u/applecider_06

just to help out anyone who needs it, i know i had a million questions this time last year. doesn't have to be about the uni system, it can be anything!

For reference im 19F. I just never thought as a kid that I would be writing this post about my parents. I really thought the world of them , especially my mom.

Growing up my mom was my number one, always my shoulder to lean on. she came from a very abusive household herself and has always been volative, destructive, and had a lot of trouble controlling her anger. despite all the arguments (with both me and my dad) and crying and slaps i can remember growing up, above it all she was so kind so loving and always there for me. I know it doesnt make any sense put like that but it was like these instances were only once in a whiiiile and it never left a lasting mark on me growing up, somehow. just the occasional thought that my mom was intense. my childhood was very happy.

BUT in my teens, this dynamic took a much larger toll on me. for the large majority of my teens my dad being emotionally absent hurt a lot more - busy man, high authority job, not emotionally vulnerable so when i was bullied through most of high school, it was my mom that came to school in the middle of the day to pick me up and take me to lunch so i didn't have to stay in that building, or made my favourite dinners every day through a particularly harsh month when i was 16. my dad never really gave me the care and love i needed at home to get me through that situation and he never really saw how it was breaking me from the inside out. he does really care about me and loves me, I am their only child !!! but he definitely has the mindset that his role is to provide and be there for me financially while my mom is there for me in the other ways.

However, in the last year - my mom's anger has been insane. genuinely off the charts (considering seriously that she might have BPD), shes broken things thrown things (literally my laptop), hit me, choked me anything you can think of, during her episodes. I called the cops on her in panic last summer and she hung up before I could say anything and told them it was an accidental dial. The summer before I left for college I spent as much time as possible outside of my house, using the excuse of the summer before uni to leave and spend as much time away as I could. One argument, i told her that if she ever lays her hands on me again even one more time then I was never going to speak to her again. I would use the SFE from the government and money from my dad to live at uni, get my degree, and she would never get to speak to me again. Usually she's notorious for never sticking to her word and apologies, but she took me seriously that time. Since that one fight, she's never laid a land on me again. I know that isnt really anything, but Its saved me a lot of hurt. It's been a year since then and although she stopped physical abuse, her emotional abuse has never stopped and I don't think it will ever stop.

I've had the best year of my life at uni this year. I found lifelong friends and am surrounded by so so many people who love me, doing the course I love, doing art, sports and just all around thriving. I've been soo unimaginably happy these last 9 months - it truly healed me. I never thought it would be this good. Through it all, the distance away from my parents was so good after that insanely emotionally difficult summer. I found comfort in my friends and places away from them, so it wasn't surprising really how free I felt at uni. I updated them constantly, and found it so much easier to maintain a (mostly) healthy relationship with them. they were so good to me over the phone and when they came down to visit - and when i came back for breaks, because they missed me. but this summer after the best year ended, I came back to the same energy as last year. its been so tense, them calling me a failure for having to resit a module in august. Insulting my efforts, mocking my friends and 'new life', especially my mom. She makes me cry at least once every two days, I apologise or she does and we talk it through, I think 'wow we made progress!' and then a day later I'm back crying my eyes out and wanting to kms. I think this summer their words have hurt me more than they would have before like last year, because of the sudden change in behaviour. And I know the obvious is to be away from them , since it clearly made everything better but in arguments it definitely shows that my mom secretly hates how happy I am away from them deep down. She knows now that letting me go will take me away from them so I know that even when I go back to uni this year, she will still be horrible over the phone.

The reallisation that both my parents, especially my mom who growing up I thought was the one person that would always be there for me and who I could trust to be proud of me through failures and achievements - actually hates me. She isn't proud of who I am, mocks my struggles with ADHD, and fundamentally I doubt her care for me overall. she's so hot and cold it drives me insane. she'll yell at me for 6 hours straight and by dinnertime, she'll act like none of that ever happened. I want to cry and scream and punch her guts out, but its all useless. Two nights ago after one of those talks i thought meant something I thought we sorted things out. I got up to use the toilet in the middle of the night and heard her talking shit about me to my dad. She was saying how her actions were justified and how our talk didn't change anything, she still thinks she was never in the wrong and that my behaviour deserved that reaction. She told my dad, 'if we don't keep a unified front, she'll walk all over us, so don't let her vent to you about me either'.

So literally cutting off every option I have, she's emotionally manipulating my dad too and cutting off my option of speaking to him about this and expecting a genuine response. She loves me in this twisted way, and its really affecting my mental health. Its not fair, i dont have any siblings they are all the family I have. And i feel llike my very existence bothers her and she doesn't even like me anymore. she loves me, but she doesn't like me. in the last week ive been called a failure and a bad daughter, and im 100% convinced she believes this.

Sorry this is so long, I cried my eyes out writing this.
Thank you, If you read through all of this. I could use some advice.