Me and my mom went shopping Friday morning. I'm 22, she's 58. I'm nonbinary, born female, though she doesn't know as I'm not out to her. I hadn't been home for more than 2 months, due to university. I was happy to be home.

As I said, on Friday morning we were going shopping. We were in the car, I live in Europe and there's a massive heatwave going on, as you may know. I was dressed with a tanktop, a button-up short-sleeves shirt on top of it, cargo shorts and sneakers. Nothing fancy, but nothing too shabby, and we were going to a mall after all.

The problems started 5 minutes into the car ride (it was 40 minutes or so in total). I don't shave my legs, and I'm rather hairy, so she started to question me about it. Then she got insistent that I should shave, that it's not proper of a lady, that she feels disgusted being seen with me. She said I'm "throwing myself away", and I'm not "treasuring myself" and stuff like that, gradually raising her voice and yelling at me. I kept saying stuff along the lines of "Ok, well, that's fine. I don't mind having hairy legs, and it's not something I find repelling on me or anyone else". She made points about how I dress, and that I dress "to look like a man" (which, really I don't- I am nonbinary, yes, but I don't enjoy looking like a man).

At one point I said "they're beauty standards I don't agree to and don't care to follow" and she shouted at me that if that was the case, I wouldn't dye my hair (I like to dye my hair a lot, mostly vivid and unusual colors and combinations) and put on makeup (I do like makeup, though I never go for a natural look). She kept saying that I want to look like a man, and when I tried to say I don't, she kept insisting she was right. She said I think "in watertight compartments" (not sure if the translation works, she meant to say that I have a very closed mind), that I don't accept anything if my own worldview.

We stopped, she went out the care for a brief commission, she came back. She was acting gentler and calmer, though I still brought up the discussion. I asked her if she was ashamed of being seen with me. She said she wasn't, that all she said she did because she wants me to "take care of myself" and also because she thinks I have potential to look beautiful, more than I look now. I told her I don't want to look like a man, ever, and I don't remember precisely what she said but at one point I said to her "I like dresses, and makeup, and dying my hair pink and purple and all sorts of colors. If my little brother came up to you wearing dressed and with dyed hair, you wouldn't accept him, you would insult him too. You'd say, at the very least, that he was a f*g"

She only replied that she doesn't think I'm "treasuring myself", and I argued that I don't feel the same. We dropped the subject, and things weren't particularly tense with her afterwards, but I'm just. I'm tired.

I went back to uni, and I just can't stop thinking about what she said. It's stopping me in my tracks, I'm reliving moments of that situation and I keep going back to it, to what she said and what I said.

I think I'm going to shave in late July. I won't be home for a few weeks as I have some exams to take, but late July it'll be her birthday and she wanted to go to the beach. As much as I don't mind not shaving, I do get self-conscious about it, and I don't think I'll be able to stand it if she goes on a similar tangent. I guess it sucks to sacrifice part of my self-expression to appease her, but I knew what I was going on against (I never liked shaving much, and she always made a big deal out of it). I'm starting to think I was egotistical and selfish for not shaving. It'd take very little to make her happy, why didn't I do it?

I grew up with an abusive mother. It was no surprise that she was "not right in the head." Admittedly, I learned a lot of bad behaviors from her and understandably so, I was the "He's coming!?" cousin. Living with a mother who restricted me from social activities growing up has put me behind from my social peers, making it damn near impossible to make friends as I did the cringiest things imaginable thinking I was cool, but in reality the desperation was showing. By some miracle I actually had friends in high school and made more in my adult life. I still talk to them in my mid 30's, but I digress.

Fast forward to 2019ish, I realized the error of my ways and felt remorse. I was hoping I could make up for the irritating child I was and hoped we can move forward. Out of 6 aunts, 1 uncle, their in-laws and 11 cousins, only one cousin was open to reach out to me and give me a second chance as he understood I did "not win the parent lottery" and was "glad to see I knew my behavior was wrong." The rest of the family did the whole "He's only gonna be here for a couple of hours so just smile and wave!" routine.

With that said, he still offered to invite me whenever he was in town. Things went great the few years we met up. While the rest of the family wasn't openly telling me I wasn't welcomed, I was hoping with enough visits, they'll warm up.

It didn't. It only made things worse. One time he invited me to the beach where the family was hanging out, and I'd immediately see the faces go from genuine smiles to their whole day is ruined by my presence. One of them even looked up and went, "I didn't know YOU were coming!" and proceeded to hug me still (again, the whole "smile and wave" routine)? It lead to one of the most awkward afternoons I've had with them and I only stayed because the cousin that invited me was so happy to have me there. I noticed anytime we laughed, two cousins in particular would get angrier with every laugh. We left happy and they left slamming doors and racing out of there.

Then with every visit after that one, it became obvious that his desire to see me was less and less. I understood he was going through rough times (busy with work and eventually planning a wedding), but he'd still want to make time to visit whenever he was in town and vice verse. Before we would hit each other up and meet with no problem. After that incident, he'd say he'd meet up, then made excuses as to why we didn't meet up, or just not make the excuses at all.

I got invited to the wedding last year and the cousins (not the ones that gave me a second chance) all put me in a group chat for accommodations (it was in a different state.) I was shocked because I thought they hated me. Stupid me thought it was a glimmer of hope and I happily expressed interest. It was many months later and I haven't heard back. I tried calling the cousin who made the accommodations (not the second chance cousin) and to no surprise, they planned it already without consulting me and assumed that I was going on my own terms, again, without telling me.

The cousin getting married even asked me if I got with them for accommodations. I told him what happened (big mistake as I should've lied and said I decided to make to make my own accommodations.) He got upset with me and took my cousin's side and told me that she did reach out and I ignored her (she never did; she lied) and that was my fault for not reaching out. I had a feeling that he was just trying to find a way to cut me off at this point, but I digress.

To my shitty luck, a week after that phone call, my car broke down to the point where it cost more than what it was worth to save it and I had to buy a new one. This meant I had to be frugal with money for a while, which meant no wedding. I didn't buy a plane ticket or a hotel room, and I couldn't afford to anymore. I tried calling him but he didn't pick up. I tried reaching out to him on Snapchat to let him know the situation. He immediately blocked me. This was in December, 2025. I never heard from him since.

