Hello.  I’m new here. I found Tiny Buddha on Facebook a few weeks back,  and just discovered this site with forums!

Now for my reason being in this forum.  I will do my best to keep this coherent. I’m running on very little sleep. My apologies in advance.

I grew up in a very neglectful and abusive household. I have 3 siblings who also experienced living in that. I’m 29 now. Due to my parents treatment of me, I never really bonded with them. I became very secluded, self reliant,  developed mental health issues young, and didn’t ask for help much at all. Of course,  the negative traits that developed over those years stuck with me and it’s something I’ve been working on undoing. (Making great progress recently!)

I moved out right when I was 18, soon to be married to my husband (whom I’m still married to). Upon escaping that environment, the realization of how wrong things were at home,  the realization of the mistreatment, the effects,  hit me like a ton of bricks once I was living in a place of peace.

It took me many years before I confronted my parents about their behavior.  My dad had terrible anger issues and would hit me. He only did this to me. The abuse stopped shortly before I moved out, and thankfully this never happened to my siblings by him minus a few years of incidents that involved my first born sister. He apologized immediately upon me asking him about it, and I was able to heal, and we were able to salvage our relationship. Unfortunately,  he’s still very neglectful and doesn’t make much attempt at all to have a relationship.  But that I’ve come to terms with.

However,  my mom is a whole other story.  As a kid,  she was always yelling at us, talking behind our backs, hit us sometimes, put us down, was not supportive in times of emotional need. In my early 20s, I made great attempts to build a relationship with her as I didn’t really have one before. But I realize now that this was more of a friendship,  and it involved lots of drinking,  parties at their house,  etc. The put downs continued, name calling. She displayed very inappropriate behavior especially while drinking. 5ish years ago my patents had a Halloween party at their house, she got very drunk and was all over MY husband! It didn’t last long,  but this was when I realized something isn’t right.  This isn’t a mom. She’d call me and blab over and over the same stories for hours and not listen to me at all if I needed support. She’d talk horribly about my dad to me,  and give me really inappropriate details and stories that no one needs to know about their parents… ever. Over the years she really made me resent my dad. I was too gullible, too easily believed her. At the time,  I felt happy to have a “close” bond with my mom finally. She made it all seem so normal. Thankfully I’ve realized now that he isn’t the main problem she says he is. I’ve learned over the last 2 years that my dad has been dealing with way more than we could ever imagine being with her. There’s so so many more incidents with my mom I could go on about… but in short,  we think she has a personality disorder like BPD. I’m including the suspected BPD to hopefully give you guys more insight on the typical BPD and manipulative behaviors we’ve had to deal with. She will never ever apologize,  she just blames my dad for HER abusive and inappropriate behaviors towards us. My mom has become a severe alcoholic over the last 7 or so years. She denies she has a problem. (My grandpa,  her dad, was also an alcoholic and died when I was 7). Over the last 3 years,  I’ve been very patient, loving, tried talking to her many times about how her alcohol abuse and erratic behavior is affecting us,  but it never sticks. It came to a point that I felt like I had a life draining leech on me 24/7, my stress levels were through the roof and I couldn’t deal with it bleeding into every aspect of my life anymore.  So last October,  I told her I’m sorry but I’m going no contact,  and that I’m here for when she’s ready to address the issues at hand and that I’m here to help her when she’s ready to recieve treatment. The one mean thing I did say, out of frustration, that I regret,  is that if she keeps this up she will have no one left and die lonely. Her behavior has not changed one bit since then.

I guess I feel a lot of guilt. Especially for the mean comment I made. I want to apologize,  but I know if I do it will open a giant can of worms and manipulation from her. I’m also feeling like I abandoned her in a time of need.  I know that she is greatly suffering, but isn’t ready to acknowledge or face it yet. I feel guilty as well when I look back on the last 7 months being no contact,  and feeling so much relief and stress gone purely because she’s not in my life anymore right now. And sometimes I feel even worse that I feel I haven’t suffered a loss at all,  as I didn’t really have a “mom” to begin with. This years mother’s day was the very first year that I did not send a gift,  or even a text. I thought I was prepared to deal with it,  but seeing all the positive mother’s day posts of happy families breaks my heart. I am so very happy for those that have beautiful, healthy,  loving relationships with their moms,  I just can’t help but feel like I’m missing something.

I know this is very long.  If you’ve made it this far,  thank you so much for your time. I would appreciate any insight,  as well as tips for getting through. Please be honest with me if I should feel some guilt for not sticking around and my hurtful comment made in haste.