

As Teen
Mom
star
Leah
Shirley
approached
her
birthday
last
November,
16
wasn’t
feeling
all
that
sweet.
Having
endured
a
disaster
of
a
celebration
dinner
when
she
turned
15,
the
high
schooler‘s
biggest
wish
was
to
not
include
mom Amber
Portwood
in
the
festivities,
as
she
detailed
to
dad
Gary
Shirley
and
her
stepmom
Kristina
Shirley.
And
while
Leah
wasn’t
exactly
sad
that
she’d
only
seen
her
mother
three
times
in
the
previous
year,
the
absence
certainly
hadn’t
made
her
heart
grow
any
fonder.
“I’m
not
really
sure
when
I
realized
Amber,
like,
wasn’t
there,”
Leah
reflected
during
the
March
27
episode
ofTeen
Mom:
The
Next
Chapter, “maybe
somewhere
around,
like
I
was,
eight
to
10
years
old,
maybe.
I
don’t
want
her
around,
but
I
do
have
abandonment
issues
from
it.”
To
be
clear,
continued
the
Indiana
resident,
who
lives
with
Gary,
Kristina
and
her
9-year-old
sister
Emilee, “It
doesn’t
hurt
me
that
she’s
not
here.
It’s
just
the
fact
that
she
did
in
the
first
place,
when
she
was
supposed
to
be
there,
is
what’s
affecting
me.
I
have
abandonment
issues.”

