suicide storys

anonymous

*this story is real the author doesnt want his name in the storyyy

I Needed a Mom, Not a Friend

ANONYMOUS

My mom gave birth to me one month after her 16th birthday. She was living with her parents in the Midwest, and she had to give up her childhood very suddenly. We lived with my grandma while my mother finished high school. Then we moved to New Jersey, where she went to college.

My mom wanted me to be independent, so she always treated me like an adult. I was only 3 years old when she started making me order for myself at restaurants. I felt shy and helpless, and I wanted her to just do it for me.

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By the time I was 7, we’d moved to Seattle for my mother’s job as a writer. She took me to school the first week so I could get used to the bus route. After that, I had to walk to the corner of my block by myself and wait for the bus. After school, I’d go to the corner store to buy snacks by myself. I never felt scared going places alone, but I sometimes felt bored and lonely because I had no one to keep me company.

For a long time, I felt more grown up than my friends. Their moms would baby them and hold their hands in the street. I had one 8-year-old friend whose mother still had her drinking from a bottle. I remember laughing about it with my mom because I thought my friend was so immature.

When I was 13, we moved to New York City. That’s where my mom had always wanted to live, because she thought writers were supposed to live in New York. We had no furniture at first and all of our household belongings were locked away in some storage warehouse for six months (we didn’t have enough money to get them out).

I wasn’t adapting well to my new school. I didn’t know anyone, and everyone was loud and unfriendly. I felt out of place and shy in New York. I was desperate to be back in Seattle, where I felt comfortable and accepted.

My mom was usually out with her friends or holed up in her bedroom working on one of her writing assignments. That wasn’t unusual, but now that I was having a hard time, I felt abandoned.

I got into a bad relationship, some girls in my school didn’t like me because of boy drama, my friends weren’t loyal and my grades were dropping. On top of all that, my mom and I were constantly bumping heads at home. I felt alone and depressed, and I needed her to help me.

Every time my mom and I encountered each other, we’d get into a heated argument, slam doors and both go to bed crying. Our fights were about stupid and unimportant things. One time we got into a fight because my mom hadn’t done the laundry, so I didn’t have any clean clothes to wear to school the next day.

We argued for what seemed like hours, and then I screamed, “You’re such a bad mother!”

Her eyes watered and she left the room. Now that I’m older, I feel horrible that I said that to her. I realize she really didn’t have time to do laundry. But I don’t think that was what we were fighting about anyway. She was stressed from work, and I was stressed from school. I guess we took our stress out on each other.

But I was also angry because I needed her to be a more “normal” mother. I wanted my mother’s affection but I also wanted her to be strict and set boundaries with me—like giving me a curfew and getting on my back about homework. I wanted her to pay more attention to me, even if it was just her asking how my day went. All of that would have shown me that she cared about me.

I wanted her to be like my best friend Janeen’s mother, who was always there for her kids. She cooked and cleaned the house, and she asked how their day went. She even had a specific “homework” time. And every time I went over to Janeen’s house, her mom would come up with fun games to play, rent us movies and make a special sleepover casserole.