🛑Trigger warning: drug abuse🛑
I was probably around seven when I walked into my mother’s bedroom and found her after she overdosed. It wasn’t often that she was at home. I felt like I only ever saw her in passing; it was incredibly disappointing. Having been excited that she was still home, I ran into her room to see if she would spend some time with me. My mother and I both shared a love for books, and I loved it when she read to me.
Only this time, when I walked in, instead of finding her getting ready to leave the house and telling us her usual lecture about being back shortly, listening to my grandmother and not crossing the street, I found her lying in her bed, lifeless, in a puddle of urine.
My mom was quite the prankster, so at first, I thought she was playing another cruel joke on me, but after shaking her several times and receiving no response, I thought she had died. I immediately panicked, crying so hard I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see.
Tears welled up in my eyes. I had always suspected I would lose my mother somehow, and the time had finally come. I was in agonizing disbelief. Though I didn’t quite understand what was going on, I had always felt in my soul that something terrible was going to happen.
As crazy as my life was, I didn’t want to live without my mother. I loved her so much that it hurt. Yet I knew that no matter what, life with her and the broken pieces of our family was still better than life without her. I was certain of it. Having been conditioned to believe it every time she left the house, I didn’t know whether or not I would see her again. I hated seeing her go. And I hated it even more when she was gone. So when she was near, I was overly attached, afraid for the day I would have to let go.
People always remarked about how much of a mama’s girl I was, and I felt it was an attack. They couldn’t understand what it was like in my shoes. To have had the mother I had who was loving and present to then be aloof and gone. It reached the point that whenever we were dropped off anywhere, my brother and I refused to take off our sneakers. We needed to be ready when Mom came to pick us back up. Not wanting to waste any time, it was just easier to keep shoes on, so if we needed to up and leave quickly, we could do that. We were conditioned.
Then, I was too young to know or understand that my mother suffered from a drug addiction, so I assumed what was happening because of me. I only knew her as my mother; I wasn’t aware that she could have any other roles outside of being my mother. My life, survival, and well-being revolved around her, and I imagined that was reciprocal in my child’s innocence. I couldn’t possibly understand how she could leave us for even a second, let alone that she had a life outside her children.
I felt her aloofness, her absence in the depths of my heart, rationalizing with myself that if I could just be a better daughter somehow, she would get better, be better. She would be able to love me again. Though she told me she loved me, it was often met with an emptiness that haunted me.
While living on Buckingham Street, several things slowly chipped away at that child-like innocence I had. But walking in on her indisposed that day was a turning point for me. I lost all hope that she would change, finally seeing things progressively worsening. I realized that she was never going to be the mom that she once was that I missed so much. The mother that noticed me, that cared.
Realizing she couldn’t even keep herself safe, I realized that I now had to protect myself. It was now me against the world. I would have to put my childish ways aside and learn how to become an adult.
I was seven.