hey, so this is gonna be a long one, and i’m so sorry if this isn’t the right page to put this in, but i really am just kinda looking for either some validation, or someone to tell me im the most dramatic person they’ve ever met in their lives.
i (20F) grew up a mama’s girl my entire life. wherever she went, i went, essentially acting as her shadow. i grew up with two uncles, who i referred to as brothers due to the fact my mother raised them, that are about 11 years older than me. growing up i could see they both clearly had a problem with my mother, but i always passed it off as angsty teenage boy things. until i got older, and my mother started acting differently towards me, and i started to wonder in *my* teenage years if something else was going on.
i had a fairly… crazy childhood. i grew up chronically ill, which put a great load of stress on my mother, and my little sister passed when she was a baby, which caused my mother to fall into a fit of grief though she would never show it. there was also the issue of my father, who was a drug addict, and started using again later on in my childhood, which lead to fights between him and my mother frequently that i would try to stop. i say all of this because i swear it will come into play lol. just bare with me, there’s a point.
when my mother left my father, we packed all of our things and moved in with my grandfather in her hometown. i was 12, and it was a big adjustment for me. i was put into homeschool due to the new environment and my chronic illness, and also to take care of my baby brother full time since my mother would be working. this is really where it all started.
it was small things at first. her getting angry with me if i cried. or complained about pretty much anything. it got worse when i started falling into a sort of depression, my body not big enough to hold all of the weight it was given. i began to have an OCD flare up, which included all of the intrusive thoughts that i tried so hard to fight.
i would tell them to my mother, because it would make me feel better. every day, constantly i would tell her i had another bad thought, and cry at her feet, needing it to go away. the last one i told her was because she got angry with me. she told me i was crazy and everyone else thought so too, and if i kept having these thoughts, she would send me to a hospital and i wouldn’t see them again. i stopped talking to her about mental issues after this.
at around 14-15 i started to experience typical traumatized teen problems, including self harm. i vividly remember going to my mother and admitting to it, begging for help and the only response i got was that i needed to be stronger. i was weak, and giving in.
it went on like this for a while. i would have worsen, and try to ask my mother for help, and she would become angry with me. tell me i had nothing to be sad about. i would open up to her and tell her this behavior wasn’t helping and she would tell me that she’s done everything for me. there’s a roof over my head, clothes on my body, that she works her ass off just to be able to provide for me. she would scream at me, call me a brat, tell me how selfish and ungrateful i was, and then buy me whatever new thing i had mentioned a week before the next day instead of apologizing.
one fight we had was my being upset with my little brother. we have an 11 year old age difference as well, and with me essentially helping to raise him- which my mother also swears didn’t happen, but there was literally no one else home besides me almost every day for at least two years- we didn’t really get along too well. it was stupidly, probably him consistently poking at me, and me being bothered and angry because of all the 14 year old rage simmering through me. and my mother told me i should be nicer considering i have a dead sister. you’d think i’d learn to love the one that’s alive. i literally didn’t even know what to say. i just sat there, staring at the seat until we got home.
i remember another big instance was when i was having memories of a particular traumatic event in my childhood. i was suspicious of a family member doing things to me, and had made some stupid tik tok about it as dumb teenagers do. and my mother came into my room, furious. she screamed at me, threatened me, told me i had no idea what it was like to be taken advantage of. and then, verbatim, her words were, “i knew what he wanted to do but i never let him.” i remember crying myself to sleep that night. i was maybe around 16.
another was a school shopping trip. she called every single piece of clothing i wanted ugly, and didn’t want me to wear it. and, while i probably shouldn’t have said this, i replied “well i think the jeans you wear are ugly but i don’t say anything”. she was furious. told me to hand her my phone immediately. i cursed under my breath, which only made the situation worse, and before i knew it she was spitting words at me as i cried, begging her to just listen. i got in front of her, and she shoved me, which brought attention from some nearby workers. i cried to her, telling her to just stop and listen. that she didn’t listen. that she treated me like shit and this is always what happened. she laughed in my face as i begged to call my grandfather to just come pick me up, not wanting to deal with her anger for however longer. i went to a worker asking for their phone, but she called me away, which only made them more suspicious. they started telling me to just stay in the store, and that made my mother angrier. she grabbed me and dragged me off, and the workers called the mall security. as we walked to the car with security following, she whispered to me the entire time that if they caught up to us, and called CPS, they would take my brother. beat him, starve him, r\*pe him, and it would all be fault. i cried for hours
after this, i just became very emotionally distant towards my mom. i refused to speak with her about anything, didn’t really want to hang out around her. she always had something to say. whether it was about my weight, my habits, my friends, the way i looked. i was just exhausted.
and then, she got a gf. and this is when shit really hit the fan. the gf made our lives miserable. she was horrible to my little brother, screaming at him every chance she got- which to this day my mother refuses to listen to the details. she physically hurt my mother multiple times, would get me to confide in her and run and tell my mother, which would result in me getting in trouble badly. she was a manipulative, conniving son of a bitch and i learned to hate her.
i thought i had successfully gotten out of the little hole she forced us in, putting distance between my family and i, and it worked. until she got ahold of my apple watch, and looked through all my messages. messages to a family member of mine, speaking about the issues i was having. they were urging me to come stay with them. i was about to graduate high school anyway. i told them no and went to stay with my grandfather.
next thing i knew my mother shows up with her gf in tow, and they’re calling the cops on me for everything they could think of. i stole from them, i was drinking, doing drugs, which i was doing none of those things. but the craziest one was they called a police officer and told them i was kidnapping my 6 year old brother. the sheer panic and anxiety rushing through my body as i plead with the police officer almost got me locked away that day, and could’ve ruined my entire future.
after that, i was furious. i broke every rule. not that there was much else to break. she took my phone, my car, i was no longer allowed to interact with any friends. so i snuck around. never came home. just as i prepared myself to leave, my mother sent me a suicide note and disappeared for hours, and i went right back to that stupid house. she was found later on, and told me it wasn’t a suicide note. she only went for a walk. we screamed at each other as she cried. i walked away.
i eventually left the house and lived with a friend until i went to college. we were no contact for months until i caved, wanting my mother on a particularly hard night. our interactions have been… better. she apologized to me one of the first meet ups we had, but now swears that never happened. she makes sure to tell me everyday now that she was a great mother, and nothing horrible ever happened to me. keep in mind, these are only just a few instances. this was my entire life. my *entire* life, even with some now, despite the fact i no longer live with her. it’s insane. i feel like im crazy, because she’s so damn convincing.
so just be brutally honest. am i crazy? or is she like, actually the spawn of satan? i’m so sorry this is so long. but if anyone sees this… thank you