Being A Child of Divorce

Let me start by saying I don’t feel like a child of divorce anymore. If you have read my blog Healing From Childhood Trauma, then you know that I don’t have a relationship with my biological mom, and the woman I claim as my mother started as my stepmother. As much as I have grown and tried to heal from my past, I was an only child who witnessed things I shouldn’t have between my parents at a young age. I also want to make one thing crystal clear: my biological maternal parent is NOT the victim. As a grown-ass woman, I can recognize that she struggles immensely with her mental health, but underneath all of that is a selfish, manipulative, violent woman who will never have a relationship with her daughter because she can not see past her own mistakes.

I don’t remember the conversation of them saying they were separating or getting divorced. What I do remember is my dad trying to leave the house with me in the truck and having her try to run beside the vehicle as he drove away. From there, things only got worse. My dad and I moved in with my grandma and the egg donor stayed in the house at the beginning of the new normal. I would go with my dad every Wednesday night and every other weekend. I was with her the rest of the time. Or at least, that is what I remember. Most of the custody exchanges consisted of her getting in my dad’s truck and me in the backseat crying, hiding underneath my dad’s jacket. The worst time was when my dad and I had to chase after the woman as she was having a breakdown. They eventually switched to a public meetup spot for me to change houses. 

For a little girl having to ride every depressive episode of a woman child isn’t pretty. When I was at her house, she would lay in bed all day and cry randomly. I had to fend for myself so meals were limited to Super Pretzels, Scooby-Doo fruit snacks, shredded cheese, and pickle spears. I would go to my dad’s wearing the same clothes he had brought me there in and he could tell I wasn’t bathing. She would sometimes say she was not well enough to take care of me, so I would go to my maternal grandparent’s house during her time. She spent three months getting care for her mental health and I thought that made her all better. Seeing how I was around eight or nine at the time, I had no idea what my life was getting ready to turn into. 

After she got back, she was on a warpath. She told everyone and anyone who would listen how awful my dad and his girlfriend were (said girlfriend is now my chosen mom). She would glare at him at events they had to be at together for me. She would try to pick fights with him in public. She would show up at his job unannounced and make a scene. But what she was doing to me behind closed doors was just as bad. I feel like I explained it best in my Healing from Childhood Trauma blog, so go check that out if you need a recap.

It took me a long time to see my bio mom for what she was and realize I no longer needed her love. I was 12 and needed my tonsils removed. She didn’t want me to have the surgery. I remember thinking to myself that it didn’t make sense for me not to go through with it. Here was the person who was supposed to love me most in the world, not wanting me to do it because of her selfish reasons. Things quickly changed from there and I was staying full-time with my dad within a matter of months after that ordeal. My childhood was not a walk in the park with my biological maternal parent, but when my dad and chosen mom had full custody of me, things started getting better. 

With all the brainwashing I endured from that woman, it took some time to get used to staying with only my dad and family. Obviously, as a child, I didn’t see or understand everything that happened to my dad while he was still married to her and even trying to co-parent with her. He also had to deal with her mental and physical abuse. My dad always told me he hated arguing with her, but she was always looking to start an argument. He was doing the best that he could in that volatile situation.  As I’ve learned things and gotten older, I realized my dad stayed as long as he could because of me. He had to get out for his own well-being. He was not aware of her mental instability until after they were married when she went off her medicine again. Notice how I use ‘again’ since this wasn’t the first or last man she had repeated this cycle with. I am not trying to slut-shame the egg donor. However, she did have a pattern: meet her future husband while still on medicine or fresh out of the mental hospital, marry said man and stop taking her medication, eventually divorcing, leaving her to spiral and land herself back in the psych ward. 

My life was messy for most of my childhood. Even before they separated, I remember them fighting in front of me. I would go hide between the couch and the wall, crying with my hands over my ears. Looking back, it’s hard to relive these moments as I’m writing them out. I can look back at my past and remember those days of tense encounters and keeping track of where I was when. But what might be the hardest pill to swallow is that I’m misremembering things. Call it the trauma or the woman that birthed me’s manipulation, but realizing this put me back in that horrible position of not knowing what or who to believe. It reminded me that I still have some work to do in my healing process. As I stated at the beginning, I no longer see myself as a child of divorce. Looking at my life as a 28-year-old, I see my parents (my dad and chosen mom) happily married and my two brothers with their own families. I’ve always believed that family doesn’t always mean blood and likewise, blood doesn’t always mean family, but I will save that topic for a new blog piece coming out next month!