shattered mirrors pieced together

Road To Harmony

Tag: Family

  • Updated: About Me

    Updated: About Me

    I updated my about me page. I wanted to create a post about it as well to carry over to make it more visible.

    KEEP YOUR HEAD UP!!

    My name is Jessica. I’m from NJ. I’m a spiritually connected trauma survivor with lots to share. My childhood was spent mostly surviving my parents drug addictions and then learning to build an adult life following their deaths in 2004, when I was 19/20. I am diagnosed with ADHD and Dyslexia. I firmly believe that the way my brain works is absolutely why I survived so many hard life events. So I have decided to just be open about my neurodivergent silliness and spiritual differences instead of hiding. All this “weird” got me through some seriously hard and terrifying shit. So I might as well wave my freak flag loud and proud. If that helps someone else along then way well, that’s even better!

    I have two beautiful daughters who definitely are my most treasured gifts. They have helped me heal in ways they may never comprehend and I am grateful for each of them. Both together and as separate people. My husband Justin and I have been together for 13 years and have worked hard to heal through his addiction, my subsequent betrayal trauma, my childhood trauma and the toll all of that has taken within our marriage. He has been in recovery for 6 years and I went through EMDR for the traumatic memories.

    In 2024 during my quest to learn astrology we discovered that we are Twin Flames. Definitely explained the boatload of trauma we have handled which was most definitely karmic lineage events that required careful consideration while healing. This realization led to us to mapping out events of quantum entanglement that happened between us long before we even met. Learning he and I are connected at a deeper level allowed me to further trust again and see the purpose in the pain of our connection. Applying proper healing practices, values, purpose and respect to our issues has led me to becoming a more well rounded woman with self worth with healed abandonment wounds. FYI: Boundaries work, guys! 😉

    Professionally, I am a former Account Executive & K-12 Specialist in the field of Educational Furniture Sales. In basic terms, I used to furnish schools that were being remodeled or newly constructed. I have had many jobs/career paths but this was my favorite.

    I am a bit introverted despite working in sales. Therefore, I have the typical introverted hobbies. Reading, writing, learning, thinking for fun, gardening, puzzles, cooking, drawing and making myself laugh at my own jokes when I am alone. This year I learned Oracle, Tarot, and Astrology to help myself and other’s heal. Come to find out, my whole family is spiritually gifted in one way or another. I am now studying Shamanism with my husband. My daughters can do Reiki, (not certified yet) Tarot, and read palms.

    The goal of my page is a place to write about the things I endured through trauma, and to share the lessons that life, Quantum Entanglement, Spirituality, and Motherhood has taught me. My hope is to bring the world closer together through shared human experience. I am open to publishing a book and/or publicly speaking about my story.

    Please feel free to reach out directly with any questions/comments/inquires. If you are, struggling and have no where else to turn. connection matters and is the opposite of addiction. So please reach out directly to me as well if you have no one else to talk to.

    All drawings/writings posted are originals by me and all intellectual property is Copyright RoadToHarmony by Jessica Donovan-Hendrix 2025

  • Dad’s Legacy: Victimized but not a victim.

    Dad’s Legacy: Victimized but not a victim.

    In my late teens and 20’s I used to brag about my father and ignore his flaws. I would often say, “thank god for him”. “At least he cared enough to throw me out of his and my mom’s mess by pushing me out of the house to get a job”. I truly idealized him and firmly believed that I wouldn’t have made it or been alive if it weren’t for him. I would often still call myself as a Daddy’s girl. Now, it gives me the “ick” feelings. I was only his “little girl” when I could pack away my feelings and be the little boy who sucked it up and eventually became the man he wished he could have been. He eventually couldn’t face me and treated me with anger and disdain in the year or two before his death. I often reminded him of his own vulnerabilities. Not out of overt ego but simply because I became the one taking care of him as he sank lower into his pain, shame and addiction.

    Here’s some backstory on how my father attempted to carry the weight of our family and what that ultimately meant for me as his daughter.

    In the late 80’s and throughout the rest of my childhood, my mother betrayed, my father, other people and me with regard to money. One of the biggest situations occurring when I was under 5. She was writing bad checks, got arrested and charged with felonies. My assumption is she used the money for drugs and various other shit. According to my Dad, he chose to borrow money from his employer to bail her out and pay for the legal fees associated with the offense. We lost the apartment we lived in and ended up living in some crackhead motel on Rt 46 in South Hackensack. If you are familiar with the area, it’s not the place for anyone to be living. Let alone a 5/6 year old. However, my dad fixed the situation in order to keep our family together. He put his feelings aside and did the noble thing most father’s would be trained to do.

    This set the stage for the rest of their marriage and my childhood. Her criminal activity also spawned my first recallable core memory.

