I’m fed up! My mother is a naive woman whom men use and discard.
I’m writing because there’s no one else to confide in…
I’m 19 years old. I was born and raised in Brighton.
I don’t know who my father is.
My mother has never talked about him, and when I’ve asked, she only coldly replied:
– He doesn’t exist. Forget him.
I grew up without a father, without a family, lacking comfort and warmth.
I became used to being alone.
But more than anything, I grew accustomed to being second place in my mother’s life.
She would forget about me for the sake of men. Each time a new man entered her life, I became invisible.
She would preen in front of the mirror, choosing outfits, spending her last pounds on perfume and makeup.
I would sit in my room, knowing that today I was of no importance to her.
Then, after a few weeks or months, the breakdowns would begin.
She would cry, complain, say she had been betrayed again, used again, thrown aside once more.
And I would sit nearby, listening, nodding, trying to comfort her.
But I knew that in a couple of weeks, it would all happen again.
She didn’t understand a thing.
She couldn’t see how her actions were killing my faith in relationships, in family, in love.
From a young age, I realized one thing – a man in her life would always be more significant than I was.
I became a stranger in my own home. When she had a new “suitor,” the phone would ring endlessly.
I knew it meant I no longer had a place here.
I stopped believing her and felt nothing but irritation towards her.
I turned cold.
I could no longer listen to her whining or console her after every new failure.
She’s a grown woman but behaves like a spoiled child.
And me…
I feel like an old man.
Tired of her tears, her empty hopes, her never-ending mistakes.
And do you know what’s the worst part?
I don’t want relationships.
I can’t even imagine trusting someone.
I grew up in a home where love is a lie, betrayal, and pain.
I can’t stand to watch it.
Sometimes she comes home drunk.
Sometimes she brings home “the next one.”
I lie in another room and hear them laughing.
And inside me, everything constricts with disgust.
It makes me sick.
I don’t want to hear it.
I don’t want to live like this.
But I have no choice.
My mother doesn’t think that I’m struggling.
All she cares about is herself.
The internet is my only refuge.
You know what saves me?
It’s just the internet.
Only here can I express what I would never say out loud.
I only feel free when I’m sitting behind a screen.
But this isn’t living.
And perhaps someday I will leave this house.
To silence her.
To avoid seeing her.
To escape her fate.
