Navigating Elder Care After Childhood Abuse—Healing, Survival, and Setting Boundaries

The Trauma, the Boundaries, and the Unexpected Peace

By: Heather Zoccali

*trigger warning: this piece references abuse and suicide*

Created by author

The door buzzes, a metallic hum slicing through the quiet. I punch in the code. Too loud. Too final. My fingers tremble against the worn keypad as I pull in a breath, hold it, murmur the words into my ribs:

"I choose to be here."

The hallway is sterile, too bright, too cold. Christmas decorations hang limply from the ceiling like forgotten wishes, their cheer muted by the heavy stench of urine and bleach. Nameplates line the walls, small brass rectangles pressed into fake wood, lives reduced to ink and glue.

Not the house I grew up in. Not the house she kept so pristine, where perfume and cruelty lingered in equal measure. This is where she will finish her days.

My feet hesitate. My body knows before my mind does. I am here, but I do not belong.

Inside, laughter spills from the common room, warm and complete, the kind that never belonged to her or us. And then, through the noise, I see her.

She is dancing. Laughing. Holding hands with a nurse, her head tilted back, mouth open in something like joy.

I stop. An invisible force slams into me, pressing my body against the cold wall. My breath is gone. My limbs heavy. My stomach tightens like a fist.

Is this my mother?

The same woman who spewed venom like it was love? The same hands that bruised me now clasped in someone else’s, soft and unthreatening? The same mouth that curled into cruel delight now vast with laughter?

I freeze, unable to move. My back finds the wall, my arms wrap around my ribs, trying to hold myself together. My breath is ragged, my heart hammering.

A nurse kneels beside me, voice gentle. Are you okay?

Yes. No. I have no fucking idea. How do you explain the weight of a lifetime crashing down in one impossible moment?

How do you explain the flood when the dam finally breaks?

When my father put a bullet through his skull, he left no note. No explanation.

Just the sound of the shot, a silent shout, and his artwork on the walls.

And in that silence, the burden of my mother became mine.

She had not been in my life for years. No calls, no cards. Not for birthdays, not for holidays. Not when my body was failing me. Not when my son was hit by a car and left paralyzed. She was not there for me. And yet, here I was.

I swore I wouldn’t let her back in.

But when the world was burning in 2020, when I had to make a choice no child should ever have to make—to care or not care for an abusive parent—I brought her to Colorado.

I let her in.

She lived with us until I found a place for her.

And in that time, the poison seeped back in. The air in my home grew thick with old wounds, with the weight of words sharpened into weapons, with the echoes of her fury—barbed, relentless, slicing deeper than any bruise, leaving wounds that never quite healed.

She was trying to sink her venom into my family, and that was a red line.

The hurt and confusion they experienced was, fortunately/unfortunately, something they had never grasped before. And while a part of me felt validated, they understood why I had drawn the lines I did and why I refused to associate with this part of my family. Validation was nothing compared to the weight of the trauma she inflicted in just a few months.

She could hurt me. But not them. Never them.

I made the call. A memory care home. A place where she would be safe. Where we would be safe.

I set boundaries and did not break them.

Some people questioned it. Some judged it.

"But she’s your mother."

As if the word itself is enough to erase the damage. As if obligation should outweigh survival.

But I know better.

At first, I visited twice a week. I told myself I could handle it.

I couldn’t.

That first year, she was meaner and more vicious than I remembered—not just to me but also to the staff and the other residents.

Every week, I got a call.

"She shoved a donut in a nurse’s face, called her a fat bitch, then slammed a resident’s head into the table."

Every week, the same routine.

That was the mother she hid so well, but here, in the place that stripped her down to her rawest self, nothing was left to mask it. This was the full force of her.

The mental and emotional toll was too much.

So, I took a break, sat, and asked myself: What is working? What is not? What am I willing to give? What am I not willing to give?

The answer was clear. I couldn’t keep seeing her that much.

I called the care team. Laid it out.

Text me with any emergencies.
Please send me weekly summaries via text with photos.
Every other week, a FaceTime call.
I will visit once a month. Short visits. Nothing more.

The home was fantastic. They worked with me. No judgment.

And for the first time, I felt powerful in my choice. In my voice.

When I hung up the phone, I exhaled deeply and slowly, like I had been holding my breath for years. My hands were still trembling, but not from fear. They were trembling from something else: the weight of a choice I gave myself permission and grace to make.

The moment I reclaimed my limits, something shifted.

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The tears slow. My breath returns—something unfamiliar, something thick and warm settles in my chest.

I whisper to the child inside me, "This is the mother we always wanted."

Soft. Safe. Unarmed.

She cannot hurt us anymore.

For the first time, I see what I had never seen before. She must feel safe, too. Safe enough to let down her walls. Safe enough to laugh, to dance, to be someone other than the woman I knew.

This disease, this thief, has taken her memories, her control, her freedom, and now, toward the end~her rage.

But it has also given her this moment of grace.

And me?

It has given me something I never expected.

Peace.

The weight lifts, and my body loosens. I stand, and as I step forward, I feel pieces of myself falling away, broken, scarred, tattered, hurt, and angry.

Despite it all, she is still my mother.

This is not a happy ending.

But it is an ending.

And maybe, for both of us, that is enough.

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🖤 Life is brutally beautiful—create your brutiful.

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