If I had to think back to a time when he taught me something, it would be self-importance; self-confidence. Not everyone is kind, not everyone will help you. I learned everything from her and more. I had just turned eighteen on May 14, 2015, when I began to recognize that my mother was not who she said she was. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay My eighteenth birthday was spent sharing it with a “family” I didn’t know. Who claimed to love me and support me. That was a lie on their part. It was also a lie about my mother being blind to recognizing her only son and how hurt I was. I was hurt because I watched her evolve into this horrible woman that I no longer knew. Over a two-year period, from age fifteen to seventeen, I could say that I had known longer than this woman I once called “Mom.” I saw her cheat on a man she had been married to for eleven years, and then divorce. She left shortly after of her own accord and dragged me with her. Moving from house to house, from place to place, with people I didn't know. I waited for her to show up, but she was always absent. Days, weeks, sometimes months, sometimes, all for the men she claimed to love. Finally, I saw her drink herself to the bottom, when "the only man she loved" was sent to prison on sex crime charges. She didn't care about me. He did a great job of showing me a demonstration. She slowly smashed her nose into the white powder that all her new friends loved. How could someone I know as "mom" become someone, like that. I'm just a girl who's afraid of living in this world. I'm a little more outspoken than most, but I live life and understand what shouldn't be understood by most people my age. Life never makes much sense to me, but once I know it, I have full courage to open its mind and soul in most everything I do. Then I can become this beautiful creature who not only lives to protect myself, but others as well, with souls who longed to have it all. All the love, all the gore, all the hope, all the faith, that I, or they, could ever receive and discover. My mother not only taught me not to trust those who claim to love me, but also that trust in myself; the importance of self is fundamental in life. Who will be there for you when no one else is? Who will pick you up when everyone else says they can't? She was a handful of woman, she claimed to love me, and at some point in my life, I know that was true. For now he has made it known that after five years it has not changed. I forgive her for not being there, for leaving me. Leaving me without food, without water, without heat, for leaving me unsafe and hurt. For allowing me to feel like a beaten dog on the side of the road. For putting men before me and letting those men have their way. For making me feel, when I needed her, that she would always be there. To this day I forgive her, but I will never forget everything that happened. Every untold memory that many don't know, or could imagine. How did he show you these characteristics? I don't think my mother showed them to me directly, because she was a vague woman who liked not to show emotions. But it indirectly showed that I had to be someone I was meant to be. I believe everything happened for a reason and from time to time you get choices to shape you into the person you are meant to be. I like to give credit to my mother, just because it was with her that I have.