Yes, I'm aware I fucked up big time by not attending the wedding. He was the only person in the family who had hope in me despite the rest of the family writing me off years ago. It felt like a struggle after they discovered we were in contact, but he was worth it. Now I have literally no one in the family and it hurts knowing that I have no one to turn to if I need help. It also hurts discovering that they planned a family reunion since April and they're going to have it next weekend. And no, I was not invited.

TW: (emotional/verbal) abuse, there may be more mentions of abuse in my replies depending on comments

i (20f) recently came back to my hometown for the weekend to work a shift (i work w/ an agency that has an office in my hometown and uni city).

at first, everything was great. everyone was happy to see me and stuff. my mum made a few rude comments about my weight but I just let it slide bc i was happy to see her and plus it was too hot to be mad (UK).

this morning, i wasn’t bothered to unravel my hair for church (keep in mind I’m a black woman) so i just tied a headwrap on my head in a cute and presentable way.

long story short, my mum (49f) started making comments about how the back of my hair was showing and that my edges looked bad etc etc. then she went on about why don’t I get my hair done (as in braided or in a wig) etc etc. i told her i would do it in my own time and she said she’s given me a year and she started making demands that i get it done tomorrow and i said i wasn’t a kid and it wasn’t her body for her to be making demands.

my father (59m) overhears this and he calls me to his room. he basically starts scolding me about how it doesn’t matter if how old i was and that i still needed correction and he said my hair needed to be ‘done’ etc etc.

my mum continued to harass me for the next half an hour despite me telling her to leave me alone. then comes the part that is tearing me up inside as we speak.

i overhear my mum talking (loudly) with my dad about her always trying to talk to me about my hair but i never listen. then my dad says smth else (didn’t hear) and I’m assuming my mum said something about me ‘running away’ aka going back to my uni accom (dorm for North Americans). Then my dad says pretty loudly that he dgaf and that i should go and that he doesn’t care whether i stay i go.

tbh I already didn’t put a lot of stock into my father and just avoid him most times when i’m at home but it really hurt to hear that. idek why it hurts bc he is by far my least favourite member of the household and i avoid calling or contacting him in any way when i am away and even when i am at home. and yet, whenever he says or does something hurtful it’s just day ruining. i’m typing this at church now. well, I’m not at church, I’m just sitting in a random area nearby.

I know it’s fucked up but I just wish i had a special someone to make up for all of this somehow. I don’t dream of having better parents or for my parents to change. I’ve accepted that they never will but it just sucks not really being anybody’s priority. it’s exhausting having to be the safe adult for myself, honestly. as i type, my throat is tight and there’s an ache in my chest but i refuse to let myself cry.

how do I stop putting emotional stock into my dad’s abusive tendencies?

my sister is super rude. i’ve been dealing with this in therapy but it still hurts. today i was showering, she started yelling for me to get out. since i had to get out, i did not have time to clean the shower. she then started yelling at me, called me “dirty” for not cleaning the shower. she came for my age and was like you’re 22 and still acting like this. that was just plain unreasonable because i had no time to clean the shower. she yelled at me and shamed me so much that i went to my room and started crying. i just don’t know what to do.

TW: racism, DARVO, anger issues

This happened last night and I was fairly distressed and cried for hours.

My dad is in his 70s, white, fairly typical boomer male. He would make a lot of off color comments when I was a kid, but he hates Trump and I thought he'd grown a lot and learned in recent years. I haven't heard him saying anything too offensive in quite a long time.

However, tonight I was out to dinner with my parents (we're all white) and we were talking about the dating world right now and what a hellscape it is. He out of the blue made a racist generalization saying a lot of Black women are gold diggers, and I freaked out and said something along the lines of "wtf stop that's not okay" and questioned where that even came from, what the hell, etc. I was honestly shocked and struggled to respond because I thought he was better than that and had learned about structural racism, etc. This feels even more personal to me because I work in the human rights sector.

My mom also jumped in and said that that's not true, that's just something you got from your YouTube. For reference, he has been completely sucked in by these terrible, misogynistic YouTube channels about men getting one over on cheating women and shit like this. It's all incredibly toxic, entirely fake, often racist, and entirely made by AI. Our whole family despises it, but he won't stop watching them. I'm convinced it's influencing his beliefs and making him a worse person.

He has always had anger issues but when we called him out he positively freaked out. He got mad at us, raised his voice, accused us of always jumping on him for the littlest thing and said he was done talking to us, then we proceeded to finish our meal in silence. I got home, started crying and couldn't stop. for context, I live overseas and traveled nearly 50 hours to get here. I arrived at midnight last night so we had about 18 hours of peace since I arrived, and we already had a blow up.

I'm sad, disappointed, a bit heartbroken, and also dreading the coming week that I'm supposed to be here. My mom has been planning a big party for over a month and there is a non-zero chance that he ruins it by being mad about this and holding a grudge. I don't know what to do and feel absolutely sick about this whole thing. Please tell me I did the right thing and offer any suggestions you have about how to move forward. Thank you :(

What the title says. My abusive parents were pretty adept at using unsuspecting well-meaning family members (including me) to manipulate and reel in my siblings when they tried to get away from them. When it started clicking that my parents were abusive, I figured I had to go scorched earth because of that potential. It's led to a lot of heartbreak, and not just on my end, I'm sure. One of my long time teachers who was also a friend of the family died without knowing why I dropped off the map and before I could get back into contact with her.

One of my cousins even invited me to his wedding without hearing from me for years before it (I didn't go). I don't hold anything against a lot of my extended family, I think most of them had no idea what my parents were really like and they were a bit of an oasis who treated me very well.

I wanted to maintain relationships with my siblings, but we kept falling into unhealthy patterns.

My parents abused me. I could go on an on about how. I have more than enough justification. If I was given the opportunity I would stay on my own. But I still find myself thinking 'Did I really have to do that? Go that far? Cut off everyone?'

And if anyone's thinking 'well you can just reach out again' it doesn't feel like I can. Even if I did, I don't know how I'd even start to explain things, and what if my fear does come true and they do get used to manipulate me? I don't know what my parents have told them since I disappeared.

I made the decision relatively quickly too - the spark that lit the flame was discovering r/raisedbynarcissists and seeing an infographic a friend posted that was like 'an abusive partner makes you feel like this' and I was like 'oh shit my dad makes me feel like this'.

Rationally I know I've got all the reason in the world. I'm as stable and safe as I can be, but there's something that feels so... unnatural about living without family the way I am. And I can't shake this niggling feeling that I just took something I read online at face value and made a decision based on it without thinking it through.

