People Spill Their Striking Revenge Stories

“Growing up with my mother was worse than anything you can imagine.

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like if your worst enemy went back in time to raise you, you’d understand my life. At some point around 9-10, I began to realize how alone I was and how exhausting my life would turn out to be. It seemed like nobody ever cared enough to look deeper. I could fill pages with all the things she did to me.

I remember when she really started digging in and telling me I was worthless nearly every day.

My mother tried to get rid of me 3 or 4 times. Years of physical and psychological attacks. Did I call the cops? Of course, I did. Can you imagine how hard it was to watch my mother smile and lie to the cops? Telling them I was exaggerating? Then having to watch them get into their cars and drive away knowing I had to go back inside.

In the beginning, I had hoped things would change, towards my teen years I started drinking and stopped caring, and now here I am after all of it somehow still alive.

My stepdad used to tell me years after his divorce from my mother that he only stayed with her because he was afraid she’d hurt me one day… He’s lucky he never saw how much worse it got when he wasn’t there to take the hits for me anymore.

It would break his heart. He was also the one who told me about my mother being mistreated while growing up in a different country which helped me to gain some perspective in my teens, not that it made a difference by then. It didn’t matter to me because each and every day she had a choice every time and she’d choose to hurt me every time.

Maybe I’m over-stating things considering she didn’t ACTUALLY harm me even though she has come close so many times… Maybe that means deep down she secretly cared about me or something? I don’t know. I don’t think about it. She did go out of her way to buy me new electronics often but she’d end up using those as leverage against me and invading my privacy constantly so it ultimately wasn’t THAT much of anything.

After everything and all the times she kicked me out from 13-17yrs old, I was always on edge. She told me when I was 18 while I was staying with my aunt that if I went to college, I’d always have a place to live. I don’t know why I believed her… I had gone to go stay with my aunt temporarily for 4-6 months after my mother kicked me out of the house at 17 but my mother would always stop by and buy groceries for me or leave me cash.

She was unnaturally kind to me while I was there. By this point, she wasn’t hitting me anymore (Not that she could as I’d have snapped and absolutely wrecked her mind at that age but I strongly dislike hurting people in any form so the point is moot) and was more prone to just verbal attacks but since I was never really around her anymore, life seemed to get easier.

My mother had learned more than enough ways to mess with me without touching me. It seemed like she hated me more than I hated myself at times. My aunt couldn’t have me stay with her anymore as she really liked her privacy, I had already been there for a while, and I was an emotionally damaged and rebellious teenager she didn’t have time to help.

So, I went back to my mother’s house for the last time and started attending Community College full time. I didn’t really have any desire or passion, I was just an empty husk going through the motions, but I was still trying my best to keep living even when I didn’t feel the will in the hopes that one day I’d feel something different for once.

My mother, of course, decided to go back to her old habits. Things like dumping all the trash with dirty diapers and old food or dirty dishes filled with water on my bed when I was out if I forgot to do them and sometimes JUST because she was in a mood. Locking me out in the snow for hours because I didn’t respond to a text or something even if I had class in a few hours.

I wasn’t even allowed to have keys… She’d pretend not to hear me when I rang the doorbell or knocked for hours. She’d also tell my younger sister to ignore it. I’d eventually end up having to sleep on the steps outside or at a friend’s house and get punished for doing it even though I was 18 because it was her house and her rules.

It was always nonstop. I had no real direction and I honestly had no plans to exist past 25yrs old. Despite literally all of that and then some, I was doing well in school (Community College) with a 3.6ish GPA. I finally left my mother’s house for the last time a few days before finals week… I came home from drinking with friends and was met with my mother glaring at me when I rang the bell at 9 pm yelling when I’d move out as soon as I walked in.

She followed me to my little closet of a bedroom where I tried to close the door behind me and she half ripped the door off the hinges. I just sat there on my bed and stared at her silently as she kept cursing and screaming questions at me. My mother then walks away and as I’m in the kitchen getting juice I hear her on the phone calling the cops on me claiming she was scared I’d hurt her or my younger siblings.

