Nobody's Daughter

Both of my biological parents can go straight to hell.  I say that with conviction and 100% confidence in my decision.  Give me flak if you want to, but step into my shoes and walk a mile in my life before you do.  The shit I get here shouldn't happen in a family anywhere.

  Before I launch into yet another tirade about Dear Ol' Mom, let me bring you up to speed about the other person that made me: "Dad".

My parents divorced when I was four years old, their only "legitimate" child being my youngest brother.  Shortly afterwards, he moved to Arizona, where he still currently resides.  My brothers and I only saw him every few years if we went there or he came here, so he was never really involved with us on a normal level.  Yeah, he existed, but he was never really a dad.  Still, none of this really registered with me, I just thought of it as normal.  When we did see him, it would be fun, and that was enough for me.

  When I was 11, my mother was in the thick of her cocaine addiction. (Crystal Meth came later.) After being shuffled around to different relatives and even living with her dealer, she sent the three of us off to sunny Arizona to live with Nana and dear ol' daddy-o.  I, for one, was completely jacked about the idea-I loved it out there, and was thrilled to go. I couldn't pack my bags fast enough. I excelled in school, and was ridiculously popular.  I loved everything about being there, and tho I missed my mom, I wasn't sure I ever wanted to come home.  Of course, just being me, something always has to go stupidly wrong.

  I remember going to my father's friend's ranch for the day, and having the greatest time just being a kid.  We ran around catching horny toads and lizards, rode horses and ate fresh beef jerky right out of the guy's smokehouse.  I was having the best time, and was just loving my dad for bringing me there.  I remember settling myself in his lap towards the end of the visit...next thing I knew, we were at home.

My brothers had both gone straight to bed, and my dad told me I could stay up.  We settled into the couch to watch Leno, I remember Warrant was on there, and they were my favorite back then.  Shortly into the show, my father began fondling my newly developed breast.  I was frozen in my seat-I didn't know what to do.

After a few minutes, I was finally able to move, so I got up and locked myself in the bathroom.  I didn't come out til the sun was up.  He molested me 3 more times after that night.  His fourth attempt was when I was 14, during his visit to my town.  I caught him in my room lurking over me while I was asleep, and I cussed him out.  He never touched me again, but from that day on, I slept with my bedroom door locked.

It took me 20 years to finally tell someone. Of course, word of this got back to him, so I was forced to confront him, something I never anticipated having to do.  Twenty years is a long time to live with something like this, so instead of letting it eat away at me, I learned how to let it go.  When I spoke to him, all I wanted was for him to acknowledge what he did, and apologize.  Instead, he claimed he didn't remember any of it, blaming a head injury.  That was the first time I cried over any of it.  I hung up the phone, and never spoke to him again.  That was 18 months ago.

   This was really the first incident in a long line of them that destroyed my relationship with my mother.  I give her part of the blame for sending me there in the first place-why?  Because my father had a habit of doing things like this to other family members, I later found out, and SHE KNEW ALL ABOUT IT.  But because her drug habit came before her kids, she allowed me to be another victim.  I felt like I was sacrificed.

I've really tried over the years to build a normal relationship with her, but it's impossible. There is so much that I absolutely HATE about her, and no more so than now that I'm stuck living with her.  She is greedy and shady, obscenely dishonest, and feeds off of drama.  She will emphatically spell out my shortcomings down to the letter, but flat out refuses to hear hers, and there are MANY. The worst one?  She is a taker. She constantly has her hand out.  Have money? "Give me $40, I need gas." I'm expected to shell out the little that I have to support 3 able bodied adults, aside from trying to support myself and mine.  She doesn't get what I find so unfair about that scenario, and calls me selfish.  This was after I agreed to pay rent and buy $50 a month for groceries for THEM.  I'm the selfish one??  Really??  The fucked up thing is she has always been like this.  You get to a point where you're just tired of being taken advantage of, and I have reached mine.  I'm getting absolutely NOTHING out of having a relationship with her other than stress and grief, so why should I keep trying to maintain it just because she gave birth to me?  At this point I'd much rather she didn't-If I knew what I was in for, I would have crawled back up the birth canal.

  There is so much more to this, but I'm honestly drained and tired of dwelling on it.  I want nothing more now than to just be back on my feet and to be able to start fresh, without her.  I have no desire to have any sort of connection with her anymore. It's not like I'll be missing anything.  I do know this: May God strike me to ashes if I ever become like her.  I may not be a perfect mother, but I will be damned if my kids ever feel this way about me.  It's my job to see that they don't.