I worked to the best of my ability to be the best mom I could. To be the mother that mine was not allowed to be. To glean the good from my grandmother’s efforts and the hope from my mother’s intentions. I worked to the best of my ability to divide the role of a competent mother between the benchmarkers of success in capitalist economy. I tried to do life in a way that kept the mothering plate in the pit of my stomach, apex of my heart, and at the soles of my feet. My head was the seat of translation for my three mothering centers. Then, I got wave after wave of rejection from the medical academy at my head and throat. All the while receiving assault after assault to my entire being from their father.
Numbers were the alleged reason said my neck above was not adequate for allopathic medicine.
Numerical digits…I have been living my life trying not to be converted into a statistic, despite that is where all roads are designed to point in America for Black bodies.
Sad thing is that despite all things, I am one. I am one of the six percent. All of that effort, just to end up a part of a spreadsheet/data analysis output.
“Six percent of respondents report a period of estrangement from mothers, with an average age of first maternal estrangement of 26 years old; 26% of respondents report estrangement from fathers, with an average age of first paternal estrangement of 23 years old.”
- jOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
And in being a statistic, I also have to acknowledge that my parenting journey was being driven by generational trauma, and my inability to advocate for myself. So much of this pain is because I expected at some point to send off a love filled, anxious, brilliant human into the world on their own. That was supposed to be “the father’s abuse was just a part of the process” release, and I would have to never have to engage their father on my own accord ever again. But here I am being honest about the part of parenting that is not mainstream, and openly engaging the debris from over 15 years of abuse.
September is Suicide Awareness Month.
Today is another proclaimed “day of awareness”.
Today is National Physician Suicide Awareness Day.
I know that I know that if I went to medical school in America, as the medical education system stands right now…I most likely would have been another doctor gone.
I know that what the healthcare bureacrats and financial stakeholders displayed during the lockdown, I would not be here.
I was never going to be good enough for a system built off of racist pain scales/procedures/profits.
Sad to know that i was saved from medicine, only to lose my child.
This will sound repetitious but TRULY, there is always real time analysis of the ability to consider all of the ways I parented to prevent harm as I knew it from happening to the person that I was to parent. I will be referring to them as “the person” and them/they/their pronouns. I know that I used “he/him/his” pronouns before as I was speaking about the past. But until I know otherwise/or I learn that they have gone beyond this place, the person I birthed is now “they/them/their”. Honestly, I have no awareness of who they are to themselves, or how they want to be perceived by the world. I have not had any awareness of their pronouns since Winter 2020/Spring 2021. If they are being referred to as “child”, it is in a historical context, not present day. I acknowledge that they are an adult by American legal standards, and thus I have no rights/privileges to them. Has there been psychoanalysis before this? Absolutely. That is what having an adequate mental health support system is for in these situations: accountability, awareness, and the ability to collectively acknowledge the absence. I do not blame the person for what happened. I blame their father for being the living example of hatred for the Black femme, and using his child for harm. I realize that their adolescence was used to create lies of safety. I realize that the person I birthed did not feel safe with me because of this. And, I realize that they internalized the conflict between their parents. I did my fucking best to protect them from the conflict between their father and I. To my own detriment, I shielded them from my lived experience with their father in thinking it was best for them.
I have exhausted all resources suggested on estrangement, and discovered in order to continually process this emptiness means to exclude much of the identity found in mothering. Much of the first three years of processing involved blaming/hating/over-analyzing myself every moment since I knew they existed. And that is okay, despite reading as desolate. A resource that keeps me sane is praying to the same God that my grandmother prayed to, the same God my birth mother prayed to, the same God that held my ancestors know to well that emptiness is a part of existence. Another resource I hold dear are those that bore witness to my parenting. I never parented behind closed doors. My home in the desert was open to other parents and children that were being reared in community. These people remind me that I tried earnestly. And that despite all failures, all analyses, and Disney-influenced opinions…I am human, loving, accountable, worthy of forgiveness, and enough to exist despite how my parenting identity has panned out. I am technically an outlier at 12.5 yrs old as the year the estragement began to grow. The seeds planted as a toddler, their father began to harvest their hatred at adolescence. And, I have to be okay with being hated by them in their adulthood. I am learning that acceptance is an everyday choice I have to make to stay sane.
