Dear Julie:

Being a good mother is the most difficult job in the world, for someone struggling with physical and mental health issues.

You wrote above: “I then realised all year I’d crashed after seeing my mother or sister, everytime i see them I end up in bed so ill with the crash feelings and that isn’t good for me.”

Clearly, you need to have your mother and sisters out of your life. Yet, you keep having them in your life and in your children’s life. Your association with your mother and sister/s is hurting you. And when they are hurting you, they are also hurting your children. Your mother and sister/s are hurting your children indirectly, by hurting you, and directly, by hurling abuse at you in their hearing presence that Christmas, by promising to show up and not showing up to visit, etc.

At one point it was your brother, and then your mother and sisters that caused you harm. At this point, because you know of that harm they cause you, again and again, and because you choose to associate with them, especially with your mother, again… and yet again, you are no longer a victim but a volunteer.

It is your responsibility to yourself, to your children and to your husband to have No Contact with abusive people: brother, mother, sisters.

anita