So I’ve had a lot of serious issues lately. This is a sad story that deals with abuse and depression, it is also long, so read the full story in the “read more”.

The biggest one being that one of my mom’s exes stole money from her. She filed the report per usual, but this is when I need to explain a little bit before proceeding.

A few years ago, when I was still a sophomore in high school, my mom was in a physically and emotionally abusive relationship. She didn’t want to leave him even then, but I found out after asking her about a bruise. After she refused to leave him, I gave her the ultimatum (realizing she wouldn’t get herself out of the relationship for herself): Stop talking to him or I stop talking to you.

Looking back, it was probably a little harsh. However, it was her moment to realize how very seriously downhill things had gotten. She tried to break up with him. He did the logical thing: Kidnapped her, beat her so hard most of her teeth fell out and she now has eye trauma so bad she may go blind one day, and tried to murder her. Luckily, she escaped by, literally, punching him in the crotch and running away while he was on the floor.

He’s, luckily, in jail for a very long time (Longer still because he spit on the judge while she was handing down his sentencing…). However, my mom still has a lot of stress relating to a fear of men. So after filing a police report about the stolen money, she decided he was going to come after her, the same way her abusive ex did.

She began having paranoid delusions and didn’t leave her apartment for a week. I knew something was off because she was calling and always checking on me, nearly every day that week. I figured she just missed me since it had been around 2 weeks into classes. Finally, she had a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide. Luckily, she has called a friend, crying hysterically, who had gone over immediately and called the police.

That isn’t something you ever think of happening to your mom. It was a few weeks until she finally told me, as she had been trying to hide it from me and pretend everything was normal as she went through with her recovery and was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.

I blogged about my mom’s fish, Phone Booth, before. The one I convinced her to get since I had a free five gallon to give her. My mom had been an avid aquarist a few years ago, but after divorcing my dad, she had never picked up the hobby again and left her babies to my dad rather than putting them through the stress of a move (Big tank with big piranhas is not easy to move either!).

My mom has been using Phone Booth as part of her recovery, rediscovering her passion for fish keeping and is thoroughly in love with the little guy. :) She says she doesn’t think her recovery would be quite as smooth without the spark of her hungry, little betta boy to make her get up.

She calls me asking all kinds of question, is already planning to get another tank and another betta. She’s passionate and lively. Something I haven’t heard from her in a while. She’s intensely interested in aquascaping and asks me opinions about designs. She loves her plants and thinks crypts are magical.

I’m so very thankful I learned from tumblr to spread knowledge with love and understanding. So the moral of the story is: Share your love of fish keeping, educate don’t condemn. You don’t know how much it might mean to someone.

Good luck my fishy parent friends!