This is why I do not blame them. I never have.
Why talk about this now? Well when the timing hits hard, I can only oblige. The records I have kept all these years do not matter anymore, as the person is now an adult and the estrangment has grown with them. I missed out on their period of growth and development that truly develops how they engage with the world. I missed teaching them the clarity and confidence of enthusiatic consent, how to differentiate an acquaintance/friend/mentor/boss/lover/etc., the complexities of learning to be an adult in America, how to engage with the world, and how much they matter in it. Do they know that their father lied to them about so many things about me? Do they know that their father is a harborer of hate? Do they know that the hatred they share for me began in their father’s hatred of his mother? That their father’s narcissism is partially fed by their father’s perceived abandonment by his mother? That their grandmother going back to work and birthing another sibling caused their father to hate her? That their father is a misogynist? They probably do not know, nor care to know those things. No matter how hard I tried for those first 13 years to raise an aware and empathetic being, I was never going to be enough for a child wanting fantasial love from a protected narcissist in a capitalistic, imperialistic, patriarchal, white supremacist country.
This could sound like the chronicles of a typical, tumultous divorce…but, it was the seeds of estrangement planted by their father, and the shade from the canopy of my low self-esteem/self-worth/self-hatred. For 3 years, that man tore me apart using ever resource he thought sufficient. And when I left him, he declared war on me. I filed for joint legal and physical custody. He countersued for full custody. I was parallel parenting before it was a term. It was a necessity. I was having cops called on me, private investigators following me, my finances/life/church were all targets and under a microscope for years while this man did nothing to parent and be present. After a six figure divorce paid for by much of the money he made from being married to me (He invested and saved the housing/food/uniform/dependent allowances because his salary was sufficient to support the family. Found that out after I filed for divorce because I had no access to our finances or obligations.) Birthday parties, school calendars/events, extracurriculars, their child’s entire existence were all shared with that man. I handed that person over to their father with all the things demanded. And know, there are receipts a plenty. The volumes of emotional, verbal, and physical abuse I endured to protect the person from my truth are not in vain.The levels of invisible triggers and traps this man had was an abyss. And, he had made it a point to know all of my traumas and triggers. That is what he does; he studies you, learns what fuels/breaks you, and proceeds in a cycle of fueling and breaking until you are codependent upon him. I am sure that the person does not realize that their father refuses mental healthcare, but forces everyone around him into therapy. In living with that man I learned that he truly believes everyone else is foolishness, and he is the only one that is sane. No one could ever make this man behave with any sense of awareness outside of himself. He demands that you reduce yourself to nothing, and exalt him beyond all things.
Never could I ask for any humanizing reciprocity because that meant abuse towards me and about me to the child. Could never be late, could never be early, could never be competent, could not be anything other than worthless to that man. Does the person I birthed know that their father opted out of feeding, diapers, playdates, taking them to see friends, attending birthday parties, and being present for school functions because he was sending child support? Does the person I birthed know that their father did not participate in their rearing until I filed for divorce for court optics? Literally, not a single park visit till he was served with papers. Or that the person would regress into bedwetting as a toddler when they would return from their father? This is why they could sleep with me until they were nine years old. Or that school was always harder for them after they came from the boundary-less weekends/vacations with their father, and their teachers were the ones that made the connection? Or that he did not actively participate in their rearing until they went to live with them? Or that this man relentlessly said that the person did not need medication or therapy? That this man chose career, self and everything else versus being present despite being an hour and a half away for YEARS? How about how terribly he talked to and about his parents and siblings, believing genuinely that he is better than his own family? Does the person know that everytime they found me in bed in tears, or eyes swollen shut from crying… was from yet another verbal assault or refusal to be present by their father, juggling everything while that man chose absence? No, the person does not know. Because I never said anything. I never used their father’s neglect as a weapon. I never used their father’s ignorance as a weapon. I was grateful the dude even showed up. My own paternal abandonment had blinded me to bleed out for a better connection for my child to their father. And that man knew I had a basal level of expectations of him, but an abundance of gratitude for minimal effort. I did not feel I had the power and ability to refute someone who society upholds as more valuable than me. And, I did not want to add to the cache of mythical crimes that this divorce made him put me on trial for publically and privately. I did not feel it was necessary to give fuel to a popularized stereotype about Black mothers, despite their father constantly trying to provoke me into damaging conflict.
