“The Accusation That Destroyed Everything”
Some wounds never heal. Some apologies come too late—or aren’t really apologies at all. And some betrayals don’t come from enemies or strangers, but from the very person who was supposed to protect you. My mother didn’t just fail me. She broke something inside me that can never be put back together.
I grew up in a house divided by favoritism, bitterness, and addiction. My mother—an alcoholic for most of my formative years—never hid the fact that she had favorites. My sister, the golden child, could do no wrong. My older brother, the pride of her eyes. Even my youngest brother got crumbs of affection. But me? I was the one she couldn’t stand to look at. I was the scapegoat, the punching bag, the outcast.
And why? Because I was close to my dad.
That’s all it took. My mother, who never had a real father figure, saw something she didn’t understand and warped it into something sick and shameful. I shared a bond with my father—a real one. He loved me. He supported me. He actually saw me. And to her, that wasn’t possible. In her twisted, damaged mind, love only existed where there was something dark beneath it. She couldn’t imagine that a father could love a daughter platonically. That he could care, support, and protect without wanting something in return.
So, she accused us.
Not once. Not twice. Many times.
“There’s some Mormon shit going on between you two.”
“You’re his second wife.”
Let that sink in. A mother looking at her teenage daughter and her own husband and spewing incest accusations like venom. She wasn’t just drunk. She was hateful. And in those moments, she wasn’t my mother—she was a monster with a wine glass in one hand and a mouth full of fire in the other.
You can’t ever un-hear words like that. You don’t just forget them. They live in your bones. They infect every memory of your childhood like mold, growing over even the good parts. Suddenly, moments that once felt warm—watching TV with my dad, going to the store together, talking about school—were twisted by her into something grotesque.
I was a kid. I didn’t know how to fight back. I just cried. I tried to pretend it didn’t happen. I told myself she didn’t mean it. But the truth is—she meant every word. And she meant to hurt me.
When she finally got sober, she offered something that vaguely resembled an apology. But not really.
“I’m sorry I said that. I never had a dad, so I couldn’t understand what you two had was normal.”
Normal? That’s what she said. As if calling me a victim of incest was just a little misunderstanding. As if accusing my father of molesting me was something you could blame on childhood trauma and brush under the rug. As if she was the one we were supposed to feel sorry for.
Her apology wasn’t about me. It was about her. It always has been. Every tear, every excuse, every relapse—always about her. She played the victim in a story where she was the villain.
And no, I don’t forgive her.
Not for that.
Not ever.
You don’t accuse your daughter of being in a sexual relationship with her father and expect forgiveness. You don’t plant that kind of rot into someone’s soul and think time will erase it. It won’t. It can’t.
I hate her.
I know how ugly that sounds. I know how harsh it reads. But I won’t sugarcoat it. I hate her for what she did to me, and I hate her for what she tried to do to the only parent who truly loved me. My dad—he was just trying to be a father. He never deserved any of that. And neither did I.
Now, as an adult, I carry this weight with me. I carry it into every relationship, every family gathering, every phone call with my father. I haven’t been able to go back home. Not really. I avoid my hometown like it’s cursed, because she’s still there. Her presence taints the whole place. I want to visit my dad. I want to go back. But I can’t—not until she’s gone.
People tell me I’ll regret this when she’s dead. That hate is a poison. That forgiveness is for me, not her.
But they didn’t live in my house.
They didn’t hear what I heard.
They didn’t have to pick up the pieces of their identity after being accused of something so vile, so dehumanizing, that even thinking about it makes your stomach turn.
Some people don’t deserve forgiveness.
She’s one of them.
And one day, when she’s no longer here, I’ll go back home. I’ll visit my dad. I’ll walk through the streets of my childhood without fear or disgust. I’ll sit in his kitchen and laugh without hearing her voice in my head.
But until then, I wait. Not with hope. Not with love.
Just silence—and the peace that one day, I’ll be free of her forever.
