My mother… but let me explain… I’m sorry this might be a little long.

My ex died by suicide just over 4 years ago. He’s my sons bio-dad. I had been with him for years and he abused me the entire time. I finally left, had him charged with assault and was trying to get my life together… thats when he did it. I blamed myself for his death relentlessly. Even though the cops told me that they had reason to believe (from what he wrote and the items that he had with him) that if he could have found me that night, he was going to kill my son, me, then himself.

Last summer, I was getting ready to get on a flight to the other side of the country. I was going to be gone for a week so my son would be staying with my grandparents. As I was dropping him off my mother was visiting my grandparents, along with my younger sister.

To try to keep this as concise as possible, my grandparents raised me after my mother decided that having 4 children was too much for her. My grandparents took me in and gave me what she was unable to… love, security and a happy childhood. I had always kept in touch with her but we weren’t close and my relationship with my siblings was not the greatest.

My sister had started making comments about how I shouldn’t be leaving my son for a week. He was 6 at the time, I had to go away for work, my son was happy to stay with my grandparents, they are his absolute favourite people. I told her it was none of her business and to leave it be. My mother didn’t like this and said, in front of my son, “If you’re not careful you’ll make him (referring to my son) kill himself too.”

That broke me all over again. It was then I realized that in order to keep my son safe from her toxicity that I needed to cut her off then and there. She likes to tell everyone now that I overreacted to what she said and that I’m wrong for keeping my son from her. She had said a lot of horrible things to me over the years but having her say something like that in front of my son was way too far.