Letters that i will never send

Dear Birth mom Lisa

Calling you mom feels weird. I have a mom, a mom who choose me not the drugs. You repeatedly choose the drugs over seeing me grow. You were weak. I want to hate you. I blame you for why my brain is broken. You could not be clean enough to give me a good start. The positive that came from knowing you is knowing my brother. Your addiction took me away from growing up and bonding with my siblings. I had a chance to know my sister growing up and you stole that. You were an addict and you wanted it all. You called CPS on my mom. You were vindictive, maybe Breanna would be better if she grew up with me. 

You go to all these meetings and I wonder how close you are from slipping? What can I say without risking your sobriety? You say me coming back into your life helps keep you sober… yeah.. No pressure. You never call me, you don’t text, when I call you you are either working or going to a meeting so you have limited time to talk.

You call me your daughter but you have not earned that, you dont know me and you dont know what it really means to be a mother. I think about all the milestones you missed out on. Birthdays. Holidays. First steps. Everything. You missed out on everything that would have made you my mother. I also cannot stop myself from being jealous. My siblings had you in their life, I know their lives werent perfect, but they had you. For my birthday, you said my present was a movie and dinner, and I know gifts arent everything, but it felt like a poor gift for someone who missed 24 of my birthdays. 

I wish you had tried for me when it mattered. I wish you could have gotten sober but each visit, you were high off some type of drug because drugs mattered more than me.

 I cant help but be angry at you. You gave birth to me but you are not my mother. You weren’t the one to watch me take my first steps. You didn’t hold me when I fell. You didn’t comfort me when my heart was broken. Sure, you have told me you are proud of me and who I have become but you dont know how I got here. I am here not because of anything you ever did.

When you say you love me, I find it hard to say it back. Saying I love you feels forced. I want to hate you but I don’t actually hate you. But I am not ready to express love. You put poison in your body when I was in your body, you essentially poisoned me! A mother is supposed to nurture their child, but you invaded my brain with drugs before I could even breathe. You jeopardized me before you even knew me.

Don’t get me wrong, Lisa. I am glad you are sober now. I just hate that it took you SO long. I am an adult. I am 30. I spent my entire life knowing you were an addict, knowing that I was a drug baby, knowing that drugs were more important than me. I wish you could have been strong enough when I was an infant, so I could have grown with my siblings. I wish life could have been fair. I love my adoptive mom and I would not replace her in a heartbeat but I wish you had cared enough to try when you had the opportunity because I was not even adopted until i was three or four. I spent the first few years as a foster kid, you had every opportunity but I didnt matter then. Only the drugs mattered.

It also *** me off when you couldn’t answer any of my questions about the 90s. It is too painful for you. I had to find out on my own that you were a prostitute and that my father was a john, and that he was married and I have a half brother. A half brother who wants nothing to do with me. 

I cant stand that you think everything is okay. I go to your yearly meetings and you brag about me. But it is not okay. I don’t forgive you for calling CPS and altering how Breanna grew up, altering my life.  I turned out okay but it is not thanks to you. You had no part in making me who I am today.