Dear Mom, You Knew You Had Mental Illness. Why Didn’t You Tell Me?

Some stories are too heavy to speak out loud. This is mine—a letter to the one person I can never send it to.

We sold the house, Mom.

I know you believed your things were worth more, but you were wrong. They didn’t buy us freedom, security, or the new beginning you once imagined. Instead, the money barely covered the wedding in New Orleans.

I decorated with butterflies—your favorite—just for you.

The furniture couldn’t be saved. The floor was too damaged, too unstable for anyone to live there. I tried to give away your antique desk and Grandma’s dressers, but no one wanted them. So I did the only thing I could: I packed what I could into a U-Haul and drove ten hours by myself.

Your 5’5” daughter, alone in a massive truck, terrified and yet somehow alive with adrenaline. It was frightening and empowering at the same time.

I thought of you every mile of that drive.

The Mess You Left Behind

I’m a size 6 now, Mom. No more diabetes. No more obesity. I don’t know what it cost me to get here, but I did it. And now I live with the discomfort it takes to stay healthy, because I refuse to die young and broken the way we always seemed destined to.

But here’s the thing—when you left, you didn’t just leave me memories. You left me with a mess.

And maybe that was inevitable. But I can’t help wishing it had been a little smaller.

And maybe—just maybe—with a note.

Not a dramatic goodbye. Not some big reveal. Just something practical. A password to your bank account. A list of bills. Anything that said, I knew this day was coming, and I tried to make it easier for you.

Something that reminded me I wasn’t alone in this.

What I Wish You Had Said

If you had left me a letter, Mom, I wish it had said something like this:

“It wasn’t just you.”

“It wasn’t all in your head.”

“You weren’t wrong for struggling.”

But there was nothing. Just silence. And me, picking up the pieces of both the physical clutter and the invisible weight you left behind.

I wish you had told me the truth—that you battled mental illness.

I wish you had given me the language to name my own struggles earlier.

I wish I had known that what we carried wasn’t shame or weakness but an invisible weight too heavy for one person to hold alone.

Because maybe then I wouldn’t have blamed myself for everything. Maybe then I wouldn’t have felt so broken.

The Legacy of Silence

Mom, your silence shaped me more than your words ever did.

I know now that you weren’t hiding the truth out of cruelty. You thought you were protecting me. But instead, it left me confused, ashamed, and angry at myself for years.

I want to believe that if you had been honest, we could have faced it together. That we could have found healing instead of hiding.

But instead, I’m left with questions I can never ask and answers I’ll never get.

Love, Paused Mid-Sentence

If I ever leave behind the kind of mess you did, I hope someone will see it for what it really is. Not failure. Not weakness. Not shame.

Just love—paused mid-sentence.

Because that’s what I believe your life was. A sentence you couldn’t finish. A story cut short by pain too heavy to carry.

Grief doesn’t pay the bills, Mom. But writing about you keeps me alive.

It reminds me that I can take the silence you left behind and turn it into something meaningful. Something that says to others: you are not alone.

So here it is—my letter to you. A letter I can never send, but one that I hope will help someone else who feels the same kind of silence I grew up with.

💌 If you’ve ever lost someone to mental illness, or if you’ve ever carried unspoken struggles, know this: you are not broken. And you are not alone.