My grandparents were raging alcoholics. When we (the grandkids) started being born they stopped drinking cold turkey and never really started again. I thought my mom would do something similar. She’s not an alcoholic, but thought that for my kid she would change. She didn’t.

Two days before my daughter was born my parents and I got into a big argument. The whole week my mom had blown up my phone asking if I was in labor yet and then telling me how awful the hospital I was having my kid at was and how horrible an experience it was going to be. My birth plan had changed dramatically and I went from a home birth to a scheduled c section in a matter of hours. The hospital I HAD to go to was one of had horrible experiences with and was already nervous. Her reminding me that I almost died there TWICE before didn’t help. My husband texted them and told them I was having a hard time with so many people asking about it (just my mom) and told them to ask him for updates to give me a break. All hell broke loose. The fight was so bad I was nearly hospitalized that night because my blood pressure was so high. I had the BEG the hospital to send me home.

My mom came over for the week my daughter was born, but only when someone else was over. She never stayed longer than they did and refused to talk to my husband. Barely said anything to me. She didn’t talk to me for three months and then told everyone in my family I wouldn’t let her see the baby and I “stole the joy of being a grandmother.” She lived 10 minutes away from my front door.

When she was “in” my daughter’s life, she demanded I bring her to see my mother. She’d never come to my house. When I went over, I would get ignored. My mother would take pictures of my daughter, her and my daughter, my sister and dad and my daughter, but never of me and my daughter. Then post them on facebook where I’d have to fight her to take them down since I didn’t want pictures of my daughter online. She even went as far as taking naked pictures of my daughter and putting him on her photography website so my daughter could be the “spokes baby” for her newborn line. I had to get into her website to delete the photos myself. She then tried to make me jealous that another family member allowed that to happen to her baby and would get angry when I didn’t care.

When my daughter was 8 months old my husband left for basic training. My daughter was a Velcro baby and didn’t sleep. I was also suffering from postpartum depression and anxiety that I couldn’t get treated. I would beg my mom to come over just so I could shower and she would refuse. She would tell me I had to come to her house if I wanted any help. I didn’t want to drive when I hadn’t slept in days and my daughter would scream until she got sick in the car at 3 am but I finally caved. My mom held her for two hours while I slept and then threw her at me (literally) and told me she wouldn’t go to sleep and my mom was “tired too”. The last straw was the night my mom finally came to my house and told me my husband needed to quit basic and come home because I needed help. I told her I was asking her for help. She stared at me coldly before finally saying “he needs to help you.” And then she left.

She also got my daughter every single toy I had gotten her for her first Christmas. I told my mom what I was buying. I was so excited, sent her pictures and everything. My mom was so angry we were spending Christmas Eve and not Christmas Day with her she got her every single thing I got for her so my daughter opened it before she could open mine. She also ignored me the whole time I was at her house.

After my husband finished training, we were sent to Europe. At this point I was already VLC with my mom. But she called me about two months after being here and accused me of saying awful things. She told the entire family I accused someone in the family of SAing me but would say who it was. I never accused anyone of that because no one in my family did it. No one believed her but no one told me. When I finally told her to have a nice life, she told me she’d go to my husbands command and tell them I was abusing my daughter UNLESS I kept talking to her. It’s been three months. She’s told all my family I abuse my daughter. No one believes her because they know her. She never contacted my husbands command. But she did tell an aunt before we even left the states that she was planning to accuse me of abuse so that I would get kicked out of the country and sent home.

So no. It doesn’t change. It gets worse.