    My mother had taken me out one day to go shopping and she took me to Mcdonald’s and the park. She called it mommy/daughter day. I can’t fully visualize being at McDonald’s but when I recall that aspect along with my Happy Meal, I get a feeling in my body that generates happiness and immediate sadness. I was about 5 and so happy to be out with her spending time. The next I recall is her being arrested and us both being taken to the probation office in the county we lived in. I was locked in a room by myself with a one way window and my mother was brought into another room. I’m assuming it was the room on the other side of the glass. I could hear her probation officer screaming at her, “Is this what you want?” “You want her taken away from you?” She was crying. I can tell you now that I feel unbelievable sadness for myself and her that day. However, the anger and shame that took over me crippled my emotions for 35 years of my life. After much trauma work and EMDR, I have been able to realize that was the first time I experienced weakness, powerlessness, disgust, and anger at my own fear, sadness, and longing for my mom. The fear was made so much bigger because of the environment of the probation office with cops around that I immediately replaced those vulnerable feelings with whatever I heard being expressed. After all, my mom was crying and they were angry and giving her shit. I think I was angry for her too because at her core, she didnt want to harm me or anyone else. She was a lost little girl inside, too and just needed healing. I somehow could feel that then but couldn’t put it to words until after I processed the memory.

    The next thing I remember is sitting on a waiting room chair near the front door of that office with my mom nearby and my father walking in the door and picking me up after having a side conversation with her. He and I left without my mom. I’m assuming she had to spend the night in jail. I don’t remember anything else. She violated her probation orders and got picked up the day she took me out. The feelings that come up when I recall this memory are gut wrenching inside of me still. My father showed up, picked me up, took me home. He fixed the situation. He was a strong man for sure but I have to wonder if he felt respected, loved or honored? Or even considered by his wife as whole person who had childhood trauma before ever meeting my mother. Was he considering himself? Looking back, I don’t think so.

    Moving onto my next vivid memory. My father was beating my ass with scissor handles for lying to him. I turned my head without a tear in my eyes and said, “you think that hurts me Tommy?” He had been lied to and beaten as a kid and adult. He stopped beating me that day because he once recalled to me that he felt if he didn’t stop I was going to grow up and kick his ass for continuing the generational trauma of physical abuse. On one hand I appreciate that he could see what a badass spirit I had because he is correct, I would have gone rogue eventually but on the other, it would have been much more loving for him to consider the pain he endured both as a kid and as an adult man who’s wife repeatedly lied to him.

    The next core memory have is, I took something from their bedroom and as punishment was locked in my room by myself where I could see the driveway from my bedroom windows. I was so scared of being locked away from my family. Through my tears I watched my parents walk down the driveway and my dad drive the car down the driveway out of sight. I screamed bloody murder and I also had to pee but couldn’t get out of my room to get to the bathroom. I was beyond scared. I pissed my pants that night and cried myself to sleep. The next morning, my doorknob was unlocked. I don’t remember anything else other than my mother putting me in bath after taking off my urine soaked clothes. Would have been much more loving for my dad to either just beat my ass as punishment or lovingly choose to heal his trauma triggers before disciplining me in such a horrific way. But he definitely fixed the situation. I never again too anything from him or my mother or their bedroom.

    At 7, after we moved to the motel I was left outside to play in the parking lot by myself. My heroin addict uncle that periodically lived with us left to take a bus to NYC. I know now, he was going to get drugs and wouldn’t return for days at a time. That day my parents went a few doors down to visit with someone else who lived there. Bored and playing with the pebbles on the ground I found a hypodermic needle, I can remember examining it with curiosity. Eventually, I stuck myself in the thumb with it and it hurt! Immediately, I pulled it out and then started bleeding. Scared shitless, I went knocking on every door until I found my parents in room 6. (We lived in room 1) I told my dad what I did and brought him over to see the needle. He scooped me up, threw me in the backseat of the car and off we went to the hospital. I know now that he was having me checked because my uncle had just been diagnosed with HIV from intravenous drug use of heroin. I was one lucky little girl with lots of angels around me. I did not contract HIV that day. I used to think thank god my dad cared enough to fix the situation by taking me to the hospital to make sure I was OK. I’m sure you can piece together what would have been a better option, though.

    Finally, at 7 we moved to Garfield after my parents managed to get an apartment. I lied to my mother about something and my father put a sign on me and walked me around K-Mart, telling me to announce that I am a liar and not to trust me. Then brought me home to walk around in a circle in out living while the neighbors watched. I recalled this memory in previous blog post. Yeah my father fixed my lying because he traumatized me into making sure I didn’t do it anymore but it would have been way healthier if he had recognized his own anger about my mother constantly lying to him instead of projecting his feelings onto me.

    These are some of my earliest memories.