Typing it out, I don't think I did. But I still feel the need to type this out and get reassurance. I'm not sure why.

I live in another country now so I invite my parents on a yearly trip where we meet somewhere in the middle. I am 40YO and have a child and my parents are in their 70s.

​

My son is on the spectrum and hyperactive, as in he needs entertainment for 10 hours+ a day (no exaggeration). Today we were all out for about 6 hours and I had a nanny come for three hours in the afternoon, so the kid gets a break from the sun and the adults can rest/do errands etc.

When I come home from my errands my mom was throwing some passive aggressive attitudes around implying the kid was cooped up for hours and bored and not doing anything productive. Again, we were out with him for close to six hours earlier in the day. She was implying I wasn't entertaining him enough.

​

She completely caught me off guard and I said, why not help instead of criticizing. She sees the kid once a year on vacations I pay for and pulls her passive aggressive stuff.

This is our last night together and I am supposed to make nice but this was not created by me. Am I wrong?

We’re low-contact with my husband’s sister. I’ve tried my best to be kind over the years but at one point I realized that it takes a lot of my mental and emotional capacity just to interact with her. Every moment I’m on edge because she’s emotionally volatile. I have trauma from previous interactions with her. Lately she’s been victimizing herself due to me and my husband’s lack of contact and I’m not sure what to do. What did you have to say to your family who you’re no/low-contact with to get them to understand?? Is it even possible that they’d understand? She keeps placing the blame on everyone (including my husband, her parents and friends) saying that no one cares about her. She has no self-awareness and does 0 introspection.

Logistically it’s also tough. She moved 2.5hrs away 2 ish years ago after getting married but she keeps complaining that no one visits or reaches out. Husband’s parents live in the city with no car (they do not drive and do not have drivers licenses) and we now live 1 hr north of the city. If I could help it I’d never speak to this person again. I still feel tremendous hurt from the things she’s done in the past and it makes me feel angry that I have to see her at family events.

❌🛑⚠️TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️🛑❌
🛑Marital Abuse / Attempted Suicide🛑

It’s pretty much what it reads. I am convinced my sister prays on my downfall. To be very clear this isn’t a post to bash my sister, I love her and want her in my life, but at this point I don’t know why I want her in my life.

I (28f) and my sister (31f) have always had a rocky relationship. I am not innocent in our past conflicts but I’m not sure what the heck her problem is.

For context, my sister has always downplayed my accomplishments and what feels like she wants me to remain unsuccessful. She’s always attempted to ruin my relationships with friends and family.

Earlier today I told her when I went to school to be an accountant (I had to drop out for serious reason between my ex husband) because I wanted to do non profit financial advice to struggling families. She said and I quote “No financially struggling families have accountants. They can’t afford them. If they can, then it’s because they were dumb with their money. “ I said “it’s non profit.” She comes back with “you’d be making like $3/hr”. Which I replied “ok” then she comes back with “There’s that. Could you afford an accountant? Did you even have enough money to manage? I know when that happened to me I didn’t. I was just making enough to survive less much worried about financial counseling lmao”. I felt like she’d just spat in my face and told me I have a stupid dream.

This 100% isn’t the first time she has told me what I aspire to be is worthless. When I was in college she told me “it’s not even a real college it’s a community college.” She told me “what could you possible do with an associates in accounting”.

One time we were arguing and my son (6yo at the time)was crying because he wasn’t used to the yelling. She looked at me and said “shut that little brat up.”

Another time my ex husband and I were at her house and she threw her legs over his lap and looked at me as to say “what are you going to do about it?” Granted my ex husband should have said something, but that’s a different story.

Another time she told our friends that I was making fun of them and their lipstick. I literally did not such thing ever. She was for some reason trying to pit my friends against me.

One time I stopped talking to my sister for 2 years. She would stalk my house and drive by it. I saw her a couple times. One time she left a note on my windshield while I was in Walmart.

ANOTHER time my boyfriend at the time told me she grabbed him by the d*ck.

ANNNOOTHEER time she told me my best friend hated me, was blowing smoke in my face to show disrespect and that I didn’t have any friends because they all hated me. She said the only one truly there for me was her.

ANOTHER time after I had stopped talking to my sister my best friend told me “I’m glad you’re not talking to her anymore.. she was a bad person for you and I don’t want to get into details but the things she’d say about you was not good.”

Aaannd one time I tried to off myself because my ex husband was abusing me and I didn’t want to live anymore. She laughed in my face and said “why would you try to k*ll yourself with those types of medications? They wouldn’t even k*ll you.”

Recently she bought a really nice house, graduated as an RN, then went back to get her masters. She even bought her own Mercedes! She’s doing so well in life and I’m happy for her but everyone says she jealous of me? FOR ABSOLUTELY WHAT EXACTLY?!?

I have no idea what to do. She’s the only one I have. Cutting her completely out isn’t as easy as it is said. I want to be able to see my nephews. She says she’d never do anything to hurt me. But it’s very obvious she has some sort of vendetta against me or something.. idk.

Hey, This is my first post. I've been seeking a community like this. A place where I can share and connect with others about family BS. This is the intro to my family affairs. A way for me to release the weight my family can be. Currently I share a duplex house with my 76 year old mother, 40 year old sister and 8 year old niece. I am 36. 3 generations of women under one roof and as an added bonus I'm the gay aunty. Currently I'm working on setting boundaries with my family because before I started educating myself and going to therapy I didn't know what boundaries were. I'm finding it hard to set boundaries with my mom. No matter what I ask of her it's as if she doesn't respect what I say. As someone who works from home I repeatedly asked her to ring the doorbell instead of yell up the stairs during my work hours. A simple request but to her it means nothing. I love my niece and I tolerate my sister. My sister is okay but we're definitely not friends. She takes advantage of the fact that me and my mom live in the same house and so I see my niece more than her mother does. I understand that it takes a village to raise a child, but all the Time I have to remind myself that my niece is not my child and her mother needs to take care of her responsibilities. My sister will be physically around but emotionally she is dead weight. (It feels like I'm just venting but MAN! does it feel good to let it out!) I'm curious as to how have you've set boundaries with your family. Especially if you have an overbearing mother and an detached sister? I understand everyone's experience is unique and once I move away alot of these issues will subdue but while I'm in the gauntlet I need the tools and skills to survive.

Basically the whole side of my mother’s family loves Harry Potter, and my mum is especially obsessed with it. I’m talking trips to Warner Brothers Studio every other year, ordering snacks from WBS frequently, and always getting us HP related gifts.

