Every morning when I look into the mirror I see pieces of my mother — glimpses of her features in my eyes, my hair, my cheekbones. People have been saying since I was a child how much I looked like her.
She was a beautiful woman. I should have been happy.
Instead I only ever heard an accusation: that I looked like my mother and must therefore be the same as her, that I was destined to grow up and repeat all of her mistakes.
It's why I don't usually tell people the truth about my mother when they ask about her. There's a reaction to a childhood like mine, one that follows you no matter who you become as an adult.
My mother became a drug addict when I was 6 years old. She smoked crack. She shot heroin and cocaine. She took them together sometimes and she never got better, and when I was 31, she died.
Living with an addict meant that my mother sometimes left me alone in alleyways while she visited her dealers.
It meant that just about everything I owned — dresses, jewelry, musical instruments — she eventually stole and sold.
It meant that at 8, my responsibilities included feeding and caring for my toddler brother and checking my mother's pulse to make sure she hadn't overdosed.
[For more of this story, written by Laura Kiesel, go to http://www.vox.com/2015/7/24/9...drug-addict-daughter]
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