How did you feel about your mom as a teenager and how do you feel about her now?
As a teenager I hated her, but not because of the usual teenage angst reasons. No, I despised her because she was a negligent and mildly abusive alcoholic who had fucked up her own life in very preventable ways and blamed everyone else for it. I vowed not to be like her. And I succeeded in that.
Now, I no longer hate her1. I still think she was terrible and could’ve done better but I have more understanding now.
My mom was someone like me with a large ego and extremely high intelligence2 who thought she was special — but the difference between us is that she never did anything to demonstrate that she was exceptional. She just thought people should recognize how amazing she was with no achievements to her name. In that respect, she was sort of like the incels who sit around in their basements making no mark on the world and expect to have supermodel girlfriends and plush jobs fall in their laps (in the former case, literally).
She thought she deserved the world, did nothing to achieve that, and was bitter because it didn’t just happen as if by magic. Very incel-like, as I said above.
I have some sympathy for her plight because in a different world I might’ve ended up like her. Not too likely but at least I can see the path. She married my dad at 19 to rebel against her parents, got pregnant (with me) and the bitterness and regret followed from there.
And after that, instead of actually bettering her life, she decided she wanted to become a party girl at age 29. And that went about as well as you’d expect.
She died as a result of her drug use and alcoholism, much diminished, at 64. Her life was bleak throughout and the only joy she got was from drinking, I think.
I don’t miss her and I feel pity for what and who she became.
(@NataliaAntonova) 