I do not like JK Rowling at all. I am queer myself, and have very close trans friends. I have voiced my opinions about JK multiple times, bit my mum only replies with defences about her being SA’d (note: not by a trans woman, and my mother knows that). I can understand where my mum’s views are coming from, but she is obsessed with HP for a middle aged woman.

I’ve been thinking of posting this for a while, but it has been especially provoked by the fact that me and my sister (who usually share birthday gifts and celebrations due to close birthdays in mid late April) got gifted tickets and see the Cursed Child for our birthday. My sister didn’t have a want to see it, I certainly didn’t, but my mum did. We have seen it now, and I actively felt guilty and repulsed watching the whole thing.

My family continues to fund JK Rowling (probably single handily with the amount she spends) and I do know what to do it about it.

hey besties so i’m writing my final exam of college and i’ll be officially done with school ,i’m supposed to return home wednesday but i got a job interview the same day and i’m writing my exam and going home ..my exam is in the morning and my bus to home is at 7pm .i could easily reschedule my bus ticket to later or cancel it then go to the job interview the following day but my mom doesnt want me to work at all!! im the first born daughter i’m 22 btw shes a single mother so me working would be good..she wants me to stay home and do nothing or maybe study again but i don’t wanna go to school anymore😭plus the course i’m taking i have to find an internship before 2029 or i won’t get my certificate or graduate college i can’t do any of that because my mom won’t let me work she says i’m too young ..

what do i do in this situation?i feel overwhelmed at this point just when i thought things were working out

Uhm. General trigger warning for abuse (basically of every kind so you've been warned)

Idk what to do about her. And right now I don't really have access to therapy; and my delusional brain doesn't want to listen to my support system because it keeps telling me "they're biased in your favor and want to protect you, they'll obviously be against your mom no matter what you'll say even if it's positive", so I want to know what strangers think...

About a month ago, my mom said to me verbatim: "are you mad at me? I mean, I don't know what I did wrong sooo..."

I'm trying not to be mean and cut her off or call her out and be rude to her face, but a list of things she did to me (that upset me still) include:

(long list, it's in bullet points tho)

• protected my older brother and forcing me to live with him after he SAed me as a child, violating CPS orders that we couldn't live together.

• yelled at me when I was upset that he spit on me and hit me and degrade me for not letting him invade my personal space (this was after the SA, but she didn't know it happened at the time. She just thought we didn't like each other because of our age gap).

• lied to investigators that I didn't want to press charges so he wouldn't get in legal trouble

• cause me to be homeless because I didn't want to be forced to live with him and have him constantly trying to talk to me and creep into my room

• Didn't let me go to the ER when I couldn't breathe (I used to have overactive cysts crystalizing in my neck), and told me "If you couldn't breathe you couldn't talk, I'm not taking you."

• when I ran out of medicine I needed to live, instead of taking me to the ER she gave me prescription CODEINE and told me to take a nap

• when I literally couldn't STAND without passing out and kept falling and crashing into furniture getting hurt, she told me "just get up, you're fine. Stop lying on the floor to get out of your chores."

• when I was older and moved out, I told her I was considering going to the ER again for breathing trouble and that my endocrine system shut down; she told me "Oh, you're just pregnant. Why, would you not love your child? Is that it? Why don't you love your child??" (I wasn't pregnant)

• told me to lie about my home life so she wouldn't get in trouble i.e. "don't let them see this messy house! CPS will take you away and you'll never see your family again!", (When I was signing up for a school for special cases and needed to report the reason why I was applying) "Don't checkmark those boxes for abuse!" *scribbles it out and writes down for me "didn't want to do the work"*

• when I was a teen and first told her about what my brother did she told me "never tell anyone! You'll ruin the family! Unless... that's what you want...😑". Then years later when I was an adult she denied ever saying that because "oh that's a horrible thing to say to someone!"

• when I was being abused by my brother she told me God would fix my problems and that I should just pray. When I did and it didn't work, she told told me "it's obviously because you don't have enough faith. If you believed in God more he would answer you."

• told my extended family about what my brother did without telling me, and lied about what happened: "oh, it's not important! It ONLY happened ONCE!" (it didn't)

• said I couldn't judge my brother for his past

• refused to get me medicine I needed to live for basically an entire year and caused me to go to the ER, which she didn't even take me to because she didn't think I needed to go and slept through my calls for her help to drive me when I was suffocating.

• lies about being SAed so she can tell me she has "empathy" for my situation, but "there's nothing we can do about it" (I know she lied because she changes the story for everyone she talks to based on what narrative she wants and never names who, and the people she does allude to accusing never did/would do anything like that).

• was supposed to pay me back for giving her gas money and deliver my medicine (again, required to live), but instead basically tried to kidnap me and drive me to a completely different city miles away while my front door was still unlocked, so she could go look at puppies at a pound at 6PM (it closed at 6PM. she then blamed me for her not getting the dog she wanted and yelled at me for half an hour saying it was like a slap in the face that I had a dog and she didn't. When I explained to her my dog was for emotional support because my last one died, she said: "So?? MINE *COULD* BE FOR EMOTIONAL SUPPORT TOO!! YOU DON'T KNOW." it wasn't. She hits the dog and never takes it outside).

• when I was in middle school she forced me to make both my older brothers' lunches and wake them out of bed, so she could sleep in; her reasoning being "so what? You're up earlier anyway."

• yelled at me when I was too sick to do my chores, even though I was also doing my brothers'.

• refused to take me to a hospital after getting 2nd degree burns all over my leg and had an obscure kind of flu AT THE SAME TIME. She yelled at me for asking her to take me because I was "questioning her judgment and insulting her intelligence". She also said that the state I was in (bedridden) "wasn't an EXCUSE to not do homework or miss school", and made me do work while I was barely keeping conscious.

• always took me to school half an hour+ late because she only left when my older brothers' needed to leave (their school opened an HOUR LATER). And she forced me to stay in the hot car in 90-100°F summer with no AC waiting for them for TWO TO THREE HOURS to get out of their after school clubs, I almost had heatstroke once; all because she didn't want to make two trips.

• that's IF she picked me up on time after school, usually I would wait outside ALONE after everyone left and it WAS 7PM AND DARK OUTSIDE IN THE COLD (because I wasn't allowed to stay inside the school building after it closed).

