People always say, “You only get one mother.” And for the longest time, that phrase felt like a weight chained to my ankle—meant to keep me tethered to something that hurt, something I was supposed to honor simply because it gave me life.

But I didn’t choose to be had.
She chose to have me.

That distinction matters more than most people want to admit. Because for years, I lived in the aftermath of a choice I had no say in—a choice that came with responsibilities far too heavy for a child to carry. I wasn’t born into nurture. I was born into obligation. Into manipulation. Into emotional debt.

I was raised in a house of lies. Not just the kind you catch and confront—but the kind that build your reality. The kind that erode your trust in your own memory, your own gut. I was taught early on how to manage her emotions, how to make myself small so she could be big, how to stay quiet unless my voice was serving her needs.

And when I didn’t fall in line?
I became the problem.

I can’t count how many times I had to sacrifice myself to keep her afloat. Not because I wanted to, but because I was expected to. Drop everything. That was the silent demand. Whether it was studying for finals or trying to have a life of my own—none of it mattered if she needed something. A ride. A favor. Someone to fix the thing she broke. I was supposed to show up. And if I didn’t? The guilt came swift and hot. The yelling. The accusations. The twisting of truth until I was the ungrateful daughter and she was the one who had “done everything” for me.

But I’ve thought about that phrase a lot—done everything.
Everything for who?
Because the love I needed wasn’t loud. It wasn’t conditional. It wasn’t transactional.
What I needed was softness. Stability. Presence. Boundaries that kept me safe, not controlled.

And I never got that from her.

It wasn’t until my ex came into my life that I started to even realize the shape of the damage. He was the first person to say, “That’s not right. That’s not normal. You don’t deserve to be spoken to like that.” And for someone else to name it—out loud—shook something loose in me. He gave me language for what I had lived through. He made me feel seen in a way I didn’t know I needed. And ironically, it was watching his mother—the way she loved her children, supported them, asked for nothing in return—that broke me wide open.

Because it showed me what I never had.

She was gentle. Proud. Protective. Her love didn’t need to be earned. And I realized then: it’s not that I was incapable of being mothered. I just hadn’t been mothered by someone who knew how.

The grief of that realization gutted me. And for a long time, I stayed. I tried. I gave her the benefit of the doubt because she’s my mom. Because people said things like, “But she’s your family.” As if proximity should excuse pain.

But in 2023, I finally chose myself.
I went no contact.
And it wasn’t out of spite—it was out of survival.

I realized that love without respect is not love at all. That family can be blood, but it can also be bondage. That the little girl inside me deserved peace more than she deserved performance. She deserved to be protected—not just from strangers, but from the people who were supposed to love her most.

It took years of slowly peeling back the layers of generational trauma, of therapy sessions where I cried not just for what happened—but for what never did. For all the birthdays that felt like chores. For the apologies that never came. For the mother I needed and never got.

And now, I can hold two truths at once:
That what happened hurt me deeply.
And that she is still human.

We are all living life for the first time.
She didn’t get a rehearsal any more than I did. And as much as I wish she had shown up differently, I can also see now that she was working with what she knew. What she was taught. What she never healed in herself.

So no, I can’t keep her close.
But I also don’t have to hate her to protect myself.
I can love her—from afar.
I can grieve what never was, while also respecting the boundary I had to draw.
I can honor the complexity without collapsing under it.

I am still healing. Still grieving. Because going no contact doesn’t mean I don’t love her. It means I love me more.

And some days, that decision still hurts.
But I remind myself: I am not breaking the family.
I am breaking the cycle.

Because a mother is supposed to give you the tools to thrive, not the wounds you spend a lifetime trying to bandage.
A mother is supposed to show up, not show off.
To soften you, not shatter you.

So when people say, “But you only get one mother,” I nod.
Yes.
And I’ve learned that sometimes, the most loving thing you can do with that truth is to walk away from it—with compassion, but with conviction.