I Am Not Your Villain

There are moments in life when silence feels like surrender.

And there are moments when silence becomes self-erasure.

This is not the first kind.

I have been called abusive.

My mother has been called an enabler of that abuse.

And I need to say something plainly.

I am not an abusive mother.

Abuse is not the same as honesty.
Abuse is not the same as leaving a painful marriage.
Abuse is not the same as speaking truth to an adult daughter about lived experience.

I did not terrorize my children.
I did not manipulate their reality.
I did not isolate them from their father.
I did not use fear or guilt to control them.

I raised them in conversation.
I raised them in presence.
I raised them in love.

If sharing my story when my daughter was already a young adult is now called “trauma dumping,” then words have been stretched beyond their meaning.

I never asked her to carry me.
I never asked her to fix me.
I never asked her to choose sides.

If any part of what I shared felt heavy, I would be willing to hear that. I would be willing to own unintended impact. That is what emotionally responsible adults do.

But impact is not the same as intent.
And heaviness is not the same as abuse.

There is also a difference between supporting someone you love and enabling harm. My mother stood by her daughter. That is not a crime. That is not complicity in cruelty.

It is loyalty.

I left a marriage that hurt me.

That decision does not make me a villain.

It does not erase the years I stayed.
It does not erase the nights I carried my children through sickness and fear.
It does not erase the foundation I helped build in their lives.

Being called “dead” does not make me dead.

Being called “abusive” does not make me abusive.

Labels do not rewrite history.

Yes, I am hurting.

Yes, I am grieving.

But I will not collapse into a false identity because it is easier for others to hold.

I am not perfect.

But I am not cruel.

I am not violent.

I am not the monster in this story.

I am a mother whose life is being interpreted through a different lens right now.

And interpretation is not the same thing as truth.