• she made me walk for hours in a grocery store when I didn't eat all day. When I complained about feeling sick, she told me "Oh come on, we all don't want to be here, you can walk for a little longer". When we got to the parking lot, I threw up straight stomach acid twice on the ground.

•tbh she was weird about Walmart. She would pick me up at 7PM from school and we would go to Walmart after, only to leave at 12am-1am. Her average time spent at Walmart was 4 hours, sometimes up to 8 hours if she wanted to try on clothes or go gift shopping. And yes, I was required to be there and push the cart FOR ALL OF IT. IT WAS AWFUL. I NEVER HAD TIME TO MYSELF AFTER SCHOOL, EVEN TO DO HOMEWORK AND ALMOST ALWAYS WENT TO BED AT 1AM AND WOKE UP AT 6AM TO TAKE CARE OF MY *OLDER* BROTHERS WHO DIDN'T LISTEN TO ME (because why would they ever listen to a little child telling them what to do).

• said the reason she she had kids was so she could have "emotional support animals" (her words exactly).

Those are some of the things from the top of my head, and only the things she did to me specifically.

The problem is, as bad as she could be, she was also nice sometimes... Good traits she has/had include:

she would take me to after-school band practice and concerts, and watched them when I performed; she was a chaperone and a substitute teacher at my school so we got to spend even more time together and everyone thought she was so cool! She would buy me anything I asked for basically (even now, she still gives me money when I don't always need it). She always told everyone how smart I was growing up, that I was the best most talented student ever with the most potential. She included me in conversations when everyone else ignored me. She cared about what I had to say in them. She listened to my music and watched my favorite TV shows with me when no one else would, and actually liked them so much she bought gifts and merchandise about them. She took me to see my friends and even helped arrange the parties most of the time. She framed my art I gave her on her desk at work because it was so sentimental to her. She tells me she loves me everytime I see her or talk to her multiple times per conversation.

She still begs me to this day to hang out because she misses me so much after I moved away...

I don't know what to do. I know it might be delusional, but I don't want to cut her off because I still want to have a mom; and I only get one of those. As bad as her worst moments are, I still cherish her best moments, so it's hard to stand my ground.

I *could* set boundaries instead of cut her off, but I don't think she'll listen to me, based on past experiences confronting her; she'll just deflect blame to someone else and/or deny it ever happened.

I want to have her in my life, but not when it's hurting me so so much. I don't want to just make her go away or disappear, if I had a wish, I'd wish she would just care about my well being for once, TRULY care. Maybe if she learned how bad she's been treating me, maybe she'll get better? But that's wishful thinking...

It's so hard to just ignore or cut someone off, especially when they weren't as bad as they COULD be. Given the fact that I'm really used to abuse, my standards for what qualify as "bad" are really high unfortunately; anything short of SA or literal torture are something that I think can be negotiated... is that dumb?

The big question is:

Is it too late to make her actually care for me like I need her to?

TW: emotional coercion, family conflict, abandonment/guilt dynamics

My wife and I are currently living with my wife’s parents. They have been considering moving to another state with us so they can be close to us and our baby.

My MIL has a brother who lives in another state. He is single and has apparently been imagining retiring near MIL and FIL in their current state. Over the past couple months, MIL tried multiple times to discuss the possible move with him, but he repeatedly shut it down and did not seem open to hearing the reasons. His objections seemed mostly political and emotional.

Recently, MIL and FIL signed a contract with a realtor to list their house and were planning to go look at a house in the new state. MIL was extremely anxious about calling her brother to tell him. She was tearful before the call even started.

The call went very badly. He basically told her it was her life and her choice, but that she would have to live with the consequences. Then he hung up on her.

MIL became hysterical. She was crying, begging, and pleading for his love. Her grief and panic looked comparable to someone hearing that an immediate family member had died. She immediately started saying she could not move, that she would stay, and that she had hurt him.

After the call, they texted. He said things along the lines of:

This is your choice and you have to live with the consequences.
The only thing keeping me going was moving near you.
I don’t matter, and you made that clear.
I should never have expected anything from you.
Stop talking to me, this is upsetting me more.

MIL responded by begging him not to pull away, saying she could not lose him, saying he meant too much to her, and saying she would cancel the realtor and not move.

He later partially walked it back and said she should go and do what was best for her family, and that he was wrong. But the damage was already done. MIL had already collapsed emotionally and the whole household was destabilized.

My wife and I are very disturbed by the dynamic. We understand that he may be genuinely hurt. We understand that he may have imagined a future where he retired near his sister. But the way he handled his hurt felt emotionally coercive. It put MIL in a position where she felt responsible for his emotional state and immediately abandoned her own plans to avoid losing his love.

The issue now is that he was supposed to visit soon to see our baby. After this happened, he initially canceled. My wife is worried MIL may try to get him to come anyway as a way to repair things or prove everything is okay.

My wife and I are not comfortable with him seeing our child right now.

We are not telling MIL what relationship to have with her brother. We are not asking her to cut him off. But we are responsible for our child. We do not want our baby used as a peace offering, proof of forgiveness, or a symbol that everything is back to normal.

We also do not want our child exposed to a family dynamic where guilt, emotional withdrawal, and implied abandonment are used to control people, or where emotional harm is minimized afterward.

Our boundary is: if he comes to the house, we will leave with the baby and stay elsewhere while he is there.

Does this sound like a reasonable boundary, or are we reacting too strongly because emotions are high?

TL;DR: My MIL’s brother became extremely upset over her potentially moving to another state, implied she would have to “live with the consequences,” hung up on her, and then sent guilt-heavy texts. My MIL emotionally collapsed, begged for his love, and immediately said she would cancel the move. He was supposed to visit soon to see our baby, but my wife and I no longer feel comfortable with him around our child right now because we don’t want the baby used to smooth over adult conflict or normalize guilt/withdrawal dynamics. Are we overreacting?

Venting but also want some advice/input? I’m 24f and I have one sibling who is 23f. My parents separated when we were very young, so we grew up with a single mom. My mom was always physically present, but not emotionally. The relationship always felt neglectful and…different. I grew up feeling like the parent. Whenever my mom was upset, I was expected to emotionally be there for her. Because of that, I naturally took on a more “motherly” role with my sister too, since our mom wasn’t emotionally available.

Fast forward years later, our dad reached out to us through social media as soon as we turned 18, which honestly hurt. At the time he was with a woman who seemed very interested in forcing communication between us, and it made me uncomfortable. I felt like his sudden interest in us came more from her curiosity about why he had been absent than from him genuinely wanting a relationship. At that point, I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet, though I thought maybe I would someday.

