So lemme talk about my mom a moment.
So to start, my mom (51) and I (f28) have not been in contact of any kind for almost a year now (coming up in November!) and I have a PPO against her. This is my first time posting, so bear with me. (Also trigger warning; drug use, neglect, homelessness, child endangerment, mental health, self harm)
My mom was a single mother, I only met my bio father once when I was five. On paper she seemed like a typical mom that 'just loves her only daughter more than the world itself', as many of my family would say. And I suppose maybe that is what she thought.
The real fun started when she got a pen pal boyfriend who just so happened to be an abusive alcoholic who she decided on a whim of loneliness to just let move on with her and her 6 year old daughter. I could go on about him but this post isn't about all that shit, it's just the first slab of wood in the coffin she made for our future relationship.
To put it short, after he was arrested for the 5th time 3 years later he was kicked out, stole my PlayStation 2, and my mom started to use crack. In that time I became her 'therapist'. I was young (about 8 or 9) and didn't understand what was happening, just that mom was sad and I was the only person who could be there for her. And she wanted me by her side to the point she would just let me miss weeks or even months of school at a time. (I still have no idea how she got away with that)
To everyone but my mom and my grandma I was pretty much completely shut down after what I went through with her boyfriend, so I didn't want to go to school anyway. I didn't realize that moment really cemented our relationship as me being more of an emotional support pet than a daughter or even a person. She would even take me with her during school hours to her drug dealers, because apparently it was safer than leaving a 9 year old alone at home.
Then she lost her job and went to rehab, and that was the first time I was away from her in my life for so long. And I felt happy, which of course made me feel guilty. That was the first time in elementary school I went to school for a whole month.
When she came back, it was on and off drugs for years (she never stopped smoking an obscene amount of cigarettes or weed) and she jumped from job to job so fast I couldn't keep track, always lying to me that she still had a job too.
She would even take me to the store, have us fill up a cart, then say her boss was going to meet her there to give her a check, then we would sit in the hot car for hours 'waiting for her boss' and go home with nothing and my faith in my mom dissolved. Yeah she tried that like 5 times up into my teens.
3 evictions, 3 high school attempts leading to dropping out to take care of my mom and keep her from getting arrested for stalking our neighbors and screaming in traffic, and absolutely no doctors visits so I don't 'tell them about her and get me taken away' later, I was 26, had almost no social life outside of work and 3 friends she hated me talking to who all lived out of state, and I am living with her in our last apartment.
We both worked nearby enough to walk to, we were both on the lease but she made enough at her job to pay the rent and I paid utilities, and not even one year later suddenly it's Halloween and I am getting suspicious. She is using my card, suddenly my Gundam models I haven't even started yet are missing, and I walk to her work when she is 'working' to give her lunch.
She hadn't been there in a month.
I call her (to no answer) and she comes back at 9 pm and says she has a new job (she doesn't) and not to worry about it. While she was gone I dig through our trash and find the overdue rent notice a
which I had already put 400 in before I found anything out, and an eviction court notice that we already missed the date on and I confronted her. She said her boyfriend (her drug dealer who she hasn't even talked to in 3 years) would help pay for it and I shouldn't worry.
Needless to say I don't believe a single word she says but I needed a plan. I put everything I can in a 4foot by 4 foot storage, put my very old cat with a coworker temporarily, and kept working and working with a social worker and eventually I ran away from her before we could get evicted, on the day before Christmas eve. The phone calls I got that night were some of the most horrible things she ever said to me.
I stayed the holidays with my elderly coworker who was watching my cat, and in that time it was my first time calling a suicide hotline. Not that it was the first time I had those feelings and thoughts, it was more the first time I felt safe to talk to someone. On new years eve I got into a small homeless shelter, they helped me get my information together since my mom stole my birth certificate and social security card, and 4 months later I paid off the almost 5000 dollars of back rent and fees, established credit for the first time, learned to do my own laundry and paperwork, went to the therapist for the first time in my life, went to the doctor for the first time in over a decade and got my first apartment, all while working full time.
Then, my mom finds me at the bus station. And I feel pity. She follows me back, visits the cat, and then makes up an excuse that the shelter is closed so she should stay the night. I regrettably let her, but insist this is MY home and she was not allowed to stay there. Over the weeks and months she doesn't stay the night but she slowly moves some things in, insisting she just didn't have anywhere to put it because she was homeless, and doing things without asking like doing my dishes or laundry.
She starts insisting that I need her, that I can't survive without her, and I am crying thinking maybe I do, maybe I couldn't. Then one day she snaps, asking why I am posting a vlog about her online (context, I was playing the Sims on my computer and my mom is insane and doesn't understand how technology works), and I ask her to leave for the last time. The last words I say as she rushes out insisting she'd be back and make me pay for punishing her.
She, as far as I know, never came back, but I was paranoid about her being there in my driveway every time I came home. I didn't block her, I'm not entirely sure why, I just let her keep calling me. And she did. 217 voicemails, calling me a whore, that I wasn't really homeless, that it was my fault for not helping her get a new job or let her stay with me, just endless screaming. Until I blocked her.
Then, she started calling my work. And threatening them. Saying that my managers were evil and brainwashing her 'baby'. Yeah, this lead in to getting a protective order. I didn't want to, some part of me hoped that she would just leave me alone and that would be that. Nobody wants to do that, it's their mom.
She didn't even bother showing up to court. Maybe she just ignored when I had a lawyer serve her paperwork. But I showed up, cut and dry got my PPO, and it all stopped. I have no idea where she is, what she's doing, if she's even still alive. And honestly, I don't want to know. Because I know she can't hurt me anymore, and that's all I need.
Still, the whole situation left me emotionally devastated. I dissociate and have irrational thoughts (like checking kitchen cabinets to make sure someone isn't hiding there), which I am working in therapy. I'm also getting my GED, and getting comfortable going out and doing things she never let me do like dance at a club or dating.
And with one year of 0 contact coming up, I am only thinking one thing; How am I going to celebrate? Maybe I'll get myself a cake.