You have the emotional intelligence to understand how important that decision was and why you were making that decision at the age of 13. One day you're going to have the mother daughter relationship with your mom, that closeness, even though right now you don't even want to say I love you to her, but she was trying to do what was best for you, even though you knew that it wasn't going to work. I love you, mom
J.L. Beasley
@Her_Sisu · 0:26
Wow, Blair, that is extremely powerful and moving. Oh, my gosh. Listening to you talk about your 13 year old self and what you have endured and conquered and are soaring and thriving now in your adulthood, you are truly an inspiration. Thank you
Blair Redmond
@blairbearing · 1:37
Like, I was able to finish high school, go on to college, do all that stuff, get a, you know, regular job, do all stuff that society wants to say that people who have experienced some of the things that I experience, it's going to be extremely difficult or hard for them, or some people think that they're going to have all these stumbling blocks because of that
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Maurice Lekea
@malekea · 5:00
So she supposedly she wanted to raise me in a memory of her brother, my dad. So she took me. And then little by little, I became a child slave in her hands. The abuse was to the point that I cannot even begin to describe that here because that went on from the age of two through 80 years old. Between eight and nine. The abuse was mostly physical. I have scars in many parts of my body, my back, my legs, and et cetera
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 1:56
Hi, Blair. Thank you for sharing your story. It reminds me a lot of a good friend of mine who is raising his two children. Mom is alive, but mom has chosen not to be a mom. And even when the kids, on the occasion when they get to see her and they get to go to her house, usually if they're there for a weekend, they're ready to come back home after a day or two
Blair Redmond
@blairbearing · 0:24
Hello. Good morning. Grand rising, wherever you are. I just wanted to hop on here and say that I listened to both of the responses, and I definitely am going to reply later, but I'm on my way to work. But thank you guys so much for listening, for liking, for sharing your stories, and thank you so much
Blair Redmond
@blairbearing · 4:24
My mom came from a lot of dysfunction in a different way than my dad came from, and that really shaped her and really created these dynamics that weren't going to make her really be able to be the person that she needed to be when she needed to be because she was still working on her stuff. I have no kids. I'm 37. I told my mom when I was 16 I wasn't going to have kids unless I had a husband and all these things
Blair Redmond
@blairbearing · 4:59
So you are not wrong to have him in your thoughts. And it's just the best thing that my dad ever did for me was to let us figure out our relationship with our mom and to not really bash my mom too much or say things like, just let us figure out what type of mother she was, what type of parent she was, and she wasn't a bad parent in so many ways. So many ways
Maurice Lekea
@malekea · 5:00
Because if you don't let go, it's not hurting the people that we have an issue with. It hurt us. For example, if I kept on that anger in me, that would destroy me, that we not be destroying her, my auntie, or people who abused me, I would be hurt. But now I feel great and I don't hold anything. And I want most people to know, to hear that, you have to let it go. That's the beginning