When I was in first and second grade, my teacher hit my hand with a ruler. Like we were in some medieval nun-run boarding school in the 1700s.
SMACK!
Every time I switched pencil hands. I'm ambidextrous. Apparently that was a punishable offense. And to add insult to literal injury, I held my pencil "wrong." Still do. You can take that up with my neurodivergent brain and Miss Andrews' ghost.
She called me names. Told me I'd never amount to anything. Publicly embarrassed me. Punished me for things that weren't even against the rules. I wasn't a bad kid. I was a confused, sensory-overloaded, hyper, autistic lil shit with a big heart and a brain that never shut off.
But when I told my mom?
She didn't believe me.
She thought I was exaggerating. That I must've misunderstood. That the teacher, the grown-up in the room, was probably right.
So I learned something: don't bother telling. Adults won't believe you. Even your mom.
And that belief? It stuck.
She didn't believe me when I told her the dentist hurt me and didn't numb me before drilling into my teeth.
She didn't believe me when I told her my high school teacher made my skin crawl.
She didn't believe me when I said her friend was abusing her foster kids. Those kids were taken away years later, and my mom acted shocked. I wasn't.
That's the thread that ran through everything: I would scream the truth, and she would hand me back silence.
And I know she didn't do it to be cruel. I know now that she was overwhelmed, overworked, and raised in a world that taught her to trust authority and brush off "drama." But back then?
I learned that my voice didn't matter.
So when something really awful happened, when I was assaulted as a child. I didn't tell her.
Why would I? She hadn't believed me before. Why would she start now?
That's the conflict. That's the heartbreak. That's the reason our healing took time. Because I had to unlearn the belief that I couldn't trust my mother with my pain.
And she had to face the guilt of not hearing me when I needed her most.
But you know what's wild?
She did show up. She did change. And when I finally did tell her the truth, years later, she didn't dismiss it. She didn't deny it. She just cried.
She finally heard me.
That year, the one where everything else in my life was unraveling, my relationship with my mom started to come back together. Slowly. Tenderly. Imperfectly. But real.
She loved my son. She loved me. And she tried.
We didn't solve everything in one conversation. But we started.
I used to think healing was a door that slammed open all at once. But now I know, it's a hallway. It's a series of small openings. Quiet forgiveness. Honest conversations. And someone saying, "I'm sorry," without making it about them.
My mom did that.
And I'll never forget it.
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That moment didn't fix everything between us. But it cracked the wall. And through that crack, light started pouring in.
My mom was a teenage mom. Then a really young mom with five children. She didn't get the time to heal before we showed up. She didn't get soft landings or second chances. What she got was survival mode, and she made it work.
My mom screamed at us a lot.
She was tired. Exhausted. Pulled in five different directions by five different kids. And trauma. And school. And life. She didn't always get it right. But I see her now, and I know.
She tried.
She got better, not bitter. Restored, not stuck. She never let herself be the victim. She chose growth. And in doing so, she became the first person in our family to break the damn cycle.
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During this time, while my marriage was falling apart, my mom was going to school full-time. She was becoming a nurse. Studying late at night. Memorizing drug cards while raising teenagers. Giving care to others while still learning how to give it to herself.
She is my inspiration.
Not because she was perfect. But because she refused to let what happened to her define what she became.
She's said before:
"I grew from my trauma. I didn't stay stuck in it."
And she meant it.
She didn't just survive what was done to her, she transformed. She found her healing in Jesus. She found love that was unconditional. Forgiveness that didn't come with a scorecard. A God who saw her whole and didn't flinch.
I don't care what you believe. What I know is that faith was her anchor, and she used it to rebuild a life that should have broken her.
And slowly, I've found that same anchor.
Not always. Not perfectly. But in the quiet, in the wreckage, in the moments where I didn't think I could get back up. I found a kind, loving, and forgiving God. Not the angry one I was raised to fear. Not the rule-keeper. But the one who weeps with you. Who holds your hand when your voice shakes. The one who stayed.
Faith is not something I clung to because I was strong. It's what I found when I had nothing left to hold.
Something happens when you become a parent yourself. You look at your own mother differently.
I used to think her yelling meant she didn't love us. Now I know: she yelled because she cared too much. Because no one ever taught her a quieter way. She was parenting with broken tools, and still tried to build something whole.
She didn't love any of us more or less, she loved us differently. And that's what good moms do. They learn each child's heart and try to speak its language.
She wasn't soft all the time. She wasn't patient all the time. But she was there. Always.
And she saw me.
When I finally told her what happened to me, what had been done to me when I was a child. She broke. Not just because it hurt. But because deep down… she already knew.
She had known the signs. She had seen them in herself once. And maybe that's why she tried so hard with us. Because no one did that for her.
This isn't the full story of my parents. I'll talk about my dad later. He was a good provider, but not always a present father. His healing arc is still in progress.
But this part? This part is about my mom.
My tired, fierce, relentless, faithful, imperfect, incredible mother.
She didn't get the life she deserved, but she gave us one that was better than hers. And that's how the cycle starts to break.
Not all at once. But one daughter at a time.
I don't know if she'll ever read this. But if she does, I hope she knows I see her now.