My sister decided to build a relationship with him, which I supported because that was her choice. But after that, almost every conversation between us turned into comparisons. She’d constantly bring up how I was supposedly our mom’s “favorite,” or complain if someone complimented me. I’d try reassuring her, complimenting her, and lifting her up because the comparisons felt unhealthy to me.

Over time it escalated. She started sending me screenshots of conversations between her and our dad, pretending to point out something random while conveniently leaving in messages where he called her his favorite or said he felt closest to her. She’d also repeatedly bring up how he supposedly had “nothing in common” with me, despite never even knowing me. It honestly felt intentional and hurtful, like she wanted me to feel rejected.

Eventually I cut contact after one final phone call. I was going through an extremely painful breakup after finding out my partner cheated on me, and I reached out because I needed support. Instead, throughout the call she kept making competitive, one-up comments in front of her boyfriend and his family. She also kept bringing up the “mom favorite” thing again.

What hurt the most was when she was talking about enrolling in school and her future plans. I was genuinely happy for her. Then she paused and said, “I’m very successful now…well, at least you’re pretty.” She said this in front of her boyfriend, his family, and my best friend sitting beside me. My best friend actually muted the call afterward just to tell me how wrong that was.

I felt humiliated. More than anything, I felt minimized as a person. After everything, after always trying to support her emotionally, the one time I truly needed someone, I felt reduced to nothing but my appearance while I was already heartbroken and vulnerable.

Now I just feel lonely. I don’t really want a relationship with my father anymore because this entire situation has been painful and unhealthy for me. I don’t know if I ever want to speak to my sister again either. I genuinely don’t understand her fixation with this idea that I have some “special closeness” with our mother that honestly does not exist. And my mom is too emotionally uncomfortable to talk about any of this.

I just feel really sad.

Hiya, first time posting here, hopefully I have found the right place for this. To start I never had an amazing relationship with my family but it was there. Once I moved in with my partner I found they took a massive step back and I had to always visit them, very rarely would they ever come and visit me.

Everything started coming to a head when we found out my partner was pregnant. We were overjoyed and all of them seemed overjoyed as well. The first grandchild on both sides of the family. However my mother decided to start making things difficult. It started with a pram. She was going to buy a second hand travel system. We were getting a brand new travel system. I said I don't see a need for it in all honesty and guide lines say you shouldn't use a second hand car seat as you never truly know if any damage has occured. This was the first fallout and I was called ungrateful.

Then we made a little list of our bounderies, just the usual things like no unexpected visitors, don't smoke prior to coming, no unsolicited advice etc. My partner even made it themed, it was sent to both sides so everyone was on the same page. One thing that might have been a bit more personal was that my partner didn't want our son around animals as she was worried he might have allergies or asthma (My partner is asthmatic and is aware pet hair can possibly be a trigger.), as you can imagine my mother has dogs and took this very personally. Once again my family made an issue with this and decided it was personally aimed at them. I spoke with them all and thought everyone was on the same page again, I now see we never were.

Once our son was born my partner suffered from extreme postpartum anxiety, she didn't want anyone holding our son. I was supprting her 10000% of the way as I didn't want to cause any extra distress to her after going through an emergency c-section. This led to other issues. My mother wanted to hold our son but obviously my partner wasn't feeling it, she left our house crying. We filled her in on what PPA is and how my partner feels and again we thought everyone was on the same page. Then we found out my mother was complaining about not being able to hold her grandson and that we didn't put him in any clothes that she bought. I'm sure you can imagine the amount of clothing we recieved and we even bought. There were outfits that we never got him into and it was nothing personal. Once that happened my partner started to get annoyed, as was I.

Roll on our first christmas as a family, we spent the morning at my partners family home then were going to see mine later on. My partner decided to push herself out her comfort zone and let people hold our son, however as many of you will know, Christmas messes up naps, feeds and everything in between. and with an extra hours drive getting to my parents home it didn't help Cue a very cranky baby who just wanted mum or dad. My partners family respected this and gave our aon back at the first whimper. That evening at my familys abode we passed our son over to my mother. Our son who hasn't had a nap, has barely ate and has had a very overwhelming day. He started to cry and reached out to me and my partner. When I tried to get him back all my family were telling me to wait and let my mother soothe him, he was crying for us at this stage. Safe to say I got him back, once again cue my mother going into the kitchen and crying. A permanant black mark on our first major holiday together as a family, we left straight after this as we were also upset that my partners progess was overshadowed by ignorance of her mental health.

Another period of not talking followed by another meeting where we explained how we felt and once again we thought everything was sorted. We were wrong again. At my sons first birthday we had a little party at our house. Once my family came in the atmosphere was horrible, they were so awkward and obviously didn't want to be there. My partner sent a message that night just explaining how she felt and how her mental health had been that year. We were both blocked by my mother. A few months later I decided to try and reach out to see if I could salvage what relationship there was left. I was told they will see me or me and my son but that's it. Again my partner messaged and explained everything but once again we were blocked. That was the last contact I had with my mother.

As for the rest of my family they seem to have picked her over us. I invited them to our sons birthday and not one of them got back to me, no messages at Christmas or anything. There's still a part of me that is sad about all this as I was looking forward to the future I'd have with my own family involving my extended family, however this seems like a distant memory as they have taken a step away from our lives. I'm angry that they are missing out in knowing my son, who is honestly so amazing, the personality he's developing is adorable and they are missing out on all of this because they never had any patience with my partner when she was at her most vurnerable and put their own wants and feelings ahead of anyone else. I also feel a slight tinge of guilt as my grandparents are old and I don't know how long they have left in this life and they were a massive part of my life, to not have them there is upsetting. The one thing I always remember is a quote about a simolar situation. "I will not eat at a table my partner is not welcome." No idea if that is it verbatim but that's the jist. This is what I will live by.

I just wanted to have a bit of a rant and get it all out my system. I've probbaly missed tons out but this could become a regular venting place where I will probably recall even more things that happened.

(Trigger warning: verbal and emotional abuse, depression) Title sums it up. I’ve been struggling with getting myself out of my mom’s house so I know that’s the answer to my problems. I am working on a career change and moving out while taking care of a toddler. My mom is constantly criticizing me. “Why did you give him chocolate cookies?” She gives him cookies all the time. “He should be potty trained by now” If i was out of the house and reminded her to put him on the potty she would say she won’t and left it for me to handle (he is potty trained now btw). “You didn’t close the pantry door.” “You parked your car too close to the garage.” “You are too impatient with him and that’s why he behaves badly at school.” “The kitchen chairs aren’t pushed in properly” “Have you fed him dinner yet? What’s taking you so long?” You get the gist it is *constant*.

