I doubted a lot if I would write this because I don’t want to hurt you anymore. You tell me often you feel guilty about everything that happened but especially the fact that it damaged us as a family and as individuals. You regret making certain choices and you tell me about how you should have seen the clues.

I want you to know I'm not blaming you at all. And I never did. You probably think I'm lying but I'm not. I understand the position you were in. Of course I understand the way you think, and why you’re convinced you should have known better. Because you’re right—you should have known better. It was your job spotting wrong people, spotting addictis, spotting manipulators. And I know you were awesome at your job. So why didn’t you see? I feel your frustration and pain every time you have a flashback of a moment that should have made you realize. Now, as I'm getting more mature, I find you apologizing for the situation.

I'm more open to you than I used to be. I'm telling you my struggles, about my PTSD, my feelings. I'm sure that’s not fun to hear from your daughter. You feel like everything was your fault—the things we’ve seen and experienced. You were the adult and you had to protect us. I understand why you feel like you have failed.

When I'm open about the shit going on in my head, you struggle to find a pose. At first, you reacted like everything was normal—like being sad was normal, like hating myself was something every adolescent experienced, like my shitty feelings were okay. Back then, I felt misunderstood and it made me hate myself even more. Now I understand where this reaction was coming from. Those comments came from your denial and guilt. Now our way of communicating has improved. Often you still have the urge to fix my feelings but you know it isn’t possible. We are just damaged; I was damaged. I like the way you see and feel that fixing it isn’t really the answer to my feelings. I really love you, Mom.

But the main reason I'm writing this is because you don’t deserve thinking you screwed it up. You were a victim, just as much as my brother and I were. You were fooled, manipulated, harmed, and abused. You are a good person and I know you didn’t want to fuck up our lives by staying with him. You always did everything with the best intentions.

I want you to know I never blamed you, and I never will.

We can talk about the things you did “wrong” but in fact you did a lot right! You protected us the best you could. You choose to get beaten up instead letting my dad hurt us. You fought to keep us close to you. You made sure we didn’t had to go to him if we didn’t want to. You lost everything for our safety. And despite everything, we turned out pretty good. Yes, we do have traumas but we could have ended up much worse. We could be killers or rapists. Narcissists or psychopaths, but we aren’t. Do you know why? Because you did much more right than wrong.

Mom, I love you and I want you to know, it was never your fault.