For Sinead

I feel you, my sister, in the core of my being. I’m 10 years older than you, to the day. Both of us had mothers who were not capable of being mothers because their own mothers were not capable of it either. Mine crossed an ocean, only to get swept up in the tide of pentecostal lunacy in the hollers of Appalachia. In other words, they brought Northern Ireland and Scotland and all their ills with them.

When you’ve never had a mother who mothered you or took care of you, you seek that everywhere. People in general don’t understand that at all. We get labeled as crazy. We get labeled as needy and childish and immature. We get labeled as mentally ill. We start to see ourselves as that. When the person who birthed us is gone, yet we’re still here with all our losses, and no one filling the void our non-mothers left, we can’t NOT seek out someone to take care of our simple, childish needs. I’ve found no one willing to do that. I’m guessing you didn’t either.

We are infants in adult bodies. Our brains become smart, though. Our sensitivity and empathy cause serious pain to us that people who were loved by their mothers can never understand. It’s an aloneness that no one sees. I saw you hovering in the background of the church where you sang “Evergreen,” alone and isolated while the others socialized and connected. I saw myself, hiding in the background of every piano recital in which I was the star. Alone, as no one in my family ever attended them.

We want to be seen and heard, but have no idea how to accomplish those things. When we try our best, everything comes out sideways and misunderstood. We are ridiculed. You, however, continued on speaking your truth, whereas I just hid all the more. The guilt was immobilizing. When your mother doesn’t care for you, all you can think is that you’re to blame. I’ve spent decades trying to be someone I’m not, just so other people will allow me to be in the same room with them.

You so bravely stated that you deserve to be respected and not treated like s**t. I haven’t quite reached that yet. I have a photo of you staring me in the face all day, every day, because it makes me feel less alone. Your strength surpassed mine by a long shot.

“Will you be my lover? Will you be my momma?” I need a momma first because lovers have never fit the bill. Their love is conditional, and I am not able to meet those conditions. There is not enough me to meet them. The fake personas I’ve built while trying to earn their love have just been bricks in my wall. Bricking off the infant, who’s still yearning to be cared for. How terrible must I have been, for my mother to not care for me?

I’m like you �" a support animal, and a good one, until something resembling my various traumas shows up, then I “flip my lid.” It’s helped me a lot, hearing you say that. I don’t flip my lid �" I hide in my bedroom and cry. I smoke a lot of pot so I can get numb enough to leave the house. To be honest, cigarettes worked better, but they were killing me in a most unpleasant manner. Nicotine has the highest level of naturally occurring dopamine there is. Just mainline that dopamine into me!

I’ve also had years of therapy and learned a lot of coping skills, but coping isn’t the same a living. I don’t know what living is. Do you? I’ve only caught a glimpse of it while stoned and laughing, and even that’s rare. Comfortably numb is something to which I aspire. It’s not living either, but it’s better than the pain that eventually turns to thoughts of suicide. “Straight back to my mother!” Well, mine wouldn’t take me back, even if we both turned up in heaven.

I don’t want to end up in heaven. I just want to end. I can’t believe any future life wouldn’t be just as bad as this one.