    There were also times as a child when I stayed at my grandparents house and was scared to go to sleep alone in the upstairs spare bedroom. I can remember being so afraid probably due to that night I was locked in my bedroom. So I would cry and cry and cry. My grandfather would come up and scream at me to shut my goddamn mouth and go to sleep! All I did was cry quieter and stay afraid but eventually I just developed more anger and a thicker skin. Because there was so much other stuff going on and happening to me that nobody saw or saw but did nothing about. My grandfather wasn’t interesting in why I was crying. I would have appreciated being asked what the problem was because maybe I could have opened up about the fears I had around sleeping alone since that day I pissed my pants while locked in my room. At least he fixed the crying child upstairs, I guess..

    As a young child and then again as a teen, when my heroin addict uncle wasn’t busy trying to get his life together as a step-father and husband he would end up in jail or living in my house. He would openly shoot up and pass out in front of me. Also borrowing money from me when I was older. Not ever paying it back but always bringing me a giant teddy bear or some sort of gift to make up for his mistakes. Always, “fixing” never speaking.

    As I grew older I didn’t know how to speak up properly for myself or share openly about things because I was told so many times not to say anything about the things that went on in my house. Also, I think I assumed any extended family must have known but didn’t do anything so I wrote off many hurtful events as “normal”.

    My father didn’t save me and he didn’t need for me to idealize him. He was the first man in my life to allow betrayal, pain and boundary violations to happen to himself and to me. Both from others and at his own hands. I needed him to heal, have some boundaries and be my father.

    He was betrayed for most of his life. I’m not sure how much anyone knew about how much of my mother’s nonsense he (and eventually I) were covering for her. With that said, my father needed to take a serious look at his wounds. He needed support and love. He was once a young boy, the youngest of 4, who’s mom left him and his brothers to be raised by an alcoholic father. It makes complete sense to me from a trauma standpoint why he didn’t leave my mother. Maybe he didn’t know how and quite literally needed/wanted her love. Especially after a 20+ year marriage that included toxic patterns and drug use, I’m sure leaving just became harder and harder of an option to consider.

    Despite using me as a stand-in parent he also made himself out to be my savior when I was victimized by his behavior and the behavior of others.

    I do believe he paid a price for love. I know his sober self never wanted me to pay a price. He blatantly told me not to. But I did anyway because he did so by choosing control over his own vulnerability. He chose avoidance and addiction over healing and connection. His parenting was full of projections onto me that were laced with the anger he harbored toward his parents and my mother for. I deserved better than this and I’m more than a bit pissed because for as self aware as he claimed to be and apologetic as he was, he could be just as oblivious to his own patterns and self righteous for no reason at times.

    In 2019, I was met with my own betrayal within my marriage. In utter shock and pain, the revelation of being lied to within my marriage cut through me like a knife. I was jobless, powerless with 2 kids, carting around uprooted unprocessed traumas from childhood and I had my father’s voice in my head telling me not to pay a price for love. The foundation of my life blown apart by the man I love, again. Just like when I was 14 and my father told me about their addictions and uprooted my life. In survivor fashion, I flung into action. I went back to work, and instead of being vulnerable I shamed and blamed my husband. Inflated my ego to hide the pain and acted better than him while supporting my household. All the while being so proud of myself and giving my dad the credit STILL for teaching me how to survive. Looking back at that, that looks and sounds exactly like my father who blamed and shamed my mother and me while taking care of our house and paying the bills. Gloating about being smart and self aware survivor I was, I made such an ass of myself and think its pretty funny now that I thought I knew better. No shame in my game. I definitely effed that all up and since learning to handle myself better our marriage has gotten better and our family has healed far more.

    Trauma patterns repeat unless we stop them with conscious choice to dig deep and heal.

    My father needed to care about himself more and to teach the right way to protect oneself. Not be overly responsible for the decisions of others and all the things that went wrong. All he did was set me up to be desensitized to inappropriate behavior, boundary violations, and interpersonal betrayal. HIs “survival skills” and loops of anger, shame, avoidance, and apologies were useless when it came to learning how to be a girl with feelings who’s softness was welcomed, protected and nurtured to grow.

    He was sensitive at heart and traumatized early in life but was unable to carry the weight of his feelings alone. The expectations to “be a man” far outweighed his need to be seen, heard and loved. He deserved a partner with less self-shame than my mother. A partner who had healed as well. But as with most things in life, he needed to clear his own shame, feel his own feelings and stay focussed on who he was meant to become. Instead of focussing on fixing his wife and fashioning me into some life warrior that could take blow after blow without ever falling. Instead he allowed himself to be dragged down in an attempt to avoid abandonment by always fixing and molding.

    I truly wish that as a collective we could see the damage done to the masculine energy around us when we tell boys to suck it up or man up instead of learn to accept their own feelings. The effects of this ripple throughout lifetimes and affect girls and women as well. It can take generations to heal it. The theme’s of this is seen in every arena of life and the patterns are covert if you aren’t aware of what you are looking for.