Social media has a lot of y’all throwin around psychological diagnoses without credibility. Their father is a real person with Narcissitic Personality Disorder. This was disclosed to me by a medical professional in order to remove me from danger. But I am sure that the person I birthed does not know this information. The more I sought a sense of self, the more abusive their father became. The marriage revolved around him, and there was no alternative. Imagine sex being demanded, you cannot say no because you are being told that is your job. Now imagine being called every single derrogatory name for sexually active women because he found my stashed away vibrator. I WAS NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE ANY KIND OF PRESENCE/PLEASURE/POWER/PRIORITY IN THAT MARRIAGE. My job was to take his abuse, rear the child, keep the home, have more children, be available to him for his needs whenever, maintain a 2300 sq. ft. home within a $300 (then $350) allowance, and look amazing at the same time. And, I obliged his demands so much so, I abandoned myself. When the person gained their mobility and self feeding abilities, I began to seek betterment of self in the academic arena. This man refused to care for his child when I ASKED TO BE ALLOWED to go back to school. And I quote this man, “your school better not interfere with my life and I am not accomodating your schedule.” And, he was not paying for my education. Decided to finish his master’s all of a sudden. But, I better had made sure he had all the study/writing time he required. He was the “I am not babysitting/watching my kid” guy way before social media. This man went in on me everyday as a partner and mother without restraint. And society still, loved/loves and lifted/lifts that man up. It continues to protect and elevate him, despite the his inability to completely care for anyone other than himself in a loving and affirming manner.
I know that the presence of the person in that man’s life is not about them, it is about how they make him feel. As long as the person is presenting and living as cis-gendered, heterosexual, possessing some kind of militance, hates and dominates women (specifically Black/Brown women), and present full incel, toxic masculity…their father is happy with them because that life makes their father look like a successful parent. This is the ruse of patriarchal, capitalist, imperialist white supremacist. Cloning is presented as parenting. Parenting and cloning are two different things. One is about guiding a person to know themselves and live well in the world. The other is about replicating something with precision and accuracy in mind, not evolution. This is the same man that told a 10 year old that pornography is bad because of the Catholic church....This is the same man that worships Andrew Dice Clay, prides himself in childhood bullying a differently abled child so much that the attacked cussed them out. This man finds humor in harming people that this society has made “an untouchable”. This is the same man that would sit and talk to his child about how he felt child support was not being spent on the child. The same man who told them from the time they were a toddler, that they would come live with them when they were older. The same man that would get out of the car to confront someone in road rage. The same man that demands the world stop to hear and see him. The same man who told their child that the other parent was a failure because they could not provide the toys and technology that he could, is the same parent that left their suicidal teen at home alone with firearms in the house. That their father chose deployment (those of you who do not know how the military with a college degree really works, STFU) so he could be promoted versus being a present father for visitation. The same man who told their small child that housekeeping stole his handheld gaming device from his hotel room in a war ravaged country. This same man has never seen combat, but sat behind a keyboard talking about how he could do his military job and go play golf...This man was coffee-badging on the taxpayer’s dime long before it became a post-pandemic pun. The same man that did not ensure their child got to middle and high school everyday when in his care, is the same man that will fight you about questioning him being a veteran. And because he gives single, White Dad optics, this society gives him the foreplay he needs to get himself off everyday. Does the person I birthed know that their father has protected sexual predators because they were “servicemen”? But again, I am the hated one. I am the one estranged.
