An Open Letter to My Mum

Because I just can’t do this anymore.

Because I have reached the edge of what I can carry.

And still, I’m the one they call “fucked up.”

I asked you to go to therapy.

Not together. Not straight into family sessions.

On your own.

Just once—on your own.

I asked you to do the work.

To look at your own reflection before dragging mine through the mud again.

But you couldn’t be bothered.

“Too expensive.”

“Too much effort.”

“I don’t need therapy, I’m fine.”

“It’s YOU. You’re the one who needs help.”

And just like that, you shut the door on any chance of change.

You always do this.

You cry louder than the people you hurt.

You rewrite the story so that you’re just a tired, misunderstood mum

with a daughter who one day snapped and disappeared “for no reason.”

But we both know that’s not true.

So here’s the truth, laid out in the open, finally, because I’ve had enough of swallowing it.

You bit me when I was a teenager.

You kicked me out of your car when I was pregnant.

You stranded me and your granddaughter in town because I dared to question you.

You gambled my money—then threatened suicide when I confronted you.

I had to prove—again—that it wasn’t me.

That it was you.

That everything was falling apart because of your choices.

And even then, even when you shattered everything around us,

I stood by you.

Because I had nobody else.

Because I’d been trained since I was small to believe I had to love you no matter what you did.

At first, I still let you see the kids.

I just removed myself from the picture—for their sake, for mine.

But that wasn’t enough for you.

You had to go to your elderly parents, stir drama, spin stories.

“She’s wild.”

“She’s out of control.”

“She’s always been difficult.”

No.

I was just done being manipulated.

And don’t think I’ve forgotten the rest.

The hairbrush.

The screaming.

The chaos.

If I wasn’t still enough, quiet enough, obedient enough—

I got pain.

Not love.

Not safety.

You hurt me.

You gaslit me.

You turned every room we shared into a battleground,

then blamed me for trying to crawl away from the wreckage.

You don’t get to cry about “estrangement” when you were begged to do the one thing that might have saved any of this—and you refused.

You don’t get to act heartbroken when I’m the one who walked through hell just to survive your love.

You don’t get to post sad quotes when I’m the one picking up the pieces of a childhood that you destroyed.

This isn’t estrangement.

This is escape.

This is what it looks like when someone finally chooses peace.

When someone chooses to stop bleeding for people who’d never bandage a wound.

And while you keep chasing your Facebook sympathy,

I’m over here building a real family.

Messy. Honest. Loving.

One that knows what connection actually means.

One that will never know the kind of pain you passed down.

You lost me because you wouldn’t even try to change.

You lost me because you made me the villain when all I ever wanted was for you to try.

And this?

This is the last time I explain a goddamn thing.

– Zoe