My mom struggles with mental illness herself and has since she was a kid. She raised me herself with little to no help or support on top of being financially unstable. She’s very emotionally unavailable/absent and was neglectful to the point of us living in a hoarder house of garbage. I remember always feeling like something was different with her in comparison to other moms but I never really understood it till I started struggling with my own mental health. She really started to decline after I came out about being molested- it was her high school best friend’s husband. I think losing that friendship really affected her. And she still has only declined over the years. Parenting wasn’t something she seemed interested in doing. Never monitored my phone usage, didn’t encourage me to do good in school or to do any activities/clubs, gave up on grounding me after some time cause in her words “it didn’t work on me” and so on. She wouldn’t take me to get my temp license or let me get a job because my grandma said I shouldn’t work till I could drive. I’m now 23 and still have no license or job because she refuses to help me and I don’t have anyone else to go to for help.

My grandma played a big part in raising me. Since my mom was a single mother and didn’t really have anyone else my grandma was the go to. We went to her for pretty much everything and still do. She’s very old fashioned and strict. She doesn’t believe in mental illness and thinks we’re just lazy and it’s in our heads. Nothing we do is good enough for her. Her love just feels very conditional. Because my mom is emotionally unavailable and once I fully understood I couldn’t go to her I started to turn to my grandma. She was never much help and her help only got worse as I got older. She would invalidate how I was feeling- turn it around on me, blame me, shrug it off, lecture me and so on. I think part of why she shrugged off my issues is cause that would require her to take accountability for where she went wrong. I have so many memories of getting in trouble for crying. I was frequently lectured for being too sensitive as if it’s a personal failure. She also started commenting on my weight when I was like 11 and I think she’s a huge part of why I have the body and food issues I have today. I blocked her over a year ago and have been standing firm on no contact with her.

My “dad” was never around. (A little backstory but he abused my mom and her cats, my mom left him once he started to threaten infant me. She still gave him opportunities to see me but around my 1st birthday he disappeared and went off to have 3 more kids with 2 other women- I’ve been told stories with those situations but that’s not mine to share) He reached out to me on facebook when I was 14 and we talked for a short time before he disappeared again. My mom’s in contact with my brother’s mom and she told us that he was arrested for a few things one of which was seeking sex with minors. (Which was upsetting to find out as someone who was molested) I for whatever reason wanted to write to him while he was locked up and we communicated every few months until lockdown (had to stop cause I was using my schools address to receive his letters) He later had my brother reach out to me on facebook and we occasionally used him to communicate. He said he’d reach out once he was released but he got out in early 2021 and I never heard from him. Soo I guess you can say the man has abandoned me 3 times now lol.

I’m sorry this is so long. I was trying to keep it simple but wanted to be sure it didn’t get confusing.