According to data, up to one in four people are separated from a family member. Here, a woman recounts the devastating impact of being left by her mother to live with her father – and how, years later, she learned the truth about her situation and was able to forgive him..

I will never forget the day I found my mother.

I lost contact with her when I was 12, and it wasn’t until 30 years later, when I was 42, and a mother myself, that we spoke again. Through therapy, I began to understand why she left me when I was little – and I was ready to forgive her. She said, “I’m so sorry I made you feel like I let you down.” We just looked at each other and kissed.

My mother took me into a mother and baby home in Islington, north London, in 1975. She was 18 and my father was 17. I’ll put it this way: They weren’t planning on having a baby.

My father was the man many women wanted to be with. I was told that the room my mother lived in even had a drawing of a heart with my father’s name and another woman’s name on the wall.

Being a single parent was difficult for my mother. She did everything alone. She was one of those barrel kids from the Caribbean whose parents came to the UK while she stayed at home. When she arrived in the UK, she didn’t really have a connection with her mother, which had a huge impact on her sense of identity.

My mother went to great lengths to make sure I was okay given the circumstances, but my father was very abusive to her. Around the age of five, the violence became so severe that my mother told me, “We have to leave.” We moved from one district to another. My life has changed; I didn’t see my father for a very long time. Then, a few years later, I started hearing about him again. He had returned with a new partner after living abroad. One day I was at home and he came over while my mother was away. Because she was a single mother, sometimes I came home from school alone – which was quite common at the time. He said something like, “Your mother is not a good mother. You shouldn’t be alone,” and he made me write him a letter to tell him I had run away. That’s how I ended up living with him when I was 12.

I didn’t understand the extent of this at the time, nor the level of manipulation. I ended up no longer living in my beautiful and comfortable house in Earl’s Court, but rather in one of the rougher estates in Chalk Hill. My father by then I had a whole new family.

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My mother came to drop off all my clothes, with a small entourage to protect me: her sisters. She must have been so scared. But I remember her saying, “If you want to be with your dad, here’s your stuff.” » I couldn’t understand what was happening. What I really wanted to say was, “Mom, I want to come with you.”

After that, I hardly saw her anymore – only once or twice a year. I didn’t receive any birthday cards. I wanted her to be in my life so much. Even though my dad was seeing a lovely lady who really took care of me at the time, I just wanted her. Not understanding what she was going through, I was angry. I felt abandoned. When birthdays came around or people at school talked about their mothers, I would think, wow, I don’t even know what my mother does. I don’t even know if she thinks about me.

I know now that she was just trying to figure out how to connect with a manipulative and dangerous person. I think it was a fight or flight situation for her – and she flew. What else could she do to keep herself safe?

I suffered a lot without her. When I was 16, I became pregnant by an older man who was quite violent towards me. My father kicked me out and after I was fired, I ended up living alone in another not-so-nice estate. I eventually moved to Canada, thanks to a relative there who saw I needed help. I met my children’s father, returned to the UK and raised them between Canada, London and Jamaica. Painfully, I was also separated from my children when they were teenagers, for about a year, when they chose to stay and live with their father.

In February 2019, when I was 43, I started having therapy sessions through a charity called A Woman’s Trust, which specializes in counseling and therapy for women experiencing domestic abuse . It helped me understand what happened to my mother.

I realized that she didn’t leave me because she didn’t love me. In fact, I didn’t know how many times she might have been prevented from seeing me. I had been angry all those years when she could be manipulated away from me. So I went to talk to him about it.

At first she felt uncomfortable, then we just started talking. I told her I understood and she cried. I told him: “I don’t want any other mother than you. » She recognized that I no longer resented her for her decisions and that I understood why they had to be made. We are now close and get along so well. I was also able to repair my relationship with my own children.

Exceed the wound of estrangement means asking for forgiveness for everything you have done. You can take responsibility, but you have to accept within yourself that people can make mistakes and that sometimes our parents, or anyone important in our life, can make mistakes too.

Even if you can no longer speak, it is important to find a way to continue your life without resentment, because resentment will take you away from your joy and your ability to make the healthy connections you need.

I express this a lot through art. I write poetry, paint, and speak publicly a lot now on issues such as domestic violence and coercive control. My mom comes to all my events and says, “You’re so strong. You are such an inspiration to me. We have a special bond – because there are so many things we have experienced in the same way. We heal each other, I think.