Talking about my daughter is something I don’t do. I have shaped the people around me with my silence. If you want to get along with me don’t mention certain things or I will shut you out. Silence and distance are my weapons of choice.

Who are they to provoke the wave of feelings that comes when I mention her name? But really, who am I to feel how I feel? Who am I to put those feelings above all else?

I spend so much time examining myself. Even this blog. But let’s talk about her.

There is no pat way to sum up my relationship with my daughter. Outside of this – I did not want her and it shows.

I spent the first five years of her life pretending otherwise. I took her everywhere, took a million pictures with her, and made her the apparent center of my life. If you met me then you felt like I was as committed a mother as any. Maybe even more than others because her Dad was such an awful human being who made clear he didn’t want anything to do with her. But if you dug deeper you’d see that I was running on imitation auto-pilot. I followed the day care decisions of my best friend who had her daughter on the same day. My friend planned the birthday parties. My friend even planned the first baby pictures. She was the mom. I was tagging along.

I’m hesitate here because I’m still not digging in. I did not want her. And I couldn’t tell anyone that because that was awful. A mother cannot not want her child. But I didn’t. And still don’t.

I am numb now. I described it as dead inside. I’ve cursed myself to not feel anymore when I would rather feel. It’s the motivation of life for me. Emotions that encourage action. That tell me whether I’m on the right path or wrong. But these emotions are all misleading. And this paragraph is the same because I don’t want to get into this. But I must.

I did not raise my daughter. I sent her to her Dad, her awful Dad, and he sent her to his parents. I settled into that. I wanted her to be with his parents. I treated it like giving her up for adoption to a ‘good family’. I let myself believe that it was for the best. I told myself and other people all sorts of lies about why this needed to happen. I couldn’t control her (she was 7); Her sexualized behaviors were too much, too triggering, and I couldn’t manage it anymore. Someone else had to help; Her stepfather was too rigid and borderline abusive (rather than literally trying to keep her from being harmed and trying to address the behaviors that I only complained about); She wanted to go, she didn’t want to be with me.

Lies. All lies.

I didn’t want to raise her. I didn’t want to raise the child who I saw as the part two of the child I aborted. The darkness of that following me. I didn’t want to raise her. I stayed in a sexless marriage with a man who used and resented me.. I stayed because I killed our unborn child. And when I got pregnant – let’s talk about that. When I got pregnant I was surprised. Just like everything else I wanted to trick God. I made a deal when I had the abortion – I would ‘bring the spirit back’ after getting my degrees. Finishing school and starting real life. And I had done that. I had my three degrees. I had my postdoc. And soon I would have my job. Cycle complete. But I still didn’t want a child. But the deal, though. So I did what I never did and had unprotected sex. I gambled. But I had to, I told myself. I had to attempt to make good on this deal.

Like most things I do when I try to do them, I was successful. I got pregnant. And in my mind lost everything. The job I wanted. Living where I wanted. I didn’t want a child.

I felt like she knew how I felt. From the beginning. She knew.

So for eight years she has been away from me. Without seeing me and rarely talking to me. And the fact is – I have been ok with that. Because I tell myself lies to make it ok. I don’t sit and think about her and how she feels. I don’t think about what it means to her that her mother doesn’t want her. I pretend that circumstances have created that. This desire to not raise her is so strong that I have literally sacrificed my family, my sons and their Dad, to do this.*

When I was being asked to raise her and let her father off the hook I lost my mind. People write that but I’m serious when I say my mind, the part of myself that is sensible and logical, the part, no matter how small, that is ethical and moral, was quieted. Or rather, silenced. And I operated on raw emotion. I raged. I fought. I jumped out of cars and picked fights. I laid on the ground in a fit of lunacy, almost screaming “I can’t, I can’t.” Can’t what? Raise my child?

My story of abortion and lost souls and bargains with God are good writing. But what about my child?

My child is brilliant. And awkward. And rebellious. She is more mature than me. She feels deeply. She gets anxious. She used to lie a lot about small things but told the truth when it mattered. And she has grown up with her mother and has to make sense of that to have any sort of life. I’ve been blessed despite having thrown her away. It can’t be for myself. I’ve been blessed with boys and family and Islam. And I’ve resisted all three things but they persist in my life. For her.

I think about myself when I think about reconnecting with my daughter. I think about how it will look. How it will feel. But I rarely think about what she needs. She doesn’t need me. She needs family, her brothers, Islam.

So when I talk about my daughter I should talk about that. What she needs and how to give it to her. That’s what matters now. That’s all that matters now.

*I did not do this alone. I never parented from my own mind. And I joined forces with my mom at a certain point in my daughter’s life. Gave up control and will and stepped back into the role of a child so I didn’t have to do the hard things and made the hard decisions. And now I’m here, struggling to explain myself when my actions have been tied to her motivations. What she thought was best. Another post for another day but an important interjection to make. I did not do this alone. I was supported every step of the way by a woman who felt that this was best. Still does.