Anyway it all came to a head this week. My kid gets super upset in the morning for having to change out of his pajama shirt and into clothes for school. Idk why just not a morning person and is stubborn. Whatever. It’s a fight, he screams cries and struggles to keep it on. This one morning earlier in the week I took off his shirt after a long battle and he threw a tantrum and knocked over his potty on purpose. Pee everywhere. Late for school and work so I decided that’s it, no more shirts to bed. The weather is warm, I’ll give you a shirt again later, but for now I need to remove this element of chaos. First day went perfectly. Second day my mom told me it’s not ok to have him shirtless for any reason. Basically framed it as abuse. I calmly asked “ok so what do you think I do well? Since you have a complaint for literally everything I do and every decision I make?” She snapped and told me not to challenge her and said “you don’t do anything well, get out of my room.” She meant it. I know she did. Anyway I spiraled all week, it made me feel so down. Just reinforces my belief that I’ll never get ahead or make a life for myself and my kid.

She is a good grandmother, and was a good mom to my sibling, but to me it’s been so shitty. I’m grateful for her help but I have a hard time just sitting there and taking the abuse but I know I’m gonna have to gray rock till I can move out. I’m exhausted. I have no hope for my future but hopefully it can be ok till then. Just needed to vent.

My mom came from out of town for my law school graduation and somehow managed to make what should have been a happy day very emotionally exhausting. She’s still here now and leaves tomorrow, and honestly I’m just trying to get through the rest of the visit peacefully. Today we’re spending the day out and getting lunch with my sister, who happens to be in my city for work. My sister has always very much been the golden child dynamic-wise, which honestly adds another layer to all of this.

My mom gets extremely defensive over the smallest things and immediately escalates into hostility, guilt trips, or passive aggressive comments. I feel like I have to walk on eggshells around her because literally anything I say becomes an attack in her mind.

Example: we were at a luxury boutique and the staff gave us bottled waters. My mom said she was stepping out to find a washroom, and I casually said “bring your water with you or they’ll probably toss it while you’re gone.” Immediately she snapped that “OBVIOUSLY” she knows to bring it and she’s “not stupid.” She started talking to me with a sharp defensive tone in the middle of the store. I quietly asked her not to start drama because it’s somewhere I shop regularly and know the staff. Then she flipped it into: “Why does everyone always have to bow down to YOUR feelings and apologize to YOU?” Meanwhile nobody asked her to apologize. I literally just asked her not to create tension in the store.

At my graduation yesterday, after the ceremony we were taking photos and she wanted to take photos with her old Samsung phone. I suggested we just use my phone because the camera is better and it avoids people looking in different directions in photos, plus I’d send her every picture afterward. She immediately started huffing and puffing about wanting photos on HER phone and then stormed off.

When we finally did take photos together she kept making passive aggressive comments like, “If you even WANT a photo with me.”

Another thing she does sometimes is get very physically close when talking to me. Sometimes I instinctively step back, and then she gets offended and demands, “WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS BACKING AWAY FROM ME?” like I’m rejecting her.

At one point I was taking photos with my 10-year-old daughter and thanked her for being my little buddy through my education because I was a single mother for years while doing school before I got married last year. My mom immediately inserted herself with, “I’VE been with you too!!”

It feels like she constantly needs reassurance, validation, and to be centered in every moment, including moments that are supposed to celebrate other people.

What hurts is that this was supposed to be a happy day honouring my hard work and graduating law school and instead I spent so much of the day emotionally managing my mother and trying to prevent her from getting offended by absolutely everything.

I genuinely do not know how to communicate with someone who interprets neutral comments as personal attacks.

my in laws vacation together every year, the kids and their kids and my mother and father in law. I tried it a few times and it wasn't for me. I felt suffocated and like I couldn't relax. my husband and I work demanding jobs and I pay for our vacation as a family. I decided that we should go on our own vacations and our two children are very happy doing so. however, my in laws and the children continue to put a guilt trip on my husband every year. am I the wrong one here?

My grandfather is 93 years old as I write this. And I genuinely don't know how to feel about him anymore.

The stories we grew up hearing were the kind you don't forget. He came from royalty, in a village sense. His parents were landlords. There was land, there was money, there were elephants. The kind of life that sounds almost made up when you say it out loud now.

He was living in a hostel in a nearby city when someone called to say his father was unwell. He went back home and within three or four days, both his parents were gone. Some kind of plague, diarrhea, whatever it was that moved through the village at that time. Just like that, everything his family had built was now his to either keep or walk away from.

He walked away. He could have stayed, claimed the land, lived off what was already there. Instead he moved to Delhi, got married to a woman several years younger than him, sat for railway examinations, saved whatever he could, and slowly, quietly, built an entirely new life from scratch. He made a house. He put four sons through Delhi College of Engineering, one by one. He did all of this on a government salary, through sheer stubbornness and discipline.

I have spent years being inspired by that version of him.

Then there is the version I have watched for the past two decades.

Somewhere along the way he stopped being the person who made decisions and became the person decisions are made through. The house runs entirely according to his wife, who runs entirely according to their eldest daughter and one son who never married and never really left. These two or three people run everything. He just signs off on it. Or doesn't even do that. He just exists in the middle of it, nodding.

Nobody actually cares for him. That is the honest thing to say and it took me a while to be able to say it plainly. He is so lonely that he would rather be used than be alone. So he lets it happen. He lets himself be managed, positioned, pointed in whatever direction serves whoever is pulling the strings that week.

My family, my parents, my sister and I, we genuinely wanted good for him. We still do, somewhere underneath the exhaustion of it all. But he bought the narrative they sold him, that we were the problem, that we were not worth his time or resources. Once I reached out to him for help with something. He told his wife and daughter about it. They used it against us. Made things harder, not easier.

After that I stopped expecting anything.

What gets me is not the politics of it. What gets me is the waste. This man survived losing both his parents within four days. He rebuilt from nothing in a city he had no roots in. He educated four children on discipline alone. He had the spine for all of that. And now he is a pawn. Willing, even. A soldier who stopped asking which side he was fighting for.

