The Last Time

This post contains descriptions of emotional and physical abuse. If you are sensitive to these topics, please proceed with caution or prioritize your well-being by stepping away. My story is my own, and while I share it to heal and connect, I understand that these experiences may be triggering for others. You are not alone. If you need support, resources are available.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline:

800-799-7233

Suicide and Crisis Hotline:

Call/Text: 988

***** marks the beginning and end of a semi-detailed account of my trauma. If you'd prefer to skip this section, feel free to jump ahead to where I discuss its long-term effects and my healing journey now. Your emotional safety comes first.

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I don’t remember the first time my mother put her hands on me.  

But I remember the last.  

That moment forever shredded whatever fragile love I had left for her, tarnished our relationship, and tore my trust into fragments. I was seventeen.  

*****

I don’t remember how the argument started—only that it was one of many. A relentless mental battle where defending myself with snarky teenage wit was usually enough to make her back off.  

Not this time.  

She made a vulgar comment, one that horrified me, one that tore into my already damaged self-esteem. She weaponized my trauma to assert her superiority. Sneering, she said she figured the reason I didn’t have friends was because I’d tried to force myself on them at sleepovers.  

I was a survivor of childhood sexual assault. I was so scared of my own shadow that I hardly ever allowed myself to feel attraction. I’d had a crush on the same boy for years. I vehemently denied any interest in women, despite her insistence otherwise.  

That comment unleashed something inside me—an insurmountable, all-consuming rage. I slammed my bedroom door in her face.  

It was the first and last time I ever did.  

Fear surged through me the second the door clicked shut. My hands shook as I felt her weight press against the wood. The moment it flew open, she was screaming. I don’t remember her words. I only remember her eyes—black pits of fury, darker than I’d ever seen. I shrank back immediately, stammering apologies before she even crossed the threshold.  

I had hit her when I slammed the door. I hadn’t meant to. I hadn’t known where else to direct my anger.  

But she did.  In seconds, I was pinned to my bed.  

By my neck.  

I sobbed, screaming for her to let go, but she held me down, her hot breath in my ear.  

“Never do that again. Ever.”

I begged incoherently, my voice breaking with terror. When she finally released me, I couldn’t bring myself to sit on the bed. Instead, I curled into a ball in the corner of my room, hidden behind my dresser, shaking violently. I wanted to leave. My phone sat untouched beside me—I could have called someone.  

I didn’t.  

I think I texted my brother vague details when he asked. He used to hear the arguments from his room down the hall. He knew better than to intervene.  

I never wanted him to.  

I don’t know how long I stayed on the floor, but eventually, I got up, pacing to steady my thoughts.  

Then my father appeared in the doorway. He didn’t say a word. He just stared at me with a look of cold disappointment before dropping two suitcases and retreating down the hall. Tears welled in my eyes as I stifled another sob. He didn’t protect me.  

He was never going to.

Despite the traumatizing events, I didn’t leave that night.

I never entirely left.  

I was too afraid that if I did, my mother’s anger would turn toward my brother—the only person I protected more fiercely than myself. So I withdrew. I threw myself into school, work, and the homes of friends. I only returned to shower and sleep. That night didn’t just break my relationship with my mother, it shattered the bond I once had with my father. And for years, guilt gnawed at me.  

Surely, I had done something to deserve it. Surely, I was the horrible, conniving person she insisted I was.

Right?  

*****

I used to get angry when I thought about how I was brought up. In a mind that was not spared from trauma from the earliest memories, I ache for the person I could have been if I were not forced to survive. Sometimes it's hard to remember the good moments when I'm too busy being furious for the little girl I now fiercely protect.

I let myself grieve now, for the nights that death seemed more appealing to a girl who had never truly gotten a taste of the freedom of finally living. But I am so much more than a troubled product of the environment in which I was raised.

I've spent years trying to release my trauma. I've mostly forgiven my mother.

That sentence feels foreign, even now. Forgiveness wasn't a crescendo, it was a slow, unraveling path to the truth; my truth. I could hate her forever and still drown in the wake of what she did. So I chose to let go. Not for her. For me.

I still occasionally flinch at raised voices. My throat still locks when I try to speak up for myself. My body remembers what my mind tries to heal. Yet, that doesn't slow my progress; it enables it.

A little over a month ago, during another guilt-filled phone call, she broke. She apologized. Not yet for the years of trauma I endured at her hands. She apologized for that night, surrendered her sins to her god. I sobbed on the other end.

"I was seventeen."

She mustered a barely vocal "I know."

I never thought I'd hear those words, but when it came, I felt...nothing. No catharsis. No closure, just a quiet ache, like pressing on a bruise that never quite fades. I had already forgiven her without the apology. What else could I atone for?

Our relationship will never be what I once dreamt. I do not desire a heartfelt reconciliation, and that is okay. I forgave her because the resentment was poisoning me. That's the healing I chose.

Here's what matters: When your abuser apologizes, you don't owe them forgiveness. You don't owe them a relationship. You can let the past rest and still move forward. What fuels you, what makes you live with yourself and your choices, that is the only path that matters

I forgave because that old anger was seeping into everything, my trust, my relationships, how I saw myself. I refused to let it define me anymore.

And when I finally let go?

The softness I thought I'd lost came back. Not as a weakness, but as strength. The gentle, open-hearted person I've always been is still here. She's just louder now, and braver.

And this time?

She knows how to fight for herself.