I don’t know if this post will stay online, but something happened, and I’m not sure what to think or what to do. I talked to some friends about it, and I got various responses; no one really agrees on the subject. I’m lost.

TW: Drugs, violence, alcoholism, child abandonment.

A few days ago, I was drawing when my phone started ringing. I didn’t recognize the number, but in my mind, it could be the number of a relative of one of my patients who wanted to check in, so I answered. There was a pause that lasted for a while. Just as I was about to hang up, a woman’s voice came on. She asked me if it was really me. The voice was hesitant, and I sensed a lot of emotion in it. It took me a while to realize that the person wasn’t speaking to me in English. It was my mom. It was the first time I’d ever heard her voice. I panicked and hung up.

If you’ve already read my previous posts where I talk a little about myself, you probably know that I grew up without my parents. They abandoned me at the maternity ward. It’s worth mentioning that they had drug and alcohol problems, to the point that I had them in my blood at birth. It still has consequences on my life today. Although not a single drop of alcohol has crossed my lips, I have to behave like anyone who has previously been addicted. No alcohol for me, ever.

As a baby, I had health problems because of this, which prevented me from being adopted (a junkie baby isn’t exactly appealing). So I grew up in foster care. When you’re a child and you grow up without parents, you invent stories to try to understand why you were abandoned. As a child, I stumbled upon episodes of Once Upon a Time, so before I knew the truth, I imagined I was:

“The daughter of a prince and princess, hidden away to preserve the future of a kingdom.”

Don’t judge me, I must have been 6 or 7 years old.

However, living without parents, I inevitably wondered many times what my life would be like if they had been there. But by spending time with other children who had been placed in the various foster families I knew, I began to question whether not having parents was a good thing. Some had been placed after suffering abuse and other forms of mistreatment (being placed in foster care isn’t enough to protect us from that…).

Yet, how I envied (and still envy) my friends and classmates, or the children in the playgrounds.

I must sound crazy, but I can’t help but watch with envy the interactions between children and their parents.

I, too, wished someone had comforted me when I scraped my knees or had a nightmare, that someone had come to see me at the end-of-year shows, that someone had given me advice on everything and nothing, that someone had helped me with my homework…

No, some of the people who were my foster parents still haunt my nightmares today.

Luckily for me, Nana and Jacek, my last foster parents, were wonderful.

I must have been 10 years old when I learned the truth. My father showed up at the home of the family where I’d been placed, brandishing a knife. I remember him screaming. I didn’t understand why I was being prevented from going to him and seeing him. The police intervened. The next day, I was back in child protective services. The foster family had been too scared and had decided to leave me with another family. It was the social worker who explained to me that my father was ill because of his addiction and that he was dangerous. Quite a reality check for a kid.

On my 16th birthday, Nana, told me that my mother wanted to see me, but that it was up to me to decide whether or not I wanted to meet her. I was filled with rage towards my parents ever since I found out what they had done. I sometimes thought that if they were dead, then at least they would have had an excuse for abandoning me. I’m not stupid, I know that if they hadn’t left, I would have been taken out of their custody anyway, but at least we could have stayed in contact all this time. What right did she have to get back in touch now? So I refused to see her. Since then, I’ve always wondered what my life would have been like if I had said yes…

When I turned 18, my father reenacted the same scene he’d had when I was 10, in front of the house, drunk and still armed with a knife. He demanded to see me, so I went outside. I didn’t want him to hurt anyone. He was staggering, he reeked of alcohol and urine, and he was incoherent. Luckily, the police arrived quickly. I was really afraid he would hurt me or someone else there. That’s what made me decide to move to another country.

I cut ties with my parents when I arrived in England. I built a circle of friends, rebuilt my life, everything was fine until that phone call. Today she’s reached out to me again, and my first instinct is to hang up. Now I have her number, and I can’t decide whether to call her back or not.

Shouldn’t I reach out to her?

I don’t think there are any easy answers. Either I say no and continue my life as it is, risking regretting pushing her away later, or I agree to see her again and step into the unknown. I can only speculate about what she really wants. Maybe I’m just imagining things and she absolutely doesn’t want to take on the role of mother.

I’m scared. I’m afraid of being disappointed. I dreamed so much of having parents that I’m not sure I can survive another disappointment.

I don’t know if I’ll keep this post or not. I just wanted to get it out. A way to put my thoughts on paper and organize my ideas, which are completely jumbled up.

In the end, I still don’t know what to do, but if there’s any news, I might post something.

Hugs and kisses, see u soon!