I have been a long-time lurker in this sub and r/Justnomom for many years. I have read the stories and felt the pain but never fully understood the hurt until recently.

​

Backstory (Long)
I grew up in a household where my father was verbally, emotionally, physically, and psychologically abusive towards me. He had a TBI at a young age and I guess that is how my mom makes an excuse for his awful behavior? He has some pretty narcissistic tendencies but mostly my entire life I have never knew how to validate internally because I was always made to feel like my feelings where wrong, I felt too much and if I brought up past incidences that I was remembering it wrong or if it happened it didn’t happen like that, or if it did I deserved it. You know the N’s prayer.

My mom is a classic E, she also was a nurse and work weekend nights so that there would always be a parent home with us since they could not afford daycare. I would be left to be in the care of my father on the weekends while she slept and worked so whenever I was not at school he was there. I also never understood my mom’s reasoning for working as she did because my dad’s work shift allowed him to flex his hours and he would work 5am-2pm so he was always home when we were home anyway. Didn’t matter when she worked. I loved school because it was my only time away from the hell of my family.

I also have a younger sister the GC, she was also abused by my father a lot as a child but once she showed aptitude in an artistic way she became the favorite and the blame was always placed on me. She also likes to tell me I’m wrong because her experience was never as bad as mine.

The only kind of support offered to me by my father was financial, the same way he is with my sister. He has never been able to express himself otherwise. As I’m the oldest and went to college first, I wanted to go away to school to get as far the heck away from them as I could. My father told me no because he had saved up money for my sister and I to go but told me that an in-state college would cost less. So, when I finally could get away from them, I didn’t get to go that far. My sister graduated a year early from high school and got to go to college two years after I did. My sister applied for art school and got to go out of state due to the fact she only applied out of state.

My father decided because her school cost so much more than mine, and rather than have one child debt free from the in-state school, to give the rest of the money that was “mine” to my sister. He said because my loans wouldn’t be as astronomical as hers (she still has more debt than I do) it would be better if I took loans out and moved back in with them. So that’s what I did because I had little understanding of what other options I did have. I had no credit at the time and while I was working part time, I live in an area that the cost of living wouldn’t have worked for me to live independently at that time.

So, my sister got to move out and I had to live with them again. I wasn’t allowed to use the kitchen EVER. This is due to the fact that the kitchen opens out into the living room where my dad watches TV and if he can’t hear the TV over what I’m doing in the kitchen I will get screamed at and hit. My cooking skills are still awful to this day and I hate cooking and refuse to cook unless absolutely necessary.

I had two years left at my university at this time and was forced to change my major because my dad wasn’t going to pay for a second fine arts degree. Mine was going to be psychology but no. That’s not “employable”.

I switched to something more technology related but I hated and when I graduated I got a job as a contractor for FEMA. This was still not enough for him. He wanted me to actually work for FEMA, so I would have those government benefits.

After working there for a few months, I met a man I ended up marrying through a friend. He wasn’t a great choice for me, but I wanted to get married and move out of my parents’ house and that’s what I did. I got paid decently enough but after living together for five months he lost his job and we had to move back in with my parents because shocker they were more stable than his family. He was a bad choice, I admit it. We tried to save up and attempted to move out again but the house we rented from a family friend of his went into foreclosure while we lived there, and we again moved back in with my parents. My husband also didn’t like living with my parents and used spending as a way to cope with the situation and put us in debt. I was able to pay it off but as soon as I did he asked for a divorce.

So we got divorced and that’s costly so I continued living with my parents because again, I make great choices. I continued working as a contractor for FEMA and decided with him gone and I had student loan debt anyway (only debt I have now) that I wanted to finally pursue my dreams of becoming a counselor and went to school for my second bachelor’s in psychology.

I also realized around this time that I’m codependent and started going to meetings and doing self-work for my codependency. I was starting to feel in a better place. I met a new man and he was nothing like any person I attracted in my life before. He was caring, emotionally supportive, and financially stable on his own. He and I began dating and not long afterwards I graduated with bachelors with honors. I got applied for graduate school for counseling and got in for the spring of the following year as that was the next upcoming term and found a job within my new field of study. After a year of dating I moved in with my new boyfriend.

I had been at my new job two months and about to start graduate school when a client stabbed a staff member in front of me. It was really hard for me to process but I continued to work there, and the safety measures of my work did not improve. I was then sexually harassed by a client and his father. I spoke to my supervisor and they did nothing. Another client seemed like he would be physically violent, and he ended up assaulting two other clients not me luckily. That’s when I decided I had to leave. It was six months after the stabbing incident and I wasn’t sleeping, I didn’t sleep for an entire week. It was the first time and hopefully the last time I left a job without notice.

I found a part-time job as an admin assistant at another outpatient facility closer to home, but it has no benefits and pays a lot less. It works better for my fulltime school schedule but makes it difficult for me to do more than pay my bills. My boyfriend has been gracious enough to take on the burden of rent alone right now, and I’m grateful. I had to go on government medical assistance during this time. But I have since started to look for other job opportunities because these incidents at work have scared me away from the field entirely.

My mother was happy when I left the job, she said she didn’t want me to be in harm’s way. She had my dad call me when I left, and he told me he would help me financially with whatever I had needed during this time. I have a dog and he offered to pay for his food and any medical costs until I get on my feet. I guess because I am in such a bad spot I chose to believe them this time. Another dumb mistake on my part.

