The Lost Girl

February 28, 2026

2:17 pm

I wrote a brief post about my relationship woes of late.

Afterwards, I was driving back from dropping my son off at work, after a restless night of sleep. During this drive, the feelings I have were still there, the thoughts nagging at the back of my mind like a splinter.

Why was I so emotional about these things? It couldn’t just be the hormone replacement therapy or the medications I have been on. I do not think it was also related to the on and off, myriad of colds, and respiratory viruses the past few months, weakening my immune system. It was something else.

Then what is it? During my early morning text to my person about the bad dream that I had, which woke me up suddenly, is when I realized why I feel alone.

It is abandonment and the mistrust it caused.

I never pieced that together with my major depressive symptoms or the anxiety because I have misunderstood the full depth of the trauma I endured, experienced, and survived.

I spent most of my youth living with relatives, mainly my grandparents, but there were also aunts, uncles, and cousins. There were a few incidents by relatives related to inappropriate behavior, in the form of touching, but that was it. It was always dealt with swiftly by others. I have nothing to do with those relatives, and they avoid me like the plague.

I began living with my mother at the age of 9-years old. There had always been physical abuse at the hands of her husband. Back then, they called it disciplining your child, so no one bat an eye to it. What I endured was excessive, and it would now be considered assault. It involved shoes, belts, switches, extension cords, and anything besides the hands. There were also verbal threats, emotional, and mental abuse. She, my mother, controlled the amount of discipline. She stood there and told him when to stop.

When I reached puberty at the age of 11 is when the sexual abuse started by her husband. I told her when I was 12. He blamed me for his behavior, and she took his side; she abandoned me once again.

It was years of abuse until I fought back at the age of 15 to 16, then left home at the age of 18. I survived long enough to get out.

That whole time period, my mother was not there to protect me, and her actions condoned it. It did not matter what she was going through. She was my mother and was supposed to protect me as well as herself. She was weak, controlling, and manipulative, blaming me for the life she lived.

Therapists used to say that I had no way of knowing what she was thinking. They said this until I told them about the times she would drag me out of my bed from sleep, after she had been drinking and fighting with her husband, who would drop her off at home and then leave.

She would sit there still drinking, blowing smoke in my face, telling me how worthless, ugly, stupid, and a waste of time I was. How I ruined her life by being born. She would laugh at me most times, but then start crying about the man who left her, my biological father. I never met him.

It wasn’t until much later in my life that I found a picture of him, from his obituary.

As you can see, ironically, I resemble him. This could explain why she detested me so.

Per the obituary, he apparently was newly married when he met my mother. So she had been his affair, probably a last hurrah before he settled into married life. Per one of my aunts, he knew about me but cut all contact with my mother, so that was that. Once again, I was abandoned by another parent who did not want me.

Abandonment

Psychological/Emotional: This is a subjective state of feeling unwanted or insecure, often stemming from early life neglect or loss, leading to “abandonment issues”.

Signs & Symptoms: Individuals may exhibit a fear of intimacy, low self-esteem, codependency, or intense anxiety about relationships. – Google search

These describe me perfectly, and until a day ago, it never occurred to me that it was what was going on. The relationship issues are being muddled by this fear of abandonment.

This is in my core belief system. Like a malignant tumor, it has spread to and attached to my fears, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and emotions.

So what do I do? What do I do when I feel overwhelmed during a disagreement with my person? I need to take a step back, look at all the information before me, no assumptions, no scenarios, no what ifs or maybes, just the facts. Then determine if the feeling or thought is true. If it is, then we talk about it until it’s resolved. If it is not true, then I just file that thought to the back with all the other junk and get rid of it later. That is what it is, junk with no added value to the relationship that I am trying to build.

As for the thoughts about my mother. I have to remember all the manipulative stuff she has done over the years. Turning my siblings against me, interfering with others in my life, trying to control the narrative through deception, and being a user of people.

That is who she is and always will be.

She is only nice to you if she can get something out of you. If she does help you, then you owe her way more than what was borrowed or received. Otherwise, she talks about you behind your back, and it is never kind, motherly words, but then plays the victim if you find out about it. That is her as a person. I do not need or want her in my life or that of my family.

I feel sorry for her and her husband, the only parents that I ever had besides my grandparents. If they had just treated me right, had been kind, caring, and supportive the rest of their life would have been easy, I would have made sure of that.

I had a plan that I wanted to propose to my half-siblings on that last day, July 3, 2023. A proposed plan to take care of them as they got older.

By mid-morning, on that day, I was turned into the villain in their scenario after the half-siblings sat down with them to talk about their finances, a concern that I raised after receiving several texts from my mother the previous week about needing help.

I was the one to blame for all the things that had happened or gone wrong in their lives. I was accused of being a leach and putting them into debt. Things my children and I knew were not true. Even my online person knew what I was going through with my own finances and being on disability. My parents at that time were making more than twice what I was every month and I was struggling to get by.

I was told on that day that they did not want me in their life any more.

I have made sure to keep it that way ever since.

I was abandoned by her for the last time.

I am no longer this lost girl in the world, tied to a mother’s toxic personality. I have been freed from it.

I am free to build my life the way I want with the people I want in it. Better people with kindness, compassion, and happiness in their hearts.

Thank you so much for stopping by.

Have a wonderful week!

Peace, love, happiness, and good vibes, always!

Suzanne