12 months no contact

May 3rd 2025, I (29F), said “enough is enough.”

You may be my mother by blood, but as a person, you’re one of the worst people I know. All that talk about “don’t let people walk over you,” while you consistently walked over me. “Be grateful,” while you consistently shamed me. “Worry about what others will think of you,” when you gave me no room to be myself.

Using your health as a get out of jail card, an excuse for your poor behaviour, “I’m not well” was probably one of the very few true statements you ever made.

May 3rd 2026, I (30F), have no idea who I am, who I’m meant to be, what I want, what I like, or what makes me happy. I have no concept of love, only abuse, and that’s not love. That’s anger with a purpose: to destroy another person’s sense of self while uplifting yourself.

I was born into a family that didn’t care. My parents separated before I could walk, then divorced. Eight years of back and forth court trials for custody. A father who was physically abusive. An older sister who was pitted against me. A mother who was, and still is, emotionally abusive.

I feel sorry for all of them.

My father’s mother, my nana, I learnt at a young age was not a kind person. Very self centred, and immensely lacking in warmth or love.

My mother’s parents survived World War Two and immigrated to Australia in the early 50s. They built and sustained a thriving business while neglecting my mother and her brother.

My sister, six years older than me, spent her early years in a two parent household. I can’t speak for what that environment was like, but when she was 10, she chose to live with my father and never looked back.

Not my father, my sister, nor my mother had a happy upbringing, a stable childhood, or love.

While my sister had our father in her ear teaching her that our mother was evil, my mother never once said anything bad about him to either of us. Sometimes I’m envious of my sister for escaping my mother’s abuse. I often think the bruises my father left on my skin would have faded quicker than the emotional scars my mother left behind.

I may be wrong, but I feel I had the worst of it. Physical abuse from my father every other weekend, both physical and emotional abuse from my sister, and emotional abuse from my mother the rest of the time.

I can’t say I was a perfect child, but I learnt very quickly to keep my head down and accept that it would be over quicker if I stayed quiet.

9-25: 16 years no contact with my father, aside from one phone call when I was 12, where he told me he had cancer and was dying.

25-29: 4 years of strained contact with my father. I was the one who reached out. I was the one offering an opportunity to apologise. I was the one left hurt all over again.

5-20: 15 years of strained contact with my sister, ending shortly after she got married. A courthouse wedding that not even our father knew about until he arrived.

0-29: 29 years of abuse endured at the hands of my mother.

29-30: 12 months no contact with my mother.

The first three months felt like a fever dream. I couldn’t stop crying. I cried because I was sad, because I was angry, because I felt relief.

Months 3-6, I was angry. So very angry. All I wanted, all I have ever wanted, was to be loved unconditionally.

Months 6-9, grief set in. I’d lost something I never truly had. Something I’d only ever dreamed of, read in books, seen in movies. Family. It was during these months that the sense of wanting my “mum” was the strongest.

Months 9-12, I fear I’ve reached a point where I feel nothing. There is no joy in my life, no happiness, no spark. I am alone.

I did not choose this life. I did not ask for these things to happen to me. Yet somehow, I am the one trying to fix it all. I am done trying. It cannot be fixed.

From where I stand, I have no family. No mother, no father, no sister. These people are so engrossed in their own worlds that they cannot see the hurt they cause.

Every day is an effort. Every basic action is draining. Work is exhausting. Cooking is tiring. Cleaning, why bother. Sleep, what’s that.

We are all human. We are all experiencing life for the first time. But those who continue to hurt the people they supposedly love are monsters.

I do not think I’ll ever be loved. I do not think I’ll ever heal. I do not think I was made for this world. I do not believe it gets easier. I have tried.

They broke me, and I cannot keep putting myself back together.

This is not living. This is cruel.

What did I do to deserve this.