The damage didn't look like anger.
That's what surprised me.
There were no slammed doors, no screaming matches, no declarations of hate. What grew between us was worse—space. Careful, measured, intentional space.
They flinched when I raised my voice, even when I wasn't angry. They waited for permission to need me. They asked questions like negotiations, already prepared for no.
I had become someone they tiptoed around.
I reached for affection and sometimes they accepted it—but their body stayed alert, like touch was something to endure instead of lean into. They hugged me back, but it felt practiced. Polite.
Love, filtered through caution.
They didn't tell me when they were scared. They told themselves instead. When they were hurt, they self-soothed before I ever knew there was pain. I wasn't their first instinct anymore.
And that loss was devastating.
I started seeing myself through their eyes—not as a mother who failed occasionally, but as a variable. Someone unpredictable. Someone whose moods could change the temperature of a room without warning.
That realization followed me everywhere.
At school drop-offs, I noticed how they watched me drive away—checking, waiting, like they weren't sure I'd come back. At bedtime, they asked the same questions every night.
"You'll be here in the morning, right?"
Each time, I said yes.
Each time, I wondered if they believed me.
Trust didn't disappear in one moment. It eroded through repetition—through apologies that outnumbered follow-through, through promises that sounded real but landed empty.
I tried to repair it with effort. Extra hugs. Extra praise. Extra reassurance.
But trust doesn't rebuild on intensity.
It rebuilds on consistency.
And consistency was the one thing addiction had already taken from me.
The hardest truth wasn't that I hurt my child.
It was that they adapted.
They learned how to love me in a way that kept them safe—and that meant keeping part of themselves out of my reach.
I hadn't just damaged our relationship.
I had reshaped it.
And I didn't know if I could undo what I had taught them about needing me.