    To the men out there, you make a huge impact on the people around you who love you and look to you for guidance. As fathers, brothers, and husbands, you matter and we all need to be shown how to lead with compassion for ourselves and empathy for those around us. In your dark moments, I hope you choose vulnerable connection with others instead of hiding your feelings and “just fixing” things all the time. It feels lonely and isolating when you are unable to connect with your feelings. It can sometimes feel like shame when we aren’t heard because you are unable to hear your own hearts. I hope that if you find yourself surrounded by women and (men) who are unable to accept their own feelings that you will consider seeking people who are more healed and able to accept your feelings. I hope you will learn to demand more love for yourselves eve if it’s at an incremental pace.

    More vulnerability is needed in the world. Masculine healing and inner truth matters just as much as feminine healing matters. Idealization and pedestaling each other is counterproductive. We need to come alongside one another in order to heal and stop doing damage to one another.

    My dad wasn’t a victim. He was victimized and needed to learn compassion for self in order to integrate his early life lessons and realize my mother didn’t need rescuing either. She was victimized as well and needed a beacon of hope to lead the way to her own healing. Even if that meant walking say for his own healing and my health and putting her face to face with her own pain of loss. He surely wasn’t going to fall apart if he was abandoned or left her behind because he already survived hell before becoming a husband and father. There was nothing he couldn’t handle. It was only the FEAR of abandonment that stopped him.

    I wish my father could have learned this lesson for himself. Maybe I would have had an easier childhood. Maybe I wouldn’t be as self aware as I am now or been as well equipped to reach my true purpose in life. Who knows. I do know I miss the man my dad was when he was sober and in love with life. He would have been a wonderful and fun grandfather. I do miss him very much but he isn’t my idol.

    Dad,

    For all the traumas, shame, blame, and scapegoating that you passed on to me. I am grateful for what you gave me. Early lessons that connected me to hope and spirituality. Lessons that provided the intuitive insights I have now which led me to choosing my own healing. I am grateful for the horrors. Without them I would be without the ability to see what harms the human spirit and that love is heals it.

    I accept you because I accept me. I fight for you because I fight for me. I am you, you are me. I love you because I love me, now.

    -Jess.

  • Mom and Me: The cost of unhealed trauma between us.

    Mom and Me: The cost of unhealed trauma between us.

    I felt unworthy of genuine love or care unless there was sex or money involved in the equation. De-conditioning myself from those beliefs has been an uphill battle spanning the last 20 years of my life. Growing up, I saw my mother and father work and carry on a relationship based on those 2 external sources of validation. Until I got thrown into the mix and made to live those values as well. These are deeply rooted beliefs that spawn dysfunction across all areas of life. Leading to damage of the human spirit.

    My father a traumatized man and also the primary provider got injured at work in the early 90’s. He eventually became disabled due to that injury and never was able to go back to work. After that injury, my mother began working more and my father’s self- worth went down the toilet. His addictions became worse. He was more depressed, angry, and was nastier in general. He and my mother fought more and his parental discipline became harsher and militant style when I made mistakes.

    If he was working, he was a happy guy. Of course everyone wants to be able to provide for their family but due to his own upbringing making money was the beginning and the end of his self esteem. Sadly, he didn’t value his own talents, sense of humor, or unique way of looking at the world. As my father’s lack of worth became more apparent he leaned on me more emotionally and my mother was no longer fun loving and nurturing. She constantly yelled at me and became insufferable to deal with.

    In August of 1997 we moved from NJ to South Florida. Despite being on disability, my father had managed to save enough money to purchase a house from my grandparents. He moved my mother and I to Palm Beach County. We lived 15 minutes away from the beach. I could drive past Trump’s Mar-a-lago on a Tuesday if I wanted and with 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, and an in-ground pool living like I was on vacation became my new reality. At least from the outside looking in and as long as I was able to compartmentalize the horrors taking place within my house. But for that small snip-it of time I can see now that he felt accomplished and as a result was able to be the Dad I missed having.

    Within a year of moving, my mother couldn’t find consistent work and was fired from a part time job for writing unauthorized company checks. Moving to Florida isolated us away from family/friends in NJ. My father still couldn’t work at this point and is truly becoming an even bigger asshole than he was when we lived in NJ. My mother is resorting to writing bad checks to save our household but also buying cocaine so she and my father could “connect” peacefully and deal with their feelings together because he needed something in order to allow himself to have feelings. While sober and feeling afraid and powerless, my father was standoff-ish, gave the silent treatment and was terribly condescending if you brought anything he deemed too vulnerable to the surface. Including expressing feelings of love and affection.

    Looking back, my mother and I spent a lot of our time trying to keep him happy. I wish he had worked harder to heal and knew his value within our family.

