Today, my oldest child asked me a question. A question that brought so much anger from within me, within seconds. Anger I had been pushing down for three years and doing my best to contain.

“Why do you not want my grandmother in your life? She raised you.”

How do you explain to your child, without coming unhinged, that this person was the most abusive person you could imagine? The woman she knew and grew up loving as a grandmother was the very reason for so many of the struggles in my life.

The sad part is, I don’t even blame her.

It wasn’t her fault my father had an affair.
It wasn’t her fault my 14-year-old mother had me.
It wasn’t her fault that the stress from it caused her to lose her own child, a daughter she had always dreamed of having. One she would never have.
It wasn’t her fault that the one man she thought would always protect her, especially after the childhood he knew she had survived, would turn out to be the man who hurt her deeper than anyone ever could.

But it was her fault for fighting to take custody of me. She didn’t want me. She just wanted to control the situation with my mother and father. It took me decades to realize that. I spent every day as a child asking myself, “Why?” “Why does she keep me here if she hates me so damn much?” “Why spend so much energy hurting me, if you don’t want me, give me back to my mom, to the state, to anyone at this point. But no. She kept me. Tortured me. Punished me for their mistakes, daily.

It’s funny. I always assumed it was because she felt I was unsafe in other environments. And maybe it started out that way. She didn’t expect my father to end up in prison about a year later. She didn’t expect him to serve years in jail, leaving her with me as the trophy of a dirty secret.

Before that, she would only snap at little things. If I didn’t sit still while she was doing my hair. If I looked at her, questioning what she was saying to me. There would be a pull of the hair, a pinch, a whisper of, make one sound and you will see when he leaves. If I didn’t hear her questions, there was hell to pay.

What she didn’t know was that I had a constant buzzing in my head. That never stops. Never goes away.

What she didn’t know was that two other women had already lied to me and told me they were my “mom.” By that point, there was no respect left for a new one. Not to mention one that clearly hated me so deeply.

What she didn’t know was that I was a six-year-old child who had learned that every single person in her life had lied to her, shipped from one home to the next, and now to hers. They all lied.

I looked at the phone screen as my daughter asked me this question, and my heart sank. I had to hang up.

How do I tell her the pain I hold deep within me?
How do I tell her she chose to love the very person who spent every moment of my childhood telling me I was nasty, dirty, ugly, smelly, and a bad person?
How do I tell her that by the age of eight I was subjected to military-style punishments for hours, every single day? She doesn’t even believe it as it is, because she was programmed to think exactly the same thing about me.

She said “but she raised you.” Sure, I had a pretty bedroom. Toys still in boxes on shelves I wasn’t allowed to touch. A bed perfectly made that I rarely put my head on. My clothes were clean. My hair was cut.

But how do I tell her the kitchen lights buzzed in my ears for twelve hours straight while the rest of the house slept? That still until today, I can hear it, see the flickering of the yellow glow?
How do I tell her I slept in a cold, dark basement with spiders and bugs, searching endlessly for two socks I couldn’t find and was not allowed to come upstairs until I did?

How do I tell her, that if she made a food item that I absolutely would throw up just at the thought of eating it, and if I didn’t eat it, every single bite of it, it sat on the table, until I did. No matter how many days went by. I wasn’t allowed to eat anything else until that item was finished. No matter how many flies sat on it. No matter what.

How do I tell her all of this without screaming, without tears, without the pain resurfacing thirty-five years later? How do I tell her, that I spent every single waking moment of my life with her, in constant fear. Fear that is unexplainable. And it grows inside of you like wildfire, and never disappears.

I can’t.

That’s the truth.
There is no description strong enough to explain why. It is too painful.

And for what? She believes in the version of that woman she knew. The version she loved. There feels like no point in even trying. Why put that in her head? But for the rest of my life, she will wonder. Why did my mom not love me enough? Why did my mom yell all the time? Why. So many questions, and one word.. Why.