Finding My Way Home

 So much has happened that I can't begin to describe, but I needed to get this out.

I had always dreamed of having a home of my own, far away from the drama that became my life, but never did I expect that every hope I'd put into the universe would actually grant me my wish!

To start with what happened before, here we go.

In 2020, my mother started acting weird. Staying up for days, then being so sick she couldn't get out of bed. She'd yell and scream at my father and I, throw things, hit people, then go back around the bend and start a cycle that became normal. It ended with my father moving out and not moving back. For a year it dragged on endlessly, and I became her only target. I didn't have anywhere to move because my job was five minutes down the road, and as I didn't have a car, I had no choice but to accept a ride to and from. The house was falling apart at the seams, but still my father did the bare minimum. He stopped helping me with the rain buckets, didn't come when I called for help, and left me to deal with her violence.

In 2021, we tried to get the police to come and have her detained, but they said there was nothing they could do, per the law. We had to go to court and file that she was mentally incompetent, a danger to herself and others, and provide proof. If you have never been down that road, it's the shittiest feeling in the universe, to take away someone's free will and get them help by forceful means. I hated myself, but what choice did I have? After three days, the police came to the door and took her to Tulsa County Behavioral Health. A fat load of good they did, but on one front, we got our answers. It wasn't, per say, a mental illness. She'd been taken to the emergency room for chest pains due to her age, and after a urinalysis, they discovered methamphetamines in her system. the woman she'd befriended at the laundromat had been supplying her with the money she took from my father's account. After five days they released her, and it was back to same shit, different day. 

From there began three years of systematic abuse. I was beat, hit, kicked, slapped, shoved, stolen from, my stuff broken, police called on me for what she claimed was "elder abuse" simply because I told her I needed her half of the phone bill and I wasn't giving her money to buy drugs, emails to my work and calls to my boss to get me fired, and threats of going public with what I was supposedly doing to her. I was told by police that because I wasn't her caretaker, and it was proven by doctors that she was sound enough to take care of herself, she had no case. 

In March of 2024, I took a Friday and Monday off of work so I could have a four day weekend. I spent Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday morning with my friend before going to dad's apartment that he shared with my brother and nephew. That evening, we went shopping for my mother and went to the house to take care of the animals. The entire time, she talked shit to me, but I didn't respond. I'd told dad, who waited in the car, that if she came out, start recording because it was the only safeguard we had. As I was leaving, she asked if I was coming back Sunday, and I told her I'd be back Monday night for work on Tuesday. She told me that I wasn't allowed back and if I tried, she'd call the police. I reminded her that she had no legal right to keep me out of where I lived, and if I had to call them to get back in, I would. At the time this happened, I'd stopped cowering every time she hit me, and started fighting back. I slapped her every time she hit me, and restrained her to keep her from hurting me and the animals. She came out of her room like a bat out of hell and got in my face, telling me to leave and how I had abandoned her in a trash filled house. That she would make sure I got fired and everyone knew how horrible I was to a helpless old woman. I told her that everyone knew who and what she really was, and no one was afraid anymore. That's when it began.

She grabbed my by the arms with her nails digging in, and began to push me backwards into the kitchen. In the doorway, I shoved her off of me, and she hit the closet door behind her. She said she was going to have a bruise, and I told her to stay away from me. She came again, digging in and leaving marks. When I pushed her back again, she raised her fist and punched me in the mouth. I remember getting so angry that I was ready to bear her. I stepped up, planning to knock her down and leave her bloody. I didn't care about jail or abuse. i didn't care about the headlines. I wanted her to know that she was NEVER going to hurt me again, and that I would give her something to REALLY be afraid of. But I didn't. I can't explain what made me step back. There wasn't a voice or a feeling. Something took hold and I didn't react. She took that as me being a coward and came at me again. When my back was turned. she ran up on me and began shoving, hitting, and yelling. All the way to the back door. From there, she tried to shove me head first off the elevated porch, but I planted my foot and held on. I reared back and she fell, but she kept kicking my leg to get me to fall while holding my arm. When that didn't work, she got up and tried to push me again. I got her back down, and it was only then that she went past me to find dad. To his only credit, he started recording. She'd opened the passenger door and was yelling and making a scene. When I came out, she backed off and I got in the car. I called the police and a report was made. I never went back to that house, except once.

