Loved as a Trophy, Discarded as a Human
*Mother's Day was the 20 year anniversary of reuniting with my mother (RIP 2014) and it has triggered a lot of anger toward my grandparents. I went NC with them 5 years ago- turns out I didn't even have to block them. I am now 36 and I decided to finally get out what I wish I could say.*
For years, you two have operated under the delusion that you are the righteous judges of this family. But the truth is, you have a disgusting, lifelong history of weaponized neglect. You don’t protect your family; you perpetuate a cycle of destruction and then wash your hands of the fallout. You watch your own grandchildren spin out into severe trauma, unhealed dysfunction, and toxic lives. Whether they are struggling with depression, ill, losing everything, or living in a tent- instead of providing any kind of support that they may need, you treat them like a spectacle; you point your finger, gossip, and shake your heads. You sit back and act completely bewildered by what happened to them, entirely refusing to see that their broken lives are the direct harvest of the neglect that you helped sow.
Instead of addressing the instability and codependence that you fostered, you scapegoat the ex-husbands for all of it. You chose absolute blindness when it comes to your own children. My mother was notoriously unstable, even when she wasn’t in active addiction. Meanwhile her twin sister was abusive, mean, neglectful, and also in active addiction. You completely overlook the reality of the horror she inflicted on her own children- getting into physical fights and encouraging drug use as young as middle school, then filing a restraining order on their father (over a lie) and then abandoning her 14-year-old daughter in a house alone for months at a time. Yet you sweep all of that unhinged behavior under the rug and point your fingers outward, as though the men are the only ones dysfunctional.
My mother caught the absolute brunt of your malice. In the early 90s, when she was in the hospital, actively fighting bronchitis and double pneumonia, rather than giving her comfort and support, you called her and told her she created her own problems. According to your sick, twisted logic, she deserved the hardships she was experiencing because she just shouldn’t have left my father: a man who was so pathologically neglectful that when my mother wrecked his car with me in the backseat at two years old, his first and only question was whether the car was totaled. A man who, years later, would stand by as a passive bystander while his next wife beat me bloody.
My mother fled that neglect only the end up trapped with a monster who physically abused us both and >!raped!< her multiple times. There she was, actively suffocating from bronchitis and double pneumonia as well as grappling with the reality of what this man had done to us, yet you sat in judgement of your battered and deathly ill 23-year-old daughter, all to protect your own comfort.
When we reconnected when I was 16, of course I didn’t know all of this. You showered me with affection and gifts. You loved to brag on your “favorite” grandchild. I was smart, high-achieving, and made the honor roll. Even better when I ended up in an advanced high school. I was your trophy. I was a blank slate you could use to soothe your pathetic guilt about missing my childhood and failing my mother.
The rule in your home has always been pretty clear. It just took me a while to see:
As long as you fall in line, you are family.
But the moment the crushing weight of any kind of trauma actually starts to manifest, you reject us as human beings. Instead of seeing your hurting grandchildren who desperately need some kind of support system, you treated my cousins, my sister, and eventually me like a sideshow spectacle. All while you enjoy your little cross-country trips. You cut people off and turn their hardships and trauma responses into family and church gossip instead of providing any kind of actual support or concern.
Then in 2020, I broke. And I learned exactly what it felt like to be reduced to a spectacle by you. I found myself in a mental health crisis where I was actively hallucinating and could not stop crying. I was also homeless. I showed up on your doorstep sobbing, gasping for air, and begging for help. The one thing I know I was clear about- I needed to go to the hospital.
But what did you do?
You sat there and listened to your “favorite” grandchild spill out her heart and soul, just looking for some kind of encouragement and support. Then you turned to me and said
“You know, plenty of people have had it harder than you.”
You minimized my abuse, completely ignoring the fact that your own decades of neglect and absence during my childhood created the toxic environment I was raised in. You shut the door on me when I was at my absolute lowest. And the most sickening, hypocritical part? You did it while actively enabling, funding, and housing your toxic and hateful daughter, ignoring her addiction, throwing money at her despite her disrespect, and letting her live under your roof, multiple times. As she abandoned her own children. You tolerate and fund active destruction, but a genuine cry for medical help from a traumatized grandchild was too much for you to handle.
But you couldn’t just stop at turning me away, could you? Your fragile, self-righteous egos couldn’t handle the reality that you are cruel, neglectful people. So, you did what you always do: you rewrote history to make yourselves the victims. You called that same aunt and spun a trashy transactional lie, claiming I only showed up “asking for money”. You flattened my crisis into a cheap cash grab so you could feel better about yourselves.
Fuck you for that. Fuck you for twisting one of my most dark and vulnerable moments into gossip to protect your image and conscious.
It was never your money that any of us needed. We don’t show up at your door looking for handouts; we needed your support, your care, and some semblance of guidance and motivation from the people who claimed to love us. Cutting off your grandchildren and treating their hardships like a sideshow spectacle actively perpetuates the problem. Here is the truth you refuse to look at: you are selfish, cruel, hypocritical human beings. Your Sunday-best church persona is a joke.
And that is the ultimate pathetic irony of who you are, Mimi. You spent our entire lives making sure everyone knew how much your own mother hated you. You constantly reminded us that she didn’t like you, didn’t love you, and didn’t want you. You carried that wound like a badge of martyrdom. But look at you now- treating your own grandchildren like garbage the second they show their pain. By withholding your love and casting us out, you have become the exact woman you despised. You are acting just like your mother. You perpetuate the exact same cruelty, rejection, and coldness that broke you, and you are inflicting it on the generations that follow.
But here is the ultimate fuck you: I survived. I dragged myself out of that gutter entirely without your help, despite the disgusting narrative you tried to paint me with.
Today, I have my own apartment; a home with a thriving garden and my animals. I have a great job with security in a field I am passionate about. I did, indeed, become the successful, high- achieving person you always wanted to brag about. But you don’t get to see it. You don’t get to experience it. And you don’t get a single ounce of credit for it.