I just didn’t have the energy to deal. This was 3 days before I failed all of my finals because I couldn’t even make it. I was dealing with too much. So, I went and grabbed whatever I had and left 15 minutes later.

My mother and I only ever really communicated via email after though it was very rare and it was very businesslike. I’d tell her what I needed and she’d either tell me to shut up or give it to me.

It was hard to maintain consistency in my life then. I was at rock bottom all the time. I didn’t care about anything, I drank every day, hung out with the worst kind of people who brought out the worst in me. I bounced between cheap rooms and couches. It was early 2016 when I discovered Photography and it COMPLETELY changed the direction of my life.

I didn’t hang out with anyone or bother trying to maintain all the pointless relationships. I just dove headfirst into it. I was able to put the things I didn’t understand about myself into perspective. For the first time in my life, I felt something. Not like a feeling per se… Just like this sense of possibility. For the first time, I was seriously wondering just what I could be capable of.

I had something to look forward to. I felt like if I pushed myself as hard as possible, I’d be good at something and I’d be a good person. And so I isolated myself from nearly everyone I knew and spent every single day learning or practicing or being frustrated that I wasn’t getting results. Even though I was drinking heavily, I always held a job and kept doing photoshoots and kept practicing like mad.

I eventually got my first apartment and was functional for a year. Did I have myself together? Definitely not but I was figuring myself out.

Cue one of the worst days of my life (Me getting robbed, while I was blacked out wasted, of 2 months of rent and camera gear by a ‘friend’ which led to me losing my apartment and job) followed by an email by my mother asking how I’ve been.

We ended up talking on the phone and it was civil for like 3 minutes before I mentioned how hard things have really been for me. She was bragging about some new expensive speaker system she bought and I like a dummy asked her for money (about $100). I told her if I could give my landlord ANYTHING, he’d be reasonable and give me time to get more cash together and I’d be fine.

Lol, that obviously did not go well at all. It all escalates to her literally laughing and then telling me it was my own fault for being homeless. She also completely denied ever abusing me when I stated I was in the situation because of her. I hung up on her. My thoughts were all over the place and I felt this intense frustration more than anger.

Within a few moments my head cleared and I had decided something as I was sitting in my bedroom 5 or so minutes after the call. I decided that I was going to completely ruin my mother’s life no matter what.

And so I did. I called CPS on her and informed them of my history of mistreatment at her hands. I previously compiled as much evidence as possible in my teens though never did anything with it until that point.

That sparked a visit which led to the emergency removal of my 3 younger siblings when they caught my mother ‘punishing’ my little sister coincidentally when they happened to do a visit. My mother was also arrested but released hours later. I reached out to the job she got years ago with the fake resume she made me write for her and made them aware of her falsehoods.

Because of her field, it was promptly looked into and she was fired as well as blacklisted. She lost nearly 80k+ salary. I then deleted every email in all of the email accounts I made for her because she never changed the passwords. Afterward, I deleted the email accounts themselves. Within a few weeks, things were definitely going downhill for her. My youngest sister’s dad WAS engaged to my mother and is now trying to file for sole custody of my little sister who is in CPS custody.

I’m sure he wasn’t happy finding out what his baby daughter has in store if my mother was given free rein. She’s missed her court appointments and I know she hasn’t been able to pay her mortgage since last year as I’ve heard she had to ask one of her friends for financial help. Her life had become a creamy messy trash symphony and I was the fecal splattered conductor.

It was all going down.

She went radio silent for months and had a warrant after missing another court date. This was all fall/winter of last year that she was off the grid so I went on with my life. In early 2019 I get a random call from her and find out she went to her home country months ago after everything went down.

How she was allowed on a plane? I have no clue. So cue another geyser of lies spewing from my mother’s mouth. She’s telling me I need to tell CPS she’s a good mom and that she’s never mistreated them or me. It’s unbelievable. So I cut her off and I shut her up. I was a little buzzed when she had called and had always mentally prepared for this moment.

