What do you call a woman who....

What do you call a woman who put you down, called you names, made fun of you, disciplined you for nothing, said and did everything she could to break your spirit? Oh ya, and drank her face off? I called her 'Mom'.

For as long as I can remember my mom drank. She never 'talked' to me. She never consoled me. She never supported me. She never paid attention to me. She never cared for me.....at least that is how I felt.

What she DID do is drink. She drank in front of us. She drank in the bathroom, behind the stairs, in the shed. She drank out of canning jars and empty soap bottles. She lied 100% about her drinking.

She'd get drunk and drive with us in the car. When she was close to passing out, she'd pull the car over to the side of the highway and turn off the engine and sleep while us three young kids were in the car, terrified, alone in the dark.

She crashed her car numerous times. She broke almost every bone in her body. She's had hundreds of stitches. She spent 6 months in a coma in a trauma center. She was arrested twice for DUI. She spent time in jail. She spent every penny she got in her divorce from my father, on booze and was almost homeless.

When us three kids were little, our lives were hell. Mom drank all the time. I'm going to talk about what she did and said to only me though.

She treated me as though she hated me. She called me 'b**tard, son-of-a-bitch, rotten kid (that was her favorite)'...along with a whole strew of other names. She would dicipline me for anything and everything. She'd slap me across the face if she didn't like 'the look on it'. She'd tell me my face looked like it was hit by a mack truck. She told me people wouldn't give me the time of day if they got to know me. She asked why I couldn't be like this person or that person. She always sneered at me and what I wore, what I looked like. She said she understood why the kids in school made fun of me or didn't like me.

Because she was such a non-functioning drunk, I was put in charge of the household duties. My father spent some time giving me instructions as to how his lunch was to be made, how and when dinner was to be made. How my brother and sister were to be taken care of. How the house was to be taken care of. Because of this 'attention', my mother always accused me of having an 'inappropriate' relationship with my father...I can't bring myself to be more specific without being sick. When my father was away at work, my mother badgered me. Always at me. Always trying to get in my way of getting things done. Then when my father came home, she'd lie and say it was my fault things didn't get done. She'd tell him how awful I was.

When she ran out of booze, she'd go door to door in our neighborhood asking people if they had a bottle she could have. She'd drink at peoples houses, until they'd call our home and ask me to come and get her (my dad was barely around). They'd drop her off, with her yelling at them as they drove off.

When she was drunk, she would pass out wherever she was. She'd fall down and pass out face down in the foyer, basement floor at the bottom of the stairs, on the toilet, and wouldn't get off (we only had one bathroom), in the bathtub, wouldn't get out.

She called us liars when/if we ever told anyone about her drinking and then severely disciplined us. One time, she tried to push a knife into my hands, telling me if I hated her so much, to use the knife.

She finally succeeded in pushing me out the door when I was 15. I was on my own from then on out. On my own to figure out life and figure out me. Let's just say I didn't do so well for a long time.

The only things she did for me was make me insecure, afraid, ashamed, like a misfit, like an outsider, like nothing. Worse.

I feel hatred for her. I dream about her all the time. Dreams of me and her fighting for control, her always winning and gloating about it.

She is still a drunk. She drinks to this day. She calls and tells me how no-one can believe that she has three kids who don't talk to her. That everyone thinks her kids are so mean cause she is so nice, how could we treat her so bad. She can hardly speak when she calls, she doesn't remember the last call she made to me, or what she said.

I barely speak to her. My sister and I have tried for years and years to help her. Had her in and out of detox and rehab. But she still drinks and blames everyone else.

She broke my spirit and f**ked me up. I spent half of my life trying to cover up my pain. Trying to hide how I felt and who I was. Trying to be anyone but me.

I wish I never knew her. I wish I never called her 'Mom'.