u/Critical_Sir_4930

I (m18) am from saudi arabia and my mom (f43) is a non-citizen single mother
Life is hard for non-saudis here so she has been unable to find a job since the divorce (2021)
We have been continuously struggling financially and in 2021-2022 me and my 4 siblings were literally living on cup noodles and rice
Things has been processing progressively better through out the years with my dad and my half siblings dad paying child support and us registering for a government financial aid program
The problem is my mom has been in a horrible addiction with compulsive buying where she buy stuff to buy stuff and our apartment is filled with nonsense that she never uses but will never give up and she gets angry anytime we even suggest throwing stuff out or for her to stop her reckless buying
It came to a boiling point in 2025 where we were almost evicted because she refused to pay rent for 6 months and the landlord lord sued her and mind you while she was actively being sued she had me take a delivery of very random health supplements that she does not need or use in insane quantities and the box is collecting dust somewhere in her room
The financial struggles continues and now our car is not working
Her tabby and tamara ( 2 different buy now pay later services) has reached its full limit or purchases and now she uses her sister’s app
And our fridge has been empty for a while now
And this has been a consistent thing for the last 10 days of each month where we are just left to starve and eat one meal daily because she cant buy groceries twice a month
Recently she was weirdly hinting on us moving out
And she got weirdly passive aggressive when i mentioned to her that i want to continue my masters (college is free in Saudi Arabia ) and said things like “there’s no time left” and “you’re living in poverty”
Fast forward to yesterday i suddenly woke up to a call from my older sister me and she was telling me mom is in the hospital and she was in surgery for her stomach and to wish her well
I was very taken aback and weirded out because she never told us anything about a surgery or her health issues
Later that day i reached out to my older sister and asked her what was this all about and why didn’t she tell me anything and why is mom in surgery
She was very reluctant and initially refused to answer and then she said it was a tummy tuck…
This procedure is 40k sar minimum and our household income barely reaches 5000 sar and rent alone is 2000
I was obviously horrified and barely slept that day because of how terrifying this is going to be for the future
Next day i visited her in hospital and she was in recovery
I could barely look her in the eye and she took notice and started asking whats wrong
I uncontrollably started balling my eyes out and just asked her “why did you do this” and she just lied to my face and said that it was just a tumour in her stomach and thats why shes in surgery and how dare i be upset about her “ getting treated” i didn’t argue with her cuz she was in recovery and i didn’t want to stress her out while shes in pain
I decided to take my older sister aside and ask her how could she possibly not stop her and she said that she was trying to talk her out of it for 4 days straight and she got nothing but dismissal from my mom
Now im genuinely concerned on what the future holds for us now that we are literally 40k in debt while literally living on government help and child support
Im considering talking to my aunt about but im too scared this is not a good time especially that shes has already done the surgery and is in recovery
Im just incredibly frustrated and confused on how my mom could be so selfish
Please any advice or just words of encouragement would help
Thank you everyone