I started slowly telling her in graphic detail about all the gross stuff I used to do to her food because screw it. I told her how I used to pee in the pitcher of the Lipton Iced Tea she used to force me to make for her and then not allow me to have. I told her how I’d secretly sabotage her utensils with my b*********s before serving her food.

She was quiet at first but then began cursing me out, though it didn’t bother me. I’m on a roll and I wasn’t listening. Her words didn’t matter to me anymore. She’s blaming me for her life turning out so terribly while fully unaware of how true that statement is in terms of the situation she was currently in. She shuts up long enough for me to get one more word in before hanging up and blocking her number.

I thought that was the end of it.

My aunt and I recently reconnected about 2 months ago. Before last month, I haven’t seen her in years. We met up and had a long conversation about life and everything and then she admitted that she talks to my mother nearly every day. She had mentioned all the things happening to my mother but didn’t know it was me who started this all.

She actually felt really bad for my mother but my aunt was always a really caring person, so I understand I guess… I told her I was very uncomfortable with the thought of her talking about me to my mother and asked her not to. My aunt did it anyways. After meeting up with my aunt, I learned through her that my mother was finally coming back to America.

She was arriving at the airport in one week. The problem was my aunt told her that I was going with her so the three of us could all talk without telling me. I didn’t know what the feeling of betrayal really felt like until my aunt told me that.

To be honest, as wrong as it sounds I’d rather my mother just think I died or something.

But my aunt kept insisting that I had to give my mother another chance and I had to learn to be open-minded and that though she wasn’t there all the times my mom did horrible things to me she loved us both and wanted us to get along. Like I’m supposed to just get along with someone who has tried to hurt me? But, I’ve already resolved myself to being a bad person and so I lied to one of the only people who was kind to me and I promised my aunt I’d try to have a heart to heart with my mom and her and ‘talk out’ the nearly 20 years of mistreatment.

Obviously, that was not happening. When we got off the phone, I called the detectives who gave me their number months back in case I heard from my mother. I asked them a few leading questions about what would happen if so and so were discovered and then I made my plan. I wasn’t sure if my mother would make it past customs (How is she able to travel to a different country with a warrant, I didn’t know.) but if she did, I’d call the police in the bathroom and wait for them to arrive while I sat with my mother.

Cue my mother making it past customs because she’s my mother. She’s a horrible person but she’s good at what she does, which is being horrible. I digress, my mother calls my aunt when she’s getting off the plane and my aunt says she’s going to meet her. I told my aunt I’d wait for them in the little Starbucks and then we’d all drive somewhere else.

My aunt agreed and went off. I called the detective and told him that my mother was standing a few feet away from me and if they could meet me at our destination we were going to. They told me that was unnecessary and that they’d have officers closer to me come and apprehend her at the airport instead. And so I waited and waited. And then I finally saw them arriving both at the same time.

The 3-4 officers who had convened in those few passing minutes and actively searched around the food court I sat close to. My mother and my aunt walked down the gate towards me. I felt this overwhelming weight in my chest just kind of settling down deeper and deeper into my gut the closer they got and the more the officers searched. What if they stopped looking when my mother arrived?

What if my mother somehow got away with this again? Countless thoughts but I just bit them back. I’ve grown very talented at silencing whatever my inner turmoil of the day happened to be. But my mother and my aunt were animatedly talking as they made their way to where I was sitting.

Before they had a chance to say anything, I quickly jumped up and said ‘I ordered some teas let me go see if they’re ready!’ which was the first thing I could think of as they were sitting but it worked and I dashed off PAST the cash register to the Starbucks and the outer part of the food court.

Looking back, saying I had to go grab some tea probably wasn’t the best thing to say but I digress… I made it a few feet out the door and half jogged over to the officers who were still looking around the food court area. From where they were, they wouldn’t have seen us sitting. I walked over and asked them if they had gotten a call about a woman who had a warrant or something.

