Bipolar Mum Journey

People have plenty to say about my mother. Are they right? Maybe. But do they need to put it across in such a harsh, cruel way? Not at all. I know what she was. I know where she went wrong. I know the ways she failed me, the times she put me in harm’s way. But what’s the point of blaming her now? Where does that get me?

It only hit me yesterday that my mother was being groomed too. The difference is, she probably knew but she kept going back. Cheap favors, free substances, leading to rape. I never saw it as grooming, just her keeping company with the wrong kind of people ie: dirty old men.

People say a mother is supposed to protect her child. But they don’t understand, mine was barely present. She was weak when it mattered most, lost in her own haze, unconscious for most of my childhood. I had to step up, had to be the one dragging men out of the house, smashing up their cars when they wouldn’t take no for an answer. No child should have to see their mother like that.

So, do I know exactly who my mother was? Absolutely. But she was all I had. Did she play a role in what happened to me? Maybe. Did it happen to her first? Yes. Grooming wasn’t a single event in my life, it was a cycle, a pattern, one I didn’t even recognise until much later. It took me a long time to see the signs, even longer to break free from it.

I’m no expert, no therapist. I’m just a woman coming to terms with the fact that my life has been nothing but chaos. People want me to blame my parents. But how can I? They were broken too. What good does pointing fingers do?

My mother endured things most people couldn’t even imagine. Repeated trauma, rape after rape. People hear that and act surprised, but when you’re a vulnerable woman with a habit to feed, predators circle. It wasn’t just one time. It was her reality. And in the end, that’s where she stayed frozen in it, found lifeless on a kitchen floor, still carrying it all.

Blaming her won’t change a thing. The only thing I could do was break the cycle. My children never had contact with her. She knew why and that was punishment enough.