Inside 'Teen Mom' Kailyn's Relationship With Her Alcoholic Mom - 'She Would Disappear For Days Without Warning'
April 21 2014, Published 6:46 a.m. ET
On Teen Mom 2, Kailyn Lowry’s troubled mother, Suzi, breaks her daughter’s heart again and again. Sadly, the reality star reveals in her upcoming tell-all, Pride Over Pity, that she’s been suffering under her mother’s lies and neglect since she was a small child.
“I remember being dropped off at friends’ houses and sometimes not getting a phone call for what seemed like days,” Lowry, now 22, writes of her mother in an extract of the book obtained by RadarOnline.com, whom she claims struggles with alcoholism and addiction. “In those times, when she would disappear for days without warning, I’d wonder if I would ever see her again.”
She also would protect her bartender mother, inventing stories to teachers and counselors about her whereabouts and defending her bizarre behavior, including when she showed up to Lowry’s school drunk.
As a teen, the reality star had very little supervision during her mother’s escapades— and soon got caught up in the wrong crowd.
“Smoking pot became the hobby I’d never had as a little girl,” she says. “It made me feel like I was part of a group. But it didn’t take away the hurt or fury I was holding onto.”
Her inner fury led her into fights with fellow students as a freshman in a Pennsylvania high school.
“Anyone I disagreed with would get attitude from me,” she recalls. “I talked back to teachers, peers, anyone who rubbed me the wrong way. Occasionally, I got physical and would throw a punch.”
Her aggressive behavior led to a serious ten-day out of school suspension. (Today, Lowry still struggles with anger issues and even confessed to slapping her husband, Javi Marroquin, 21, on the April 15 Teen Mom 2 season finale.)
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As she got older, Lowry claims her mother left her further isolated by spreading lies about her to other family members.
“Sadly, I don’t have any contact with my grandparents now,” reveals Lowry, an only child completely abandoned by her father as an infant. “From what I heard from family members, my mom created a hell of a story. She accused me of stealing $10,000 from ex-boyfriend Jo Rivera and told them I was headed to jail because I was charged with a felony. In reality, I didn’t do anything, but that could be the reason they cut me off.”
Desperate for some sense of family, the star searched for her father’s family after the birth of her son, Isaac, now 4 (with Rivera). On social media, Lowry found her half-sister, Mikaila, and flew down to Texas to meet her.
“Tears sprung from my eyes as I made eye contact with my sister for the first time,” she recalls.
She soon grew close to cousins Kaylie, Carli and Marlin. “Having my family together, like we should have been from the start, felt so right,” Lowry pens. “There was no looking back, only forward. The nights we spent hanging out together in Kaylie’s apartment made up for all the childhood sleepovers we never had. I cherish those moments.”
Though Suzi continues to crush Lowry’s trust, she remains positive for a brighter future— and avoids drinking and partying to ensure she’ll never be a neglectful mother to Isaac and son Lincoln, 5 months (with Marroquin).
“I’ve seen what can happen when you’re addicted to alcohol,” she says. “I’m afraid the same addiction runs through my blood.”
Lowry shares other aspects of her painful past in her new memoir, out April 22: She reveals a history of homeslessness, rape and eating disorders.