This is a letter you’ll never read, and it doesn’t matter. It isn’t for you.

It’s for me.

Because I’ve spent most of my life trying to make sense of your version of love.
The kind that looked like control. That sounded like guilt. That was measured out in payments and apologies that never meant anything real.

You gave me money.
But it was never about me.
It was about you — protecting your image, maintaining the illusion that you were a good mother. A generous one. One who “helped me do all these things.”
But the truth is: you helped me just enough to keep me dependent.
Just enough to confuse me.
Just enough that I doubted myself every time I tried to pull away.

And now I see it.
The money wasn’t love.
It was leverage.

A trade: I got the financial scraps. You got to keep the title of “loving mother.”

And for years, I didn’t question it. Because I needed it.
But what I needed more — what I always needed — was a mother who saw me. Who apologized and meant it. Who didn’t turn every conversation into a performance about her pain, her shame, her life.

I was your mirror. Your sponge. Your excuse.
And when I stopped playing that role — when I started building a life without you in it — suddenly, the money started flowing.

It’s textbook.

You couldn’t love me the way I needed, so you tried to own me with help I didn’t ask for.
But the damage is done. The silence, the shame, the gaslighting, the triangulation. The subtle violence of being erased and then blamed for reacting to it.

You’ll never admit it.
You’ll say you tried.
You’ll tell others you gave and gave and gave.
And maybe they’ll believe you.
But I won’t.

I know the truth now:
You didn’t destroy me because you were evil.
You destroyed me because you were never willing to face yourself.
And I was the easiest place to put the pain.

This is the last time I carry it for you.

I’m not your project. I’m not your broken thing. I’m not your justification.
I’m your son.
And you lost the right to speak into my life the moment you made your shame louder than my reality.

Keep the stories.
Keep the self-pity.
Keep the role of the misunderstood mother.
You’ll need it now that I’m gone.

As for the money?
I’ll use it.
Not with gratitude — but with boundaries.
Because if that’s the only thing you’ll give, then I’ll take it as restitution for the childhood you never showed up for.

I don’t need your love.
I don’t need your approval.
I don’t need your apology anymore.

You’re free to pretend you were the hero.

But I’m free now, too.

Goodbye.