When she entered her teen years things became strained between us, as they often do between teenage girls and their mothers. At the same time, I was finding my way clear to leave her father and start my life over again. It was a now or never proposition for me but the consequences for her at the tender age of 14 were devastating.

Her world came apart. Getting out of my marriage was the only thing I could do to preserve my sanity, so I know I could not have done anything differently. I did everything in my power to support her through this process, but I was having a difficult time navigating it myself.

I know I failed her in many ways. Her father let the farm go into foreclosure and she lost her beloved horses. She was so angry with me.

Over the next four years, we struggled to find our equilibrium. She was at the age where teenage girls specialise in putting the knife in and twisting it. She was angry and did not know what to do with that anger. I was an easy target, since in her mind I caused her world to spin out of control. She resisted all my efforts to help her find ground under her feet.

She went to live with her dad after the divorce. I was devastated. Then one day she called me to come and get her. She did not want to live with him anymore. I was overjoyed. However, her father and I had both found new partners and I know she felt more unmoored than ever. It was a beastly thing for a young girl to suffer through — feeling abandoned by her parents, losing her home and her horses. It was as though we had smashed her childhood into smithereens.

She came and lived with me but would barely speak to me when she came into the house. I agonised over how to reach her. I was so sad that she was in so much pain. I did everything I knew how to do to let her know that she had my love and support. But the truth is, I had finally found happiness, and my life was looking up, while hers was adrift. I was unable to put her life back together for her, even if she had let me.

When she was 17 her step-dad got a job in another state. We wanted her to move with us. He told her he would pay for her college. He begged her to come. She refused. She moved back in with her dad.

She did visit us a couple of times after we moved, but she never was fully present with us. The tension was palpable. Once, she left before she was there 24 hours. I wanted desperately to fix our relationship, but at this point, I didn’t know how. She had retreated so far behind her fortress that I could not reach her.

The day she blocked me from her Facebook page and her phone I was crushed, but felt sure that at some point she would come around and need me to be her mother again. I was wrong.

It has been eight years since I have seen or spoken with my daughter. To say that this has been an excruciatingly painful experience would be an understatement.

I spent the first year being really hurt, but I still believed that she would come around. The second year was when reality set in and I cried almost every day. The grief of losing my child while she was still alive was fraught with shame, self-recrimination and humiliation.