    This coddling of him came between her and I. She eventually stopped working altogether and went on disability for the long list of back problems she had been struggling with for years. From an attachment injury and addiction standpoint it was easier to just stay home with him so they could be codependent together on a consistent basis. In her pursuit of my father’s love, she didn’t have the awareness to understand that she and I were doing the same things with the same goal. Trying to keep him happy by fitting ourselves into these molds that Tommy/Dad viewed as worthwhile in order to seek love and safety within our home.

    She often viewed and treated me as competition not her daughter.

    When I was 14 my parents sat me down to tell me about their addictions to crack/cocaine. My dad took the lead as my mother sat at the end of our oblong dining room table just staring at me as he spoke. He told me to keep my mouth shut about it otherwise they could be arrested or I would get taken away. He told me to start getting my own life and that there was nothing I could do because this was his life and his problem. I guess my feelings didn’t matter because his didn’t.

    I was shocked and numb. Frozen in time. To this day I struggle to feel feelings as a result of that night. My heart was broken, I was scared of my home, and felt so angry and controlled all in one shot. And despite the flaws, attitudes, and brokenness he was still the most important man in my life up until that point. The funny guy who also protected me, brought me out for ice cream, taught me how to tend a garden and take care of my pets, and took great pride in my ability to write, he has just told me to protect him, my mother, our household, get a life and don’t tell anyone in the world why.

    My childhood ended that night. I no longer was worried about my favorite color, boys, teenage issues, clothes, make-up, colleges, careers, or much of anything other than what he told me to worry about. My grades were only a concern because they continued the “show” that everything was fine in the Saul Household. I was now the 3rd provider, protector AND the child that doubled as the external proof that they were doing good as parents.

    I shortly started a part time job at 14 and spent everyday at school worried that I would come home to house full of cops or find them dead.

    On my days off from work or school, my dad, in moments of his sobriety, would take me out to see a movie or grab lunch and we would have a great time. He would discuss with me about leaving my mother and wanted my opinion on that. Because in my adolescence this dynamic was painted to me that my mother was the irresponsible coke-head that couldn’t control herself on the 3rd of the month when the disability checks came in. So if he could just get away from her, he could have a great life and things would get better for me, too.

    Despite him openly telling me while high on cocaine that there was nothing I could do about his addiction. We will just ignore that though, right dad? Well, I did ignore it for so long because I could’t see the contradictions with my child brain.

    In any case, I got more attention when I made money and had good grades. And if he wasnt spending time with me to do fun things and complain about my mother, he was coming out of withdrawals crying to me about what a fuck up he was and say, “by the grace of god, I’m such a good kid”. It was all based on his shame, because if I pulled a bad grade, didn’t understand a joke, didn’t make enough money, wore too much eyeliner, cut the lawn in the wrong direction, or dared calling him out on his bullshit. I’d get a complete rip away from my father, silent treatment, a scary “talking to”, get a quick hair pulling to shock me out of my silence while getting punished, or angrily told to get my shit together as he walked away. I guess that was so he didn’t have to get his together.

    Instead he got to scapegoat me as the problem in life when he was “happy” and could therefore be a good husband to my mother when I had brought in enough money. Which allowed him to become my parent again for a small timeframe.

    His mother left when he was young and his father was an alcoholic so I wasn’t allowed to be a kid because he needed a mommy.

    By the age of 15 I was making more money in a better job, helping with unpaid bills and food. By 16 I was a Pharmacy technician for Walgreens, By 17 I was a high school drop out with a full time pharmacy tech job, a GED, and making enough money to support myself if need be. I had a small annuity locked away in Bergen County, NJ surrogates court until I was 18. That was already tapped into twice by my parents to save the house from foreclosure before I was able to start lending money from my paychecks along with 10k from my annuity when I was 18 and received that money.

    My jewelry and belongings were taken and sold regularly at local pawn shops. Sometimes I got it back, sometimes I didn’t. By 18 I made more money than my peers, started college a year early, and drove a brand new car that I bought on my own with my money from working and whatever was left of my annuity.

    He couldn’t say shit to me anymore, huh? He made me into the best man I could have ever become. A better man than he was. My childhood was gone, feminine softness squashed, my mother consistently shamed, and my developmental needs entirely ignored. His fears became my problem and I was expected to carry them better than he did. So I did. I did it to avoid his abusive behavior. Follow his demands, avoid my fears, and quite frankly it eventually became about me gaining the power over my own life so I could get out of there! Which I did at 18.

