Most everyone has read the typical "Why I Left My Toxic Parent" article so I am not sure how mine will be any different.

Then again here is to hoping that maybe this one will help someone else out or help me get a little closure out of the whole thing. I have debated this article with myself for some time and have wrote and re-wrote in my mind over and over. I am still rewriting this as I type because it is a touchy subject for me and I am sure my mother is bound to read this. It is important for me to write this though as I am trying to come to terms on the relationship my mother presents to me and the effect it has on me Or maybe I am just trying to come up with another excuse for her and try to believe maybe she is not such a toxic person. So, I have put on a face mask, and put on some Broad City for a little motivation.

Let me start at the beginning of our relationship, I was a mommy's girl for the longest time. There was nothing she could do wrong. I was so excited to see her all the time. I would call her work just to talk to and see what she was doing, and mostly because I was bored and wanted to see when she was going to come home. That all changed around 5th grade when all of a sudden there was no food in the house, or an adult to be found when your mother is gone all night and your sisters who are barely older than you have to look over you. Then next thing you know you are being evicted from your house and your family pets have gone missing all of a sudden. Then you have to be forced to move in with your father who you barely have a relationship with at the time and you are just angry at the world, but you cannot figure out what had happened.

I had heard people talking but I never paid them any attention. Then one day my father is on the phone with my mother and hands me the phone and she is on the phone crying and finally admits that drugs had gotten the better of her. I will say this though, if it were not for all that I would not have developed a strong relationship with my father. Fast forward to 8th grade when my father passed away and I was left with nowhere else to go but my mother's house but she had a many other people living with her and helping her pay bills and what not that she could not get rid of them to let her youngest daughter live with her. Which did not sit well with my father's family.

So, I ended up going to my oldest sisters house to live, which were some of the best years of my life. Then senior year of high school comes around and my mom wants me to spend my last year of school with her. Since my father's passing I received money every month, and that always seemed to be her go to was "if you move in with me I will make sure you get some of your money but I will need the rest." Reluctant, I moved in, and that was when I started slacking at school and did not go everyday like I had previously with my sister. I thought it was so awesome cause I did not have to ask for permission for anything, I did not have to have a reason to skip school, and was pretty much left at my free will. She did not try to encourage me to do good in school and strive for college or how to balance money. Talk about a flashback though cause the same thing that happened in 5th grade was happening again after I graduated. She went to rehab and all was good for awhile.

I was on my own and going to school and working full time and doing my own thing. She never asked how things were going or how proud she was for me going to college and being on my own. Eventually my mother's drug use just became a natural thing, no matter how many rehabs she went to. Only calling when she needed some money. One week she was clean, then next week she was coming down.

It was a vicious cycle that never ended. I would get so mad at her for being so selfish with drugs and would always tell her I have lost one parent and am slowly losing another and it would never phase her. I was embarrassed for people to see her, especially with me. I was so mad I could not take her out like my friends did with their moms and she would never understand why I was so upset and would always make it a pity party about her. Fast forward to now, the drug use has been on and off. She has now been diagnosed with cancer and she is now clean and I have decided to give our relationship another chance but things have reverted to their old ways. I will call her and tell her about school or even how my writing is going and she always turns it on her and how she needs money or never asks how my work is going.

I love my mother very much and I always am there for her even if it makes me upset. I guess a part of me is still trying to hold onto our relationship since my father passed away. Who knows, maybe this time next year I will write another article titled either "Why I Left My Toxic Mother For Good" or "Why I Did Not Give Up On My Toxic Mother."