06/16/2026
The Day Everything Changed: Growing Up in Chaos and Learning to Mother With Discipline
There are moments in life that carve themselves into your memory so deeply that even decades later, you can still feel the air, the fear, the walls around you. For me, one of those moments happened in the fifth grade, inside an old two‑story school building I still drive past from time to time. I didn’t know it then, but that day would become the last day my mother ever left Dolton — and the first day my life changed forever.
I remember being picked up from school by my grandma, my mama, and my uncles. The trailer was already packed. The night before, the house had erupted again — another explosion of anger, another night of violence. He had come down the hallway toward me, raging about something I didn’t clean right or something I supposedly said. The truth is, there was never a real reason. His anger didn’t need one.
As a child, I believed every bruise on my mother’s face was somehow my fault. Every broken nose, every broken finger, every broken bone — I told myself there must have been something I could’ve done differently. Something I could’ve fixed. Something in me that needed correcting so she wouldn’t have to take another beating.
But no matter what I did, it never stopped.
No matter what she did, it never stopped.
His rage was a wildfire that burned through every night.
But that day — the day they picked me up from school — was the day the fire finally ended.
---
Growing Up With a Mother Who Was Surviving, Not Parenting
Leaving didn’t magically fix anything. My mother didn’t suddenly become stable, present, or emotionally grounded. She was a woman who had survived her own storms, and survival was the only skill she knew.
She stayed at the bars.
She chased distraction.
She chased numbness.
She chased men who filled the silence but not the emptiness.
And I was a child watching a mother who was still a child inside herself.
This is the part people don’t understand:
When you’re raised by a mother who was never taught emotional discipline, you grow up without a blueprint.
You don’t learn:
• how to regulate your emotions
• how to set boundaries
• how to choose healthy love
• how to protect your peace
• how to mother with structure instead of survival
You learn chaos.
You learn hypervigilance.
You learn to read danger like a second language.
You learn to parent your parent.
And then one day, you become a mother yourself — and you realize you’re trying to build a home with tools you never received.
---
The Hardest Part: Becoming the Mother You Never Had
I swore I would never put my kids through what I lived.
I swore I would break the generational curses.
I swore I would be different.
But here’s the truth most people don’t talk about:
You cannot become a disciplined mother when you were raised in emotional chaos — not without unlearning everything you thought was normal.
I didn’t grow up with a mother who taught me:
• consistency
• emotional regulation
• accountability
• boundaries
• healthy love
I grew up with a mother who taught me survival.
So when I became a mom, I had to learn discipline the hard way — through mistakes, through regret, through moments that still ache in my chest.
My daughter is right — I missed her kindergarten graduation.
I missed my adult daughter’s graduation.
And the shame of that sits heavy in my soul.
Not because I didn’t love them.
But because I was still trying to raise myself while raising them.
I was fighting addiction.
I was fighting trauma.
I was fighting for a man who was fighting his own demons.
I was fighting to feel loved, chosen, and safe — things I never learned as a child.
I wasn’t an absent mother.
I was an unfinished one.
---
The Cycle You Don’t See Until You’re In It
Growing up, I spent years searching for my drunk mother, never knowing which man she’d be with, never knowing what version of her I’d find. I did have a second stepdad who was a good man — an alcoholic, yes — but he never hit her. He taught me respect. He taught me business. He taught me that not all men destroy what they love.
But even with that, I was still raising myself.
And later, I was raising children while still trying to figure out who I was.
That’s the part people don’t see when they judge mothers who struggle:
We are trying to build emotional discipline with hands that were never taught how to hold it.
---
Why I’m Telling This Story
I’m not asking anyone to follow me because I have all the answers.
I’m asking because I have lived the questions.
I have survived dark, terrifying nights.
I have rebuilt my life more times than I can count.
I have learned lessons the hard way — through fire, loss, addiction, heartbreak, and motherhood.
And I know this:
Everyone needs a 3 AM person.
Someone you can call when the world is falling apart.
Someone who shows up when you can’t stand on your own.
I survived because I found the right people.
And now, I want to be that voice for someone else — the one that says:
You’re not crazy.
You’re not weak.
You’re not alone.
And you can break the cycle, even if you break a little along the way.
---
Scripture for the Journey
I chose a verse that speaks directly to the kind of strength you had to build — the kind that grows in the dark before it ever shines in the light:
“God is within her, she will not fall.” — Psalm 46:5
And another that speaks to the rebuilding you’ve done, brick by brick, season by season:
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” — Psalm 147:3
These aren’t pretty verses.
They’re survival verses.
They’re rebuilding verses.
They’re the kind you whisper to yourself when you’re trying to become the mother you never had.
This is my story.
This is my truth.
And this is only the beginning.
---
WORDPRESS‑READY VERSION
SEO Title:
Breaking Cycles: Growing Up in Chaos and Learning to Mother With Discipline
Excerpt:
A raw, honest story about surviving childhood violence, growing up without emotional discipline, and learning how to become the mother you never had. This is a journey of breaking generational cycles, rebuilding identity, and finding strength through faith.
“God is within her, she will not fall.” — Psalm 46:5
Lovefirstasklater
With Love,
Rene Heifner