    The only time I got truly ignored or treated like shit by the time I was 17 was when my mom felt jealous and she wanted to fight me while being a “sober parent” for about 10 days out of the month. When the 3rd of the month came and she once again had the power to lure him back to her with days long binges of drugs and sex. She would claim back her power as a way to mark her “territory”. Even going so far as to call me his girlfriend when she couldn’t afford drugs. Little did she realize she was just taming and appeasing him to make life more bearable the same way I was doing when she didnt have the money for drugs. Their sex life became obsolete unless drugs were involved and eventually even other people were invited in to uphold that area of their lives. Porn was openly viewed in my home. Homeless people and drug dealers were invited in to live in my home. All of who eventually became apart of the drug usage and sexual encounters. All proudly spoken about by my father to me.

    Through it all, my mother sat by quietly. Never attempting to protect herself or me. One of the most gut-wrenching and repeated scenario’s with my mother is when she would cry to me about how we needed food in the house or tell me that they (her and my dad) needed new socks and underwear. I would feel sad for her yet special that she asked me. Mostly because I missed the mom I vaguely remembered that I had and truly adored. She would take my money, buy drugs, never buy food or clothing and would lie to my father about where the money and drugs came from. After days of drug use and days spent withdrawing/ sobering up, I’d ask him where the money went. He claimed he didn’t know she borrowed it, he would confront her, and in the most uncaring way possible she would smirk at me, shrug her shoulders, and say “sorry” guess we will get it back to you next month. They would fight, he would cling to me out of shame for his decisions and what she did, she would get angry at me, call me a bitch or my father’s girlfriend, insist that I thought I was better than her and the cycle would repeat itself monthly. At least.

    On my 18th birthday, my mother called me a little bitch after I got mad at her for kicking me in the side while I was on the phone making a doctor appointment. I didn’t ask a question that she wanted me to ask so she kicked me as I was leaning against the frame of her bed.

    I ate part of a cheesecake alone at the dining room table for my birthday. My dad came and sat with me sometime later, apologizing for her. Feeling grateful for him at the time, I couldn’t see how his own pain affected his ability to love her properly and made such a huge impact of her sense of safety. With the gifts of time, maturity, and healing I can see things so much more clearly now.

    My mother was so much in need of a man’s (or anyone’s) love that she betrayed herself and me over and over again to gain access to or to offer one of the two things valued most by her husband. Money and/or Sex. In another post I can share more about her life events but for now I will share the following. When I was 33, I received a random phone call from someone claiming to be my mother’s best friend from kindergarten. This woman knew a lot about me, my mother, my father and my life in general. Among other pieces of information that shattered me, she felt the need to tell me that my mother was raped or sexually assaulted at age 6 by someone in her family and that person’s friends as well. This phone call wasn’t the first I had heard of this but it was the most clear and in depth recall of the situation. It was an out of the blue reminder of how little women love themselves or value the experiences/lives of other women. Just the act of calling me in the middle of my life to dump this info on me shows a huge lack of empathy. My poor mother couldn’t love herself. How could she? She was so accustomed to throwing herself away for others, being used, and never truly getting to have her own femininity or softness. My mom was betrayed at a young age. She wasn’t kept safe or believed by the people closest to her. It makes sense to me why she wouldn’t even be able to see me much less care about the hell I was going through and what she was catering to in her marriage.

    My mother was once a little girl who had a heart that was stepped on.

    After leaving Florida on my own in June 2002. My parents eventually lost the house and moved back to NJ after me. I ended up moving back in with them by January 2003 and we moved around to a few motels again until moving into this shithole of a place in Little Ferry, NJ. This is where they would continue doing drugs, invite my uncle who used heroin to come live with us and continue the drug dealer/friend traffic for sex and drug use. I was back in their mess again. Working and trying to handle life. This time with friends around me that I often went out with to stay away from the house. So much happened that I truly can’t even go into it all now.

    On December 31, 2004 around 11pm my mom appeared in the doorway of my room. She asked to come in. To which I agreed. She told me she was so sorry for everything she had done to me, all I had been through, and expressed how proud of me she was. It was the first time in 19 years as her daughter that I received a genuine apology. I felt loved by her for the first time in a decade. The little girl inside me was excited to maybe get a chance to start a new chapter of our relationship. That night left me with hopes of her finding sobriety. She was so smart, had a beautiful personality and smile. She was a warrior who would fight for anyone she loved and her spirit was so ready to be purely loved in return. I could remember the ways she loved me when I was little. My mom would read to me nightly, give me baths, make me breakfast daily, hug me tightly in her sweater in the rain, have toast parties with me on Saturday mornings, teach me math because she was an absolute whiz at it and helped me realize my drawing abilities. I also terrorized her by putting hair ties and clips in her hair while she napped or using all of her make up while she was on the phone with friends.

    I contained my feelings of hope because it wasn’t safe to be openly vulnerable with her. But I thanked her for the compliment and told her it was OK for all she had done and that I loved her. I asked her if she wanted to go get our nails done the next morning. She agreed and left my room. I found her dead next morning on January 1, 2004. And I remained guarded, angry and deeply heartbroken until I saw I was traumatizing my own daughter at the age of 3.

