[Frankie Holliday]

I have told you about my mom, and while I should, and in some ways do feel bad for her, she was complicit in everything that happened to me, even if she didn’t really have much to do with it.

Sarah was born in 1982. She met an awful man in 1999, married him in 2000 and had me in 2001.

From there, despite being the ripe old age of 20, Sarah was a mom. She did the best she could, but she really had no frame of reference and no one to lean on. And it took its toll obviously. When someone just essentially legally kidnaps you, it’s kind of hard. And I would suggest that it just became too much for her.

My mother was there for the majority of my childhood. She tried to teach me things, but when you barely know how the world even works, it becomes rather difficult. She gave me a tablet and let me just learn on my own. My teacher was the internet itself. And not even the awful cesspool the internet is now. Like the infantile days of youtube. Nothing but 10 minute videos of people posting random nonsense. Before anyone really wanted to be youtube famous.

My mother did, when I was young, care for me. She tried her best, I suppose, to raise me. I learned how to read, write, speak and spell without issue. Charlie? I know once I was able to walk, left me to my own devices, but did, a time or two, actually reach out, hold me and comfort me when something was wrong. But most of that was my mother.

Again, it’s not like my mother has some elaborate backstory to really talk about. She was 17 years into her young life, and then boom, you get fucking uprooted, and given a false promise of an easy life. And she lamented it the day she found out she was pregnant. Again, you have to grow up almost instantly when this happens. You just are a parent. I don’t know if my mother ever thought about other options, but then again, I never asked. All I know is that I’m here, and it seemed to suck the soul out of my mother.

I know all too well, just how much having no time to grow up and mature can strain a person. Imagine just being removed from everything you know and you love and being put in a different place, and having to essentially start your life all over again. And with a person who doesn’t really even love or care about you. I don’t think Charlie really cared about anything but himself. He gave my mother money, and just stepped aside after that. He trapped her in a way that I wouldn’t wish on anybody. She was utterly dependent on him, and he essentially used my infancy and early childhood to help handcuff my mother to him.

I don’t believe that Charlie ever really loved my mother. He loved things about her, sure. But truly loved and cared for? No. And what lesson does that teach a woman? To Charlie my mother’s only value was what she could give him when he needed or wanted it. Getting pregnant with me obviously wasn’t what he wanted and only briefly made him act at least… decently, I guess towards my mother. She was a piece of meat, with no real way out of the situation.

Until she found it. Or rather… it was given to her.

I will say that my mother did everything she could have done, all things considered, to raise me. I was fed, clothed, and had a roof over my head. I was taught how to function properly. I had a small sense of right and wrong, good and evil, as it were. My formative years were spent as most any other child’s were. Essentially, it was a 9-5 for my mother. Because after 5, usually dinner time, I was pretty much left to my own devices.

But it became too much for my mother.

Again, you are a straight A student, you have your whole life ahead of you, and then boom, it’s all gone. Like, fucking GONE. You have this new life, and you have to raise a child and you are getting nothing from your partner. It’s a parasitic relationship and eventually, you run out of energy to give. No matter who you are, or how strong you think you are. We all have our breaking points. I often saw my mother crying, no doubt wondering how she fucked up this badly. When I was 8, she suffered a mental breakdown and spent several weeks in the hospital. She came home after that and it did not get any better.

 When I was 9, my mother finally succumbed to medication to help her get through the day. Something to take the pain away. The stress of life is crazy. And sometimes, you need a little help to get you through the day. And she got it.

Alprazolam.

Or, as you probably know it, Xanax.

I don’t know if normal antidepressants would have done any better or worse. Actually, yes I do.

You see, Xanax is usually prescribed for stress, and it relaxes people. But, oddly, or perhaps, not so oddly, one of the side effects of Xanax is actually difficulty sleeping. So, the mood was helped for a little bit, but then it wasn’t enough. This went on for a couple of years. Finally, my mother had to have something to help her sleep. And she got it.

Zolpidem.

Or, as you may know it, Ambien.

Combining Ambien and Xanax together isn’t recommended. They are both antidepressants. They both cause fatigue, drowsiness, and more importantly, slow down breathing. Once the doctor found out about this possible combination, he no longer gave her Xanax and instead, prescribed Sertraline. Which is Zoloft.
Zoloft in the morning enabled my mother to power through and mask the horrible feelings she had. Perhaps I was able to give her some joy early on, but everyone has their limits.

The Ambien was a different story. 

I watched many times as a child as she took those pills and would literally be comatose about 30 minutes later. Completely unresponsive and unable to do anything even if she wanted to. But, she did have a sleepwalking issue which then resulted in multiple times her sleepwalking to the kitchen, opening bottles and retrieving food from the refrigerator, and walking away, back to the couch or even her bedroom and laying down again. I had to ensure a lot of the time that my mother actually slept on her side or stomach, because she would vomit and it would get stuck in her mouth. I distinctly remember fishing chunks of food from her mouth with my finger, and Charlie doing the same once I told him about it. I suppose at least, he cared for her in that he didn’t want her to die.

Perhaps more so that he would be the prime suspect in her death investigation than anything else.

There was even a time when my mother took Ambien, and then went to sleep, only to get up, grab her keys, get in the car and drive down the highway.This is rare, but it did happen. She was pulled over and arrested and Charlie had to bail her out. Perhaps she was mentally trying to escape without even realizing it. But she was trapped.

This incident caused my mother to lose her license and so she couldn’t really go anywhere, further trapping her. Surrounded by the same walls, the same floors, the same things, all day, everyday. I know why my mother took pills. To escape this existence. Perhaps it was just my presence that prevented her from ultimately taking all of them.

It forced me to grow up and mature faster than normal. I basically ran the house when I was 10. I learned through osmosis for some things, but a lot of things I had to look up on the internet. I suppose I should be thankful that it was there. If there was one thing my parents did give me, it was exceptional intelligence. I probably wasted it on dumb shit if I’m being honest, but I was able to essentially cook and clean, and do many household related activities very early in life. My mother had a hand in it, as did Charlie. But when your father has no interest in you and your mother can’t take care of herself much less a child, what more can you really do?

I honestly don’t know if my mother is even aware I left the house. I won’t say that our relationship is broken, or even strained. She raised me, sure. But that only lasted for the first 10-11 years of my life. Once my mother was caught up in pills, once she was finally broken, there wasn’t anything there. She became more or less a zombie who barely spoke, just went through her routine like a robot. She was a husk of a person. She had been on autopilot for basically my entire middle to high school life. It is why she didn’t object to Charlie finding a renewed interest in me.

My mother never reached out to me, she never attempted to contact me in any way once I was gone. She sat there, when Charlie told me to leave. She sat there, on the couch blissfully unaware. Part of me in that moment hoped that it was a permanent one for her. I hoped it was the end for her. More of a mercy killing than anything.

So I can’t really be mad at her, other than putting an incredible strain on me, through no fault of her own.

The end result is that Charlie ruined my mother, which caused my mother to be unable to properly raise me.

I’m not from a broken home, my home was DESTROYED.

And it has made me who I am.