I mentioned that the detectives said officers in or near the airport would arrest her. They said they did and I told them it was my mother. I told them her first name and they verified her last name. I told them she was sitting right in the Starbucks waiting for jail and one of the cops chuckled. Seemed a bit surprised and judgy that I was pointing them right to my mom.

I told them I’d go make sure she didn’t leave and they followed behind by like 10-15 paces.

I half jogged back inside and up to the little table where they were sitting. My mother had that half scowl she always wore whenever she looked up at me when I popped up out of nowhere and my aunt began asking me where the drinks were before I cut her off and looked plainly at my mother and her scowling face which had quickly changed into confusion when I had finished my sentence.

‘Mom I know we don’t get along but I wanted to let you know it’s all my fault.’ Cue my mother starting to ask me with this kind of soft motherly voice ‘What do you mean it’s your fault? Why do you-‘ but of course I cut her off because there’s nothing she hates more than being cut off and I finally have the power in this situation.

‘Look. I want you to know EXACTLY whose fault it is and who’s pee you drank when you’re sitting in jail wondering why the world did you so wrong!’ She sputtered something and slapped me. My aunt’s jaw dropped. People are watching. The cops saw it happen as well as only a few seconds had passed from when I walked in.

Into handcuffs, she goes.

Now she’s showing her true colors. Cursing and saying all kinds of things you couldn’t imagine a mom saying to her kid. Telling me she’d get me and so on. Etc. I calmly walked behind them as long as I could until they took her to some room and held her until the detective arrived. I wasn’t there that long though as the lack of thrill of it all kind of got to me and I went home to break a 2-month sober streak.

I was there long enough for my aunt to tell me she was disappointed in me and that she doesn’t know if she can forgive me for doing something ‘so spiteful and disgusting’ to her sister. To be fair, I did it completely out of spite so she isn’t wrong. I’ve already acknowledged I’m not a good person for what I did. Come to find out, my mother was using MY AUNT’S PASSPORT TO LEAVE AND COME BACK TO THE COUNTRY MULTIPLE TIMES since she left. That’s why they never caught her.

Now my aunt has some explaining to do but I wish she didn’t have to get caught up in all of this. She has always been kind to me and doesn’t deserve it.

My mother is facing up to 10 years just for using my aunt’s passport alone and a slew of other charges including one for child endangerment. Her husband left her. Her kids were taken from her.

Her friends have seemingly distanced themselves from her from what I know. After 19 years of mistreatment, I finally get my revenge and none of the charges have anything to do with me which is interesting. Did it feel good? No. I felt nothing. Just the rise and fall of the situation but nothing really concrete. I expected to feel something. Not even satisfaction or happiness but SOMETHING.

Either way, the only thing for me to do is continue to work towards becoming the person I want to be. She told me constantly that I was worthless and that I’m nothing. I’ve told myself the same as well in the past. I’ve decided I’m going to have to become one of the greatest photographers of my time and I’m going to push myself as hard as possible to succeed so that anyone else who has ever suffered how I have, now have no reason to doubt themselves or their ability to be great one day.

As for me right now, I currently live in a homeless shelter. I decided to go to one 6 months ago after realizing all the drinking and inconsistency was making it hard for me to move forward. I wasn’t saving money and was couch hopping from friend’s house to friend’s house. A few weeks ago I got a voucher from the govt and sometime in the next 2 months, I can find a 1 bedroom or a studio apartment.

I’ve been aggressively saving my small checks. I’ve been practicing and working on building better habits and just being a better photographer. I don’t make much right now and I know many people will say it’s a stupid dream but I know if I put all of my efforts into making this work, I can not only be a self-sustaining photographer but more than that.

My situation is embarrassing and it’s hard but I know I won’t be here longer than another few months. It’s not some dream. It’s a plan. I’ll also be going back to school in the Fall and pursuing photography. As for my siblings, that situation is still a bit dicey and I don’t think I’ll give an update about that but they’re all doing very well.

As far as my mother is concerned, as horrible as she was towards me the only part of me that even thinks about her on rare occasions hopes she isn’t having a HORRIBLE time. I don’t like knowing people are hurting. ”