    My mother squashed her light because others did it to her a long time ago. My unhealed father did the same to her (it was done to him, too) and then to me in his painful and piss poor attempts at teaching me to be better than what I grew up in. She couldn’t see herself or me anymore. She found her worth in him. He found his worth in what she could provide when he was unable to. When she was unable, I then had to provide the half she couldn’t bring in anymore. Never did he have to figure life out again to do any real work on himself. It always fell on her or me. And it was either her or I taking the blame or being shamed.

    While my childhood is an extreme example, this basic dynamic of transactional relationships exists and is interwoven into our society. Men are raised not to acknowledge flaws and feelings but to bury them instead. Women are taught their value is found in their body and is measured by how much a man desires it and how much they can do for him.

    I played into the same dynamic for years and leaned more on the masculine side because my father demanded that I be an extension of him so that he could feel better about his shortcomings. However, still being a woman this left me open to sexual assault, rapes, objectification and a constant lack of safety/space for my own femininity. I have fought quiet battles that are more than anyone knows about or has seen. Learning to embrace my femininity has been the hardest hurdle yet.

    Experiencing the overt and covert aspects of this type of childhood and overall toxicity fueled by drug abuse has been excruciatingly painful and the healing has been deeply rewarding at every step toward victory. At the start of my healing I made so many mistakes as a young, dysregulated, traumatized and undiagnosed neurodivergent mother. I firmly believe that I wouldn’t have even began to heal myself if it weren’t for my daughters and I still make so many mistakes now. The one thing that was the most damaging was me shunning away my own softness and teaching them to do the same. The past few years have been about healing from that for all of us. Learning more vulnerability and honoring when we need safety.

    With each mistake I’ve made came a chance to heal my past and change their future.

    This Mother’s Day weekend has been about assessing my worth, values, healing so far, and to do a serious check in with my daughter’s about their own. All in the name of my own mother and the women that came before her who didn’t know how to heal their own worth. In this post, I am giving my mother the voice she never had by sharing some of her truths and mine.

    Despite all of the pain I experienced at her hands, she was worth it to heal. She was worthy of love. She was more than her body or ability to make money. She deserved to be heard, truly loved and kept safe. She gave me life and at her healthiest nurtured me as a child. I always heard her talking about how much she wanted me even if I came out with 20 toes and 20 fingers. LOL

    I wouldn’t have been able to heal or love my own daughters if I didn’t know that I was loved by her to some capacity. A mother’s love clouded by drug abuse, criminal behavior, emotional and physical abuse, but a love that was shown in a bookended fashion during my life with her. As a young child and on the eve of her passing.

    I saw and felt the glimmers of her soul in her moments of clarity. Now that I am at the age she was when she passed, 41, after completing some more EMDR sessions this year, I have deeper insights on her and the ability to see the woman she was.

    Mom,

    I have been mad at you most days of my adult life, The anger coming the hurt and wish that you could have known what a gift your spirit was. Being someone for someone else, other than who you truly were killed you and teaching me, allowing me, and demanding me to be someone other than myself only set me up for repeated betrayals by both men and women. Leaving me to deprive myself of true love, healthy friendships, belonging and causing levels of trauma to my own children, All without me being able to see it at first.

    However, I promise to keep fighting for us both and for your granddaughters. Fighting battles both out loud and in the silence. Answering to nobody anymore and becoming whoever I want and feel is right for me, authentically, unapologetically and in the most vulnerable way I can. As I continue to heal from the hell of my childhood I’m still learning to rebuild my self worth outside of the jobs I hold, money I make, and sex my body makes available to the opposite gender.

    I wish you would have found the strength to choose to face your own pain and heal yourself in order to do what was right by me instead of relying on me and blaming me. Hiding from yourself and using your body as a transaction to pay for the ways you made mistakes and leaving my father to clean up your repeated messes only led to ignore the feelings in yourself and within your marriage.

    You had the power to change everything by being brave enough to stand in your sovereign power.

    Through it all, I love you now more than ever anyway. I’m grateful for the lessons of darkness that made me search further for the light you couldn’t find. I’m not better than you. I’m only in a better position now because I have been lucky enough to have the chance to learn from lessons you taught me.

    -Jessica

    Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there that fall into unseen patterns, make mistakes, choose to heal, and kick life in the ass. ❤

  • No Mercy

    No Mercy

    TRIGGER WARNING- CHILD ABUSE & TALK OF ADDICTION

    This is one of the trauma patterns that set the tone for the rest of my life and has replayed itself over and over again in adolescence and adulthood.

    Once upon a time I was 7, a young girl. Just like the two beautiful girls in the attached image.