A child served on a platter to my abuser for 13 years, but the narrative is that I abandoned the child because I chose not to be used as an outlet for their father’s harming and hatred of women. I sacrificed career, consideration of self, and culture to attempt to give a child fertile soil to grow into WHOMEVER THEY CHOOSE TO BECOME. I love them. In a way that I know they do not understand. How can they? How can they understand that I became exhausted from the weight of blame, abuse, and unattainable expectations from their idol? They are the person in process, not their father. I refused to hold a child accountable for childish errors. Every single gift, trip, adventure that I or my now partner would provide, their father made it a point to superceed it in erasure. I refused to adultify them, but that was countered by their father treating them as an adult in his home. Even when the person put themselves in a position of criminality, I did not blame them. I blamed their father for not placing boundaries on their time spent dissociating at his home. They were allowed adult freedom during the visitation their father began to take up suddenly stringently when I relocated. Their father would not drive the same distance and time for their appointed visitation in our previous location. I blame their father for YEARS OF UNSUPERVISED porn, social media, gaming access, and his exploitation of his child’s escapism. Out here in these innanet streets without no one to mentor them through the nuance and negative. The person was wandering in that universe at TEN YEARS OLD in that man’s house… Digital escapism, adult privilege, and lack of supervision are prime cuts, perfectly tender for consumption by adolescent rage. The father opened all roads regardless of the person’s age and mental health. I blamed their father for the person running away amongst thousands after their father gaslighted them. I apologized in so many different ways for my errors in rearing. So many ways, I realized that as long as the person was going back to a man that hated me, his mother and women… I was never going to be heard, every harm was my fault, and I was a placeholder. And, I was not going to apologize for their father’s inability to fulfill their role in a comparable manner to my mothering. I tried my best to parent the person, while this man made it clear that just his presence was enough, and everyone should be grateful.
I never parented without accountability. I have apologized, and had conversation with the person about all kinds of transgressions over 13 years...A part of rearing someone under my spiritual and emotional sense was to have moments where the person sees my humanity, and I am accountable in it. I asked for forgiveness and apologized for spanking them when they put numbers of others in danger. Gentle parenting was on trend for me in 2005, until they left the house. I can count on one hand the number of times the person receive corporal punishment. And each time, it was the consequence of placing themselves, us, or others in danger. I felt at the time it would be better to feel the sting of me than jail, a weapon, death. This I apologized for, despite having to put my job at the time on the line for prevent prosecution. I apologized for telling them to leave to their father’s house, and do not come back unless it was life or death. I really wish there was another way to cut them off from our home. I wish I could helt the person understand that they were placing us all in harmful situations, but we do not blame them for not knowing how to feel and react in the midst of it. They were a child. But again, I apologized for things that I was not responsible for, and things that I did not even realize were being attributed to me. Despite all the ways I said “I am sorry”, the abuser would always text that the person felt none were genuine. When the person was in the ICU for a suicide attempt during the pandemic, the abuser texted a week after (violating the court order as usual) in notifying me that I needed to record a video/write a letter absolving them of all fault in how things came to pass and apologize again for the above…it was then I made the choice to let go.
It is textbook NPD presentation when I was being blamed for the person’s mental health crises while being denied any physical, video or audio access to have accountable conversations for MONTHS into YEARS. I have every single good and sad note/letter from the person I birthed. One of the last ones, they are apologizing for harm after I discovered they were engaging in dialogue and behaviors that were harmful for them, and for whom they were attracted to. I always taught that a real apology involves changed behavior. Otherwise, conflicts are not resolved for forgiveness and intimacy to grow. Their father/military therapist/Christian Capitalism/White Supremacy says that I am supposed to run to this recorded demand and lay myself bare. That this man would be glorified as a savior, despite not being a parent for 12.5 years. And, the person wanted a savior from my boundaries and expectations as their mother. The person does not know that their father was informed in real time of every report card, hospitalization, health update, and birthday party invitation. So, I gave them to each other and left them to each other. This act is exactly what I was told the person wanted every single time they would scream, cuss and lash out at me…with the wording and tone of their father. So many times in their outbursts, I realized the person was hanging out with their friend who happened to also be their father. I was tired of being the one doing and being blamed for everything, right and wrong. Especially, while this man was able to move through the world telling people he was a father without any sacrifices to validate such. He wanted to again place the weight of everything that was “wrong” on me, so that he and the person could have the seal their universe needed for my black hole. I did not run to record/plead because I realized that their father was doing the same thing he did to me after he physically abused me for the last time. This time, there would be no cop to tell me that this man is abusive. No one to tell me that this man needs this child to regain power over me. And, never would there be someone to force him to be an accountable parent and person. I knew what this was because I saw it before. And, I let the person I spent every breath since I knew they existed living for…go.