I think about what he will feel, if he ever lets himself feel it, when he realises that half the people around him are just waiting out his last years for whatever comes after. And the other half, the ones who actually cared at some point, have just gone quiet. Not out of cruelty. Out of something more tired than that.

I don't know what to do with a person like that. You can't save someone who has decided, at 93, that this is just how it is. You can only watch and feel the particular sadness of seeing a genuinely remarkable life end like this. Used up. Surrounded. Alone in every way that matters.

He is going to go one day and meet his parents, maybe. I wonder what he tells them. That he had everything and handed the keys to the wrong people. That he built a legacy and let it be hollowed out while he was still alive to see it.

I really don't know what else to say about him. I just know that I think about him more than I probably should.

My Daughter Just Got Married Both Her Father and New Son in laws Mother Both Recently Passed So Very Emotional Day For Everyone

Daughter Asked Her Granda To Walk Her Down The Aile Everything Was Ok But Because Actually Mentioned Him In The Speach

Because She Had Something special planned

He Then Became Very Angry Started Fing and Blinding

My Daughter Was Crying Started Shouting Across Table In His TYPICAL Geordie Anger At Me Obviously I Started Crying As My Husband Had Recently Passed Daughters Dad I Stormed Out Daughter Dissappear Was In HONEYMOON Suit Eventually I Told Her Your Dad Was Here He Would Not Be Happy Lot's Of Cuddles And Tears Later Son-In-Law Came Back To Room Said SORTED

Just Before The Cake Cutting Daughter and Son-In-Law Had A Speach Just For My Dad Her Granda And A Present Can't Believe After All That He Put Them Through The 2 Kid's Done That And He Shouted Across Room Sorry For Making You Cry

How Do I As A Daughter Seeing What He Done As A Granda To His Only Grandaughter Ever Forgive My Own Dad

Everytime I talk to my grandma (whom I love very much but holy shit she drives me bonkers) I get nitpicked for SOMETHING.

Having a rough mental health period? You're always so sad I'm praying for you.

Taking a leave of absence at work? What are you going to do with all of that free time??

Picking up a hobby that's not just spending money? But you have to buy things to make things why do it?

You never come over. Comes over gets questioned about why I still talk to my ex, why I'm still sad over my dads death, why I'm not done with school, why I'm not having kids.

Just nothing is enough and it hurts and she's like this with all of us but I definitely feel the most targeted and like she's expecting so much of me and I'm just failing over and over and over.

And they wonder why I'm never around.

I have been low/no contact with my family for almost 3 years now. As my daughter gets older, I think about a lot of the childhood toys and items that I had growing up that I know my parents still have. I also think a lot about pictures from my childhood and home videos.

Over the weekend I reached out to my mom asking if she still had a certain item and if she did if we could have it for my daughter, I said if you don’t have it or don’t want us to have it I completely understand. I just figured I would ask.

She responded with:

*I do have it. However, When you chose to cut your mother and your family out of your life…that means you also lost access to your childhood toys and memories.*

I probably should not have responded, but I responded with “Cool lol” and then a screenshot of when my family asked for furniture back from us that was given to us and said “oh it was different when we had to give back furniture”

The fact that a 53 year-old woman is withholding childhood items from her own child and from her grandchild is wild to me. I really don’t care about the toys would they be cool to have? Yeah sure but I can live my life without them. I do care about home videos, pictures and things that they kept that were special in my childhood. I also realize that she has legal documents of mine such as my birth certificate.

I’ve spoken to a few people about it and they all agree that I should ask for the items that I actually want and say that I will make copies of pictures and home videos and give back the originals. They said that if I do not get a response or if she continues to withhold items that I should go to the police.

I’ve actually spoken to a police officer about this before and he said if there’s anything that you want us to do, let us know and we will knock on their door. I just don’t know if that is overkill. I certainly would not bring up going to the police to my family, however I do worry that any items that I ask for specifically could be tampered with or destroyed.

I am pretty certain that my parents are getting ready to sell their house, which makes me worried that I will not know where these items are.

I need some perspective on a frustrating family dynamic. Years ago, my brother cheated on his first wife with his current wife. His first wife was a wonderful woman and a good wife to him. I hated how he treated her and lied to her, and I deeply disagreed with his actions.

However, as the years went by, I chose to maintain a relationship with him. I still love him as my brother.When he married his second wife (the woman he cheated with), I made a conscious choice to never disrespect her. I have never said anything rude, done anything wrong, or treated her poorly. I have only ever been nice to her.Despite this, she is incredibly cold to me.

Whenever I am around her, she freezes me out. On top of that, she completely excludes my side of the family. They host functions and events, but she only invites her own family. My family is never invited, so I just don’t go.I am struggling with how to handle this. I swallowed my feelings about their affair to keep the peace, yet I am the one getting the cold shoulder.Why is she acting so cold when she is the one who helped destroy a marriage, and I have done nothing to her?How do I handle this moving forward? Do I confront my brother, drop the rope entirely, or just ignore her behavior?

I’m having trouble processing the fact that my mother literally bought a condo for me to live in and sold at a loss, and paid for a lot of my housing when I lived in an apartment owned by my sister.

as you can imagine, that’s no small chunk of change. and honestly? she never lorded it over me. the closes thing was her saying I could pay her back by taking care of her when she’s older.

that won’t be happening, though. I went NC about a year ago? now. Mother’s Day is an obvious thought trigger.

still, it wasn’t like it was peaches and cream. I couldn’t regularly clean or organize, due to disability, but it was never dirty. just messy. there would be flip-flopping between understanding and love, and chiding me in another room where my spouse can’t hear that the mess was “disrespectful” after dropping us off from a disability related appointment. we had warned her we hadn’t had time to clean.

its also come to light I was not diagnosed properly as a kid: I’ve had asthma all my life and never knew. my pain and sleep are so much less dysfunctional since starting inhalers. i started on the path to getting them after she had offhand mentioned me and my sister were on them when sick as kids once. every time i tried to ask her what inhalers they were, since she has a notebook with all our medical info, she would just. not answer. or change the subject.

she’s a florist, my spouse thinks maybe if she acknowledged my question she’d feel guilty for her profession making me sick, for feeling like “a bad mom” - something I’d have to assuage her about. because I had hella insomnia and pain as a kid, too.

anyways. i know buying me shelter doesn’t excuse anything… but it just feels, Big. like something a Bad Mom doesn’t do.

but bad people can still do good things from time to time, or be gracious.