In April of 2024, I was sent to the house to get her groceries, and her use had spiraled. She was hallucinating. I called in for a welfare check, hoping they'd see her state and take her. After two hours, however, she answered their bullshit questions, and she was allowed to stay. I told them they were making a mistake, and she was going to do something. I didn't want to be right, but I knew.

9am the next day I got a phone call, and it was fire dispatch. There had been a fire at the house. On arrival, the fire chief told my father and I that mom was in custody. She'd tossed a match on the porch with her hoarding bullshit, and it went up like kindling. The house was a loss, except for the bedrooms. A cat had been trapped inside, and died from smoke inhalation. We salvaged what we could, found the animals that made it out, buried the cat, and she was taken into a mental facility.

Over a month, she called me and my father demanding release, despite her being held there by the court. My father promised me that when she was released, he wasn't going to help her, but his promises were smoke. The day of her release, he got her a place to live, a phone, and access to her money. You can already guess what happened.

When my father wouldn't even cosign for a car, one that he promised me he would use his credit for and I would make all the payments, lying to my face that he trusted me more than anyone, and if anyone else had asked he wouldn't, then backing out when it came time to sign, I started doing for myself. I'd gotten my license with help from a friend, and I took on a second job. My first was form 8am to 5pm, and the second was 5:30pm to 10pm, with an additional shift from 1pm to 10pm on Saturdays. He didn't celebrate when i got my car, and actively used me to take my mom so he didn't have to. 

Almost a year passed.

During that time, I met a man through Dead by Daylight, and our affections grew. When he said that he was moving to Kansas and wanted me to go, I made the plan. On July 1st, 2025 I packed up everything I owned in my Ford Focus, including my cat, and made the four hour drive from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Topeka, Kansas, and I haven't looked back. 

My life has become something I only ever wrote about.

As of today, June 24th, 2026, we are engaged, I have a 12 year old stepson whom I love like he is my own, and I am currently 4 and a half months pregnant with a healthy baby boy who will make his debut on November 24th, 2026. I work with adults who have disabilities, still do my writing, drawing, gaming, poetry, and enjoying my life without complications. My dad and I speak occasionally. My mom and I, well, I haven't forgiven her and I only speak to her when I know I can handle it. She's still using, hallucinating, and trying to drag me into her fictional world of Mormon Mafia wives, Elon Musk stalking her, and all the other bullshit with my dad. My sister and I are back in contact and she's been an amazing source of strength, comfort, love, and everything I had always wanted for us to have. I am in touch with cousins I haven't seen since I was 15, and mended many fences. I have gained the courage to not to look back, and to stop blaming myself for what happened with the cat. I have C-PTSD from my years of living with her, and the storms that kept making the house fall down around me. I have an amazing support system of friends both here and in Oklahoma, whom I will be going back to see in August when we meet my in-laws to bring our son back home from his summer in Texas, and to have our baby shower. I still haven't reconciled myself to being a mom to a soon to be teenager, and a soon to be newborn. I'm excited and scared. So many emotions wrapped into one, but it's everything I could have dreamt of. My fiance and I are two halves that both suffered and came out stronger. I love him with everything I am, and I can't wait to take his name. 

Some days I can't believe I waited so long to gain the backbone, but I know it's because of my fiance that it happened. He gave me the out and the courage to take it. My friend helped me in every way possible to be independent, and it was the missing piece. 

Here's to the better life, and putting the past where it needs to be. 

I will continue to update because I know there is someone who needs this, and I don't plan to disappoint again.

Stay strong, dear readers. I made it, and I know you can. Do not give up. Do not settle. You are worth the world.