bachelor’s degree in biology.

I read, study, watch lectures, journal, and attend therapy regularly. I am taking care of myself and dealing with life’s turbulence as it comes. I am in the pursuit of happiness that does not rely on outside sources. I am doing the work to find happiness within my spirit. You and Rosetta might have made me fall at times, but I got up. I didn’t become another statistic, I became the woman you never had a chance to become.