I want to make this clear, I did not ask them for any support they offered.

Around the same time my sister graduated with her masters from an Ivy League college and has a job waiting for her overseas in February of next year. She will be living with my parents in the meantime.

She and I haven’t had much of a relationship in the past and she said she would like to start over now that she is home and has no other people other than us to spend time with. She found a job in the area until she leaves in February and this is the first time she has ever worked in her entire life. Up until then my parents were giving her whatever money they could for her rent, food, clothes, art supplies, and schooling. They were at one time during her undergrad career sending her 300 dollars a month for art supplies which she wasn’t using, and she would spend it on designer brand label clothes. It was ridiculous. I never said anything because it’s not my business and because I could afford to support myself. If they wanted to waste money on her than that was their problem.

​

What set off the NC
Two weeks ago, I took my dog to the vet because he was about to turn 10 and he hadn’t been acting like himself. My mom chose to accompany me. The vet said they wanted to do blood work on him and the cost was a couple hundred dollars in addition to the vet appointment itself. Before I had a chance to comment on the cost and what I could afford and if I was going to need my parents support with this my mom scoffs and says it’s too much. She calls my father and tells him the cost and he goes and what if they find something wrong with him? Then what? Are we going to have to pay that too? So I say I’m going to pay for it myself. Which they both say is ridiculous because of the financial state I’m in being on the medical assistance. I still pay it.

My mom then tells me the reason they can’t help me out is because even though my sister is living with them for free, and has a job, but they are still paying her bills. I do not feel entitled to their money and I did not ask why they weren’t paying. But my issue is that there is blatant favoritism towards my sister that I have experienced my entire life. The one time I could actually use the support, they screw me. I never ask them for money. And I know it may seem that it’s about the money but its more about what the money represents. Honestly if she had left me in the dark about why they couldn’t pay, just that they couldn’t I wouldn’t have cut them off. So, I decided I’m done getting the short end of the stick with them.

I finally feel like I’m in a position I can bare my soul of what I think about them and I do it. I tell my dad he has been abusive towards me my entire life and uses money to control me but not anymore and I blocked him.

Then my sister starts in on me because she feels like I’m using the dog as a bargaining chip. My parents and sister have a strong affection towards the dog because he had lived with me at my parents’ house for so long. She thinks that she should be able to see my dog whenever she wants no matter what. And is pissed off she isn’t getting her way because “I’m punishing my parents by not speaking to them or giving them access to my dog”

My mom then sends me a financial summary of all the money they have ever spent on me my entire life. I tell her it’s not about the money but about all the ways she has ever showed any favor towards my sister. And there is plenty to be told. I also spell out for her all the ways that she hasn’t been there emotionally for me in the past like when they decided to go on vacation on the first wedding anniversary of mine following the divorce. Her response is I don’t know how many more years I got left to go on vacation. You know some real maternal stuff.

So, I cut my mom off. I however, told them that if they wanted to see the dog on his birthday they could but they needed to go through my boyfriend (who was also gracious enough to let them come over the house to see the dog). I’m not vindictive but I’m not going to put up with their shitty behavior anymore.

My mom who acts like the dog was her grandbaby up until all of this did not come to see him. Cause you know it’s not really that important to her. It’s just a show. My sister comes and puts on a performance crying to my boyfriend about how sorry she is she was mean to me because it’s awful living with my parents and she doesn’t know how I have done it for all the years I did.

And I tried to believe it would be different this time with her. I felt bad because I know how shitty it has been when my parents were awful to me in the past and I try to share it with the one other person that knows them only to be rebuffed. I tried texting her telling her she could come back over, and we could talk. She ignores it until yesterday.

She texts me telling me she misses the dog. I tell her she can come over and visit him. She says it’s not the same and how she was made to believe she would have access to him any time till she leaves in February and I don’t know how she got that impression because I never told her she would have it. And she just sounds like a total flying monkey at this point because she is telling me how my parents don’t understand why I’m upset and how they don’t know how to communicate properly.

She wants to come over and talk to me about all of it. I tell her if she comes over she can talk to me about our issue but not my issues with my parents because it has nothing to do with her. She says she won’t have a relationship with me unless it’s a full one where we can discuss everything, even our parents or otherwise it’s not a real relationship.

I tell her she doesn’t know the full situation with my parents and I don’t feel at a point ready to rehash it with anyone and that’s my boundary and if she didn’t respect it then I didn’t want to see her.

She starts again with the abuse of telling me how ungrateful I am and that I’m just hurting other people. I cut people out for no reason and that I am the one that’s controlling because I won’t talk about something I don’t want to talk about. So now she is blocked.

It’s just amazing that I somehow still care about these people on some level. I don’t plan to have a relationship with any of them anytime soon and I don’t know about the future but I’m fully NC with them all now. However, I just hate how stupid I was to believe that any of them might actually be able to change and to try to reason with any of them. And I hate that it hurts as much as it does. I wish I didn’t care as much as I did. And I don’t know why I do, and I don’t know why I thought because they are family that would mean anything.

​

TL; DR: finally went NC with my N dad, E mom, and sister due to clear favoritism and I’m still processing the pain of losing my family.