    Undiagnosed ADHD but already diagnosed as dyslexic. Did you know that about me? 🙂

    I “lied” to my mother about something or another. She viewed it as a purposeful act and told my father.

    I had apparently done this more than once as a young child. And judging from my experience of motherhood it’s the same thing all young children do. Or they weren’t understanding me due to my neurological differences.

    In any case, my father decided he had enough of me purposely lying to my mother. So that hot summer day I was berated and screamed at by the most important man in my life. Mostly because I wasn’t understood and couldn’t explain myself properly due to above brain differences. Which by the way could have been contributed to by the drugs my mother admittedly did for the first 3 months of her pregnancy before she knew she was pregnant.

    I digress.

    So anyway, there I am in the kitchen of our apartment with a 6’4, 300lb man screaming at me, shaming me for lying again and telling me he’s going to “fix my ass.”

    Well there I stood as he made a cardboard sandwich board sign for me to wear. The sign read, “I lie to my mother. I am a liar, do not trust me.”

    My father then brought me downstairs, loaded me into the back of his pick-up truck and drove me around town and to our local K-Mart. He marched me into the store, pointed his finger in my face and told me I will walk around that store repeating out loud to the strangers what that sign said. Frozen in fear I just stared at him and said, OK.

    I walked with him around that store repeating, I am a liar, do not trust me. I don’t remember much beyond seeing the first stranger and walking the front of the store because I definitely disassociated from myself and what was going on. Nor do I remember the ride back home.

    However, once home I surely remember being made to walk around in a circle in the middle of my living room, repeating the sign out loud while he and my mother watched. It was made to be some kind of amends to my mother from him. Like he was some prideful cat that brought its owner a dead mouse. Looking back, it was so gross and she just sat there and watched but I can remember her face and the pity she had for me. Her face looked like she was saying, “I’m sorry for telling him.” But she didn’t do anything but watch. Which certainly sent me a huge message. I’ll save that for another day because she isn’t off the hook either. Remember how she was doing drugs with me and *could* have contributed to this problem? We will never know for sure one way or the other and pinning it entirely on her may not be fair but it certainly wasn’t my fault and it was her job to protect me as well.

    However, he had so much ego (my father) for nothing and he could be scary. I mean what a joke to have so much ego for a 7 year old child. He looks like a real dipshit when I reflect back on it. If you take into account the amount of time that passed from the original event. For him to remain that angry for that long, he was certainly disordered in some way. I will gladly share more memories to drive this point home if this recalling hasn’t convinced you.

    The most ironic part of all of this? At this stage of my life my parents were lying to me by hiding their drug addictions.

    My mother had been arrested for felonies related to writing bad checks and she proceeded to spend the rest of my childhood lying to me to coax money out of me once I started working. Which was at 14 by the way.

    Those that have told me that my parents did the best they could, they have no idea the things I truly endured. And most didn’t know about the drug addiction until after both of my parents died and I started drip-feeding that info out.

    I have to disagree. My parents did NOT do the best they could.

    The hellish chapter of my life called childhood that my developing brain was formed in- damaged me, my kids, made relationships hard, kept me from career success, left me feeling misunderstood and isolated in so many ways.

    Yes, there were several good memories sprinkled in but there were not enough to counterbalance the damage done to me. If you didn’t know what was truly going on you would have only seen the good stuff. I do understand the view of others looking in but perspective is everything.

    My perspective is, I was shown no mercy in the first 20 years of my life and it has taken me another 20+ years and thousands spent on trauma therapy in order to become a successful adult that is (mostly) free from the shame of my story. Free enough to openly share it.

    I will continue to share my story because I deserve to be heard and so does anyone else who is walking around with their own secret stories that weigh them down in shame.

    When I look back on that day, I fully realize now that “lie” had something to do with my dyslexia and communication differences. Something I still heavily struggle with today. My dyslexia affects how I communicate, write, read, and is also the reason for my brilliant problem solving skills and ability to see patterns many others can’t see. I have many adaptations to counterbalance the challenges but even just writing this blog took me forever. ( and I’m sure I still have grammar mistakes)

    To wrap this up, my father who was once a boy who was abused and abandoned, was so wrapped up in making his wife happy by “defending” her from the 7 year old that “lied” to her.

    Yet, he couldn’t see the child (his own child) that simply needed help communicating.

    Look, I’m a badass survivor because I wasn’t shown mercy. Not because I wanted to be.

    Let’s try to stop romanticizing the strength of those with childhood trauma and perhaps show the mercy they weren’t given as children by hearing and believing their stories. Because some of the shit is truly unbelievable to have LIVED firsthand.

    Until next time, friends… Remember the saying that goes, “hurt people, hurt people”. See where you hurt first before you hurt others..

    We can all do better. Understanding is free and we all deserve love.

    <3-Jess