While at the time, comedy gave me reprieve at calling this letting go, a “Reeva Styles” move. What I realized with time is that I was not releasing my child to their “Furious Styles”, I sent them to be with my abuser. I wasn’t sending them to avoid them losing their lives from systemic oppression and gun violence. I was sending them to be in the heart of the dream they built. I sent them to live with the person that most wanted me to die. I sent them to the person that hates their mother as much as they love themselves. And in that, I released the child to become the clone their father was so desperate to create. Being okay with that choice is an every. single. damn. day. decision. I had to accept that as no matter how little or much/the place we went/who was present that it would never be enough. I have to be okay that society will never see all of the things I did to make the person openly available to their father. I have to be okay with all of the times their father did not make the effort to be with them. I have to be okay that their father refused group therapy for 12.5 years because he believed I was the issue. I have to be okay with all of narratives that are believed about me. I have to be okay with releasing them at an age where their father felt patriarchal pornography, violence, self indulgence, militarization and objectification was the answer. This is that same man who REPEATEDLY texted that the person needed my warmth and mothering while making it impossible for me to have a conversation with the person. And made it a point of verbally absolving himself on how we got to that point. How can one converse with their abuser about how one should show up when the abuse has not stopped? And especially if the abuse is being perpetuated through a child? It was at the moment that the person’s therapist’s refusal of any medical records prior to the custody change AND group therapy, that I realized the person and their father had set up a whole, new world. And I was not to be in, nor a part of it. I had to accept that the person has made it clear to the therapist that I was the dangerous one to them. And I respected that relay.
So, now that they are an adult…I can say I was fucked the day I chose to value all of the years of never allowing the person to go without cozy shelter/self-led weaning/cloth diapering/homemade food/purified water/best education available/diverse social developement/joy in every expression/affection/play/honesty/discovery/boundaries/unconditional love and all of what comes with holding them to my chest while getting them ready for the world...I was fucked the day I said that their father was entitled to them regardless of how he treated me. I was fucked the day their father opted out of attending his child’s first day of school drop off, first baseball game, first friend’s birthday party, when their father missed their first steps, when I laid down whenever he demanded sex. I was fucked when I sourced organic foods, replaced and repaired by hand their clothing, exposed them to different races/ethnicities/sexualities/religions/genders. I was fucked when I did not force their father to be present for a surgery he was so adamant needed to happen. I was fucked when I did not cuss out their father when the person broke their arm being unsupervised. I was fucked when I did not counter any narrative about me their father vented to them. All in all honestly, I am here because I stopped trying to be all things to a child who was being taught by their father that I was nothing but a money hungry baby mama that was required to be all things to them. I know that I know the written/recorded apology I was asked is the apology their father wants from their mother. I know that I know that the warmth that was being demanded from me amidst abuse was the warmth their father wanted from his mother when she went back to work and had another child. I know that the person does not have the capacity to contain the multitude of abuse multimedia I have from their father.
Because I chose not to engage into a dynamic that denied me agency, input, and response but demanded my presence…I am estranged from them. Because I refused to commence in a redefined one sided relationship that required communication with their abusive af father as their mouthpiece…I am estranged from them. Because when I realized that nothing I did was ever going to be enough for a grown man who is using another person to act out their childhood traumas…I am estranged from them. Because I knew that even if I groveled deeper into self-immolation for a person who is now an adult that demonizes me while glorifies my abuser…I am estranged. I chose to be safe. I chose to be safe mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. And I am trusting that in their decision to be with their father and to let them go, that they are safe. Relationships are meant to grow and change. Parents are meant to go from providers and guiders to equitable and engaging companions. And with culture, those cared for hopefully reciprocate the love in old age. I really did try to do that... And, I really did fail. But as I wade in the shores of this side of this sea, I am comforted that my ancestors waded in these same waters. I am comforted knowing that I did apologize many times over in an accountable manner, and this was witnessed at times. I am comforted knowing that exhausted every single avenue available to get them the support they needed to be stable, and that it is okay that it was not enough. I am comforted knowing that the peers that spent nights in my home with them, still love and feel safe with me. I am comforted because kids still randomly follow me around, grab me when afraid, or ask me the most amazing questions.
I am comforted because I love my grandmother so deeply, that I see her pain amidst the poise.
I am comforted because I love my birth mother so deeply, that I see her pain amidst the pursuit of freedom from addition.
I am comforted because I love the person with all of the matter in my body and soul. And that just because I am not enough for them, does not mean that I am not enough.