Growing up with a ghost in your ear telling you you’re not good enough is a human right of passage. We are all plagued with some level of doubt about ourselves, and it’s our parents’ jobs to dispel those negative thoughts and feelings before we nurture them further. Many unlucky children, however, are raised in families who refuse to dispel those feelings and instead perpetuate them. Years later, those same children become adults and realize the error of their parents’ ways and either choose to forgive or resign themselves to a life of no contact with their trauma-inducing parents. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with looking out for oneself if the alternative is worse—life is often sink or swim.

That’s what the now-25-year-old daughter decides to do in this next story. Her mother had always compared her to everyone else, including her older «golden child» brother, and has had years to reconcile with the fact that she doesn’t forgive her mother for subjecting her to this harmful narrative. Her mother is not happy but still can’t muster up a genuine apology. Scroll to read.