Daughter. in Mental Health

I have one. I’ve probably written about her, I don’t really know. Actually, in this journal as it exists today, there may be no mention. I can’t recall and can’t be bothered to look. Anyway, she’s almost 22 years old. She went to live with her dad, #1 (and now I realize I’ve surely mentioned her before), when she was thirteen.

(deep breath)

So, I’ve been trying to use Instagram for my watercolors. I’m a noob, but I’m learning, and it’s fun. Tonight, I looked at Instagram’s recommended-for-me list thing and discovered one of my daughter’s accounts, one that I’ve never seen before. I went and looked. I shouldn’t have, but I did. Because she’s my fucking daughter, goddammit, and she hasn’t had any contact with me for three fucking years. (deep breath)

At first, I just scrolled, looking at my beautiful girl and how she’s changed over the last couple of years. Oh, she’s so beautiful, you guys. Looks like she’s still got the same dumbass boyfriend, but whatever, and she’s just so beautiful.

Then I saw a picture of a tattoo. On her body. Of her “parent’s signatures.” She has “I love you” tattooed twice, in her dad’s handwriting, and in his beast of a girlfriend’s handwriting. The comment is like a Father’s Day present for her dad and a birthday present for her “mom.”

And, ya’ll, oh my goodness, did I get sad. Heartbreaking sad, painful, deep sad. Like being shot with an arrow in the chest, suddenly something hard and sharp and painful right there, stabbing me in the heart, killing me. After a couple of minutes, I kind of shook it off (a new superpower I learned with my last level up) and scrolled some more.

And then there it was. A post about her therapist telling her she should tell her story. And her story beginning with me and how I abused her so horribly and I was such a monster and then I disowned her and came crawling back out of pity, whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean and I’m like what in the actual fuck is this child saying right now? Who the fuck is she talking about, because it sure the hell ain’t me. Like, this shit did not happen, it did not go down like that at all. And then she goes on to talk about some later time when I and her brothers disowned her “again” and you know the fuck what? Her brother did that, my oldest son. He disowned her because she wouldn’t stop talking shit about me to him. He told her over and over again that she didn’t even know me and had no right to talk about me like she was, saying that I abused her and shit, that I was a horrible mother. Oh yeah, my big boy was livid and finally said, “I don’t have a sister anymore, you’re dead to me,” and blocked her.

I had no idea any of that shit was happening until, an hour later, she blocked me (yes, there is a browser app you can get for Facebook that tells you when someone is removed from your friend list) and I was like oh jeez, what the fuck now?! Because, at that point, she had only been talking to me again for maybe nine or ten months after not talking to me for over two years and illegally joining the fucking military (oh, that’s a whole ‘nother thing I’m not even gonna right now) and keeping it a secret from me so I wouldn’t get her dad’s convicted-felon ass thrown back in prison. Then my big boy decides to say, “So hey, I blew up at my sister and blocked her,” and I’m like ohhhh, so I’m guilty by association?

Now, that first time, when she didn’t talk to me for over two years? I guess that would be her first mention of me “disowning” her, whatever that fucking means. Like, I’m a millionaire and wrote her out of the will, or what? (deep breath) Yeah, that was all on her. She blew up at me because I couldn’t afford to make a 12-hour (minimum) round-trip drive twice to bring her to me for Christmas and called me every name in the book and told me not to talk to her anymore. I had a complete nervous breakdown. It was so much fun.

So, yeah. I saw this Instagram shit and I had a complete fucking meltdown.

Except I didn’t.

Yeah, no. I could feel all of this shit, this anger and hurt and sadness, just raging through me. Through me. Physically, I did not cry. I felt nothing more than a slight tremble, a slightly increased heart rate, and a stab of pain. And then, it passed. I was typing furiously at the Unicorn before realizing that I was processing this really massive thing and he is totally not equipped for that, nor should he be. He is not my therapist, after all, though he is my favorite person to converse with.

A big hateful lying piece of shit thing she wrote about her brothers and I.

And goddammit, I don’t give a fuck that I birthed her, she’s toxic and awful and good fucking riddance.

And I am totally having a complete fucking meltdown panic attack.

Without anxiety. Without crying. Without anything. I can feel it happening and I am just not responding or something. Yes, detached is good.

Okay, a minor tremble.

But that’s it.

And anger. And yes, I am aware the anger is rooted in hurt.

And that I am speaking out of anger. But goddammit what the actual fuck?

She is her father’s daughter. A narcissist.

Okay, the tremble is gone. My body feels completely at peace. I didn’t create this young woman. I did not raise her alone.

I made mistakes, I owned my mistakes, I grew and grew and grew and became a better person.

She refused to ever see or acknowledge that. That is not my responsibility.

And it’s fine, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be working through this in this way.

All of that up there, that shit in bold? Fourteen minutes. I went through this massive mental and emotional process in fourteen minutes. I don’t know about world records for these sorts of things, but it’s certainly a record for me. I do not have to let the actions and words of others harm me. It doesn’t matter that she’s my daughter. It doesn’t matter that I love her and miss her and wish I knew her and wish she knew me. For the last ten years, she has done nothing but hurt me with her words and actions. Longer, even, because she first asked to go live with her dad when she was only ten. I never disowned her, she abandoned all of us, her brothers and I. And then did it again, and again. I didn’t create this thing and I don’t even know if I want to do anything to change it. Her grandmother told me recently that, when she’d spoken to her last, she’d said that she missed us and wished she could talk to me but I had “rejected” her. The last thing I have from her is a lunatic message she sent me on Facebook that ends with, “Don’t ever contact me again.” That was almost 3 years ago. I haven’t. That’s not rejecting her, that’s respecting her, but clearly her “mom” and dad never taught her the fucking difference.