*GRAPHIC INFORMATION ABOUT SUICIDE, DRUGS, AND SEXUAL ABUSE* *PLEASE LEAVE THIS BLOG IF READING ABOUT THESE THINGS MAY HURT YOUR PROGRESS OR TRIGGER YOU IN ANY WAY*

My entire life I can’t remember my mom being a good, solid, stand up type of mom. I remember her doing things that a mother might do, but she never went a long stretch of time without doing something.. unmotherly, if you will. For example, I remember her putting my socks and shoes on for me as a little girl, I remember her getting my sister ready for school, and I remember her bathing my siblings and I. But I also remember her leaving my siblings and I alone in our apartment for days. Sometimes locked in our room and other times, she forgot the lock. We would snack on pickles, canned goods, tubs of margerine, whatever we could get in our stomachs. I remember receiving a new toy for my birthday and within a few hours, watching my dad break it on my mom’s face while she was sitting directly beside me after she threw a dumbbell at his. I remember being 15 months older than my brother, changing his diaper because my mom had slept in until it was dark out again, when I was barely 3 years old. You see, my mom and dad were meth addicts. My mom still is. You may be asking yourself, “how does any of this relate to the title?” I’ll explain all of that in a moment. But first, get comfy, because I have a bit of back story to cover before I can really explain what it’s like to grieve a person that still walks the earth.

For my 4th birthday, I got a cake with Esmeralda on it. I found my brother in the kitchen sticking his fingers into the frosting and licking them repeatedly. I held a grudge against him for that for a long time, and I couldn’t figure out why it made me SO MAD. Then I learned later in life that within just a couple days of that incident, my parents were arrested for producing methamphetamine, possession, and intent to distribute. Myself and my 2 siblings were removed from the apartment and placed with a family member. My sister went on to live with her biological father and my brother and I stayed together. Why didn’t I remember this? Because I found out the way it happened was actually pretty traumatic and I’m experiencing an entire years worth of memory block. I just linked my anger to the last thing I could remember. My birthday cake. The police allegedly came to our apartment to find the 3 of us kids, home alone, so they backed out to wait for our parents to get home. They then broke down the door and beat my dad with flashlights because he was resisting arrest. He was high and believed he was superman. My mother sat there crying as if she didn’t know why they were there, and a DHS worker collected my siblings and I. We were placed with our paternal grandparents. My mom and dad’s sentences were over 4 years each, so their parental rights were terminated, and our grandparents adopted my brother and I. Effectively making my parents legally my siblings. (Imagine having to explain to people that you’re not weirdos, you’re just adopted.)

My parents went on to get out of jail. They seemed to do good for a few months. And then my mother fell back into doing meth. (I later found out that she never stopped. Apparently she was still able to get it in prison.) And with her influence, my dad fell back into the pit with her. They had 2 more children, now both in their early teens, and the only person that has ever tried to keep the family on the right path was my dad. He at one point even had all of the kids (including me and my brother, as my grandparents still allowed us to contact them) going to church every sunday. My mom just kept seeking the meth. No matter how hard my father tried, his love for her made him unable to push her away, effectively bringing him right back into her trap every time. She never had a single desire to be sober. About a year and a half ago, my dad kicked her out of the house. She was smoking pot with my 12 year old brother, letting the kids run the streets and not making them go to school at all while my dad was at work. The boy’s already had trackers at ages 11 and 12. She took the boy’s with her and the grief became too much for my dad. He invited her to come back, but only if she quit smoking meth. He was clean and sober from any substance, he had taken out a mortgage on their long time residence, he was going to work every day, and he was excited to provide for his family in a wholesome way. She promised to stop. She moved back in with the kids. Less than 2 weeks later, he killed himself. He was found in his room on September 13th, having been dead for several hours. My mom immediately went through his pockets as he was still hanging from a wall mounted shelf. She took out his ATM cards and drove to the bank to find 31 cents. She expressed how upset she was that he left her with no money. At that exact moment I knew I hated her. Those next 3 days were the worst of my life. During the planning and visitation, my mom was very selfish. The funeral was paid for by my dad’s step parents and my mother took all of the proceeds and spent them on alcohol and meth on the drive from the visitation to the reception. She was late to his funeral. In a paniced state (upon realizing that she nolonger had anyone to help her with the kids) i asked my mother what her plan was, was she going to get a job? Apply for government assistance? She said she was going to open a craft shop in her basement to support her lifestyle. A pipe dream I had heard over and over again for years, and it made me SO angry that I yelled at her, just feet away from my dead father. It didn’t stop there. She moved people into my dad’s home and my brothers ended up having their room taken over. My mom started having sex with my dad’s cousin in open view of my brothers. My dad’s cousin was a disgusting person. A long time, soulless meth addict. He went to the bathroom in a five gallon bucket, instead of going in the perfectly functioning toilet, burned holes in the bedspread that my dad bought my mom (on purpose) with his cigarettes, and trashed my mom’s house before he ended up leaving her for his ex. This terrible damaging lifestyle went on for about 8 months in front of my brothers until someone called DHS on my mom. I am now the custodial parent for my brothers and my mother still has the chance to clean up her act and get them back, but out of over 20 proposed visits, she has attended 2. And she won’t take a drug test and she won’t answer the phone or the door. My grandmother (my mom’s mom) did a welfare check after not hearing from her for a while and found her on her living room couch, wearing nothing but a shirt big enough to cover her breasts, sitting in her own fecal matter. It appeared she had been sitting there for days, getting high, falling asleep, deficating on herself, and repeat. She has progressive health issues that have landed her in a nursing home for rehabilitation because she refuses to care for herself. She just won’t stop getting high. It’s almost like she doesn’t have a soul anymore. And no matter what disgusting, manipulative, terrible, shitty thing she has done to me in my life, she never once apologised to me for it. I always get hit with the same lines. “Are you being serious right now? I’m not trying to hear this.” Any time I try to display emotion or opinion on the things she has done, she shuts me down. Gaslighting me. Making me feel as though I should have gotten over it long ago. Things like stealing my Christmas money to buy drugs, stealing my debit card and cleaning out my account, smoking meth in my room while I was sleeping so my dad wouldn’t catch her, letting a group of men from our church molest me for drugs, and the list just gets worse and goes on forever. Shes just not there. She is a shell that resembles a human. Completely devoid of emotion.

I feel as though i suffered a death of someone i knew and loved. It feels like an emptiness that i cant seem to fill. It feels like frustration that i can still look at this person and sit and talk with them, but i cant get through. I cant feel that love i have for this person reciprocated. All i feel is loss and manipulation. I feel a void where my mother used to be. And having this void makes me eager to be in her life. But i cant because she is so toxic and damaging to me. She hurts me every time we speak. Every time i see her i lose her all over again.

And this is what it’s like to grieve a person that isn’t dead. Only, now I get to watch it all happen again with my baby brothers that sit around wondering why mom never calls.

In this message I realize that I talk down on addicts quite a bit. I want to make it clear that I do not think addicts are bad people. I encourage you to look around you and realise that it’s not too late for you. You have a family that loves you and wants to see you succeed. You’re not a bad person until you lose sight of how your actions can be detrimental to others. Until you start stealing, lying, and ruining lives with no remorse. Until you’re bringing humans into this world and doing drugs the entire pregnancy, only to get them taken away because you only care about yourself. There’s still time for you. Don’t wait until it’s too late.