Dear Annie: I just read today’s “Second Chance Daughter” column about “putting away the bitterness, regret and anger of growing up with an abusive mom.” Her dad wasn’t much better; he deliberately never stepped forward to intervene on his daughter’s behalf.

My sister, brother and I never went to our father and told him about what was going on when he was away on his long-distance job as a sea captain. Before he was due to come home (only four times a year), my mother would admonish us to “make things nice for Daddy.” Of course we did. We loved our father, and we knew he loved us. I remember one time when he said, “You’re good kids.” Music to our souls. He spent a great amount of his “in port” and vacation time with us. He played with us and participated in activities with us, whereas our mother would sit in the car and read while we played at a park or ice-skated at a rink.

Looking back on my childhood and teen years, I realize that my mom was mentally ill. However, that was after I was married with three children. During my upbringing, we children believed that we were “rotten to the core, so rotten we smelled.” And we believed and felt so guilty that we had “ruined” our mother’s life. We listened over and over to the litany of, “I wish to God you’d never been born!” I can still see in my mind’s eye my sister sniffing her forearm, hoping she, and others, couldn’t smell her “rottenness.”

The older I grew, the more I became determined to leave our crazy home. I went to college as far away from home as possible while still paying in-state tuition. It wasn’t until I had children of my own, and never once felt the feelings of hate and regret at having children, that I realized my mother was mentally ill.

How did I deal with my situation? I emotionally separated myself from my mother at an early age. I was very close to my father and emotionally supported myself with his love and devotion. Although I didn’t know anything about mental illness, even as a young child I knew that I didn’t want a relationship with someone who despised me and my siblings.

As I grew into my teen years, I constantly researched avenues of escape via far-away colleges. When I told my mother about my distant college of choice, she said, “If you leave this house, you’re never coming back again.” Ever the respectful daughter, I did not say, “That’s the plan, Mom.” I didn’t say a word, but I bought a one-way ticket and left. The married older sister of a good friend took me in and let me stay a few weeks till I had two jobs and full-time student enrollment status at a university. I never looked back. No regrets. — Happy Adult Daughter

Dear Happy Adult Daughter: Wow. Thank you sharing your story with our readers. It gives a very detailed account of the harm and trauma that can result when an untreated mentally ill mother is left alone with children. You are a warrior. So strong to know that you had to survive a house with so much emotional and physical abuse. Your mother called you rotten because she felt rotten to the core. But instead of internalizing that you were rotten to the core like many children sadly do, you were able to emotionally distance yourself from your mother and see that it was her and NOT you as a child. That takes people years of therapy to see, and you saw it in your teens. Congratulations for your incredible resilience and determination to thrive in life and be happy.

View prior ‘Dear Annie’ columns

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