u/ConditionStrict919

I was at my Dad's house as a kid. I didn't shower in God knows how long. When I came back my hair was literally dreadlocked. I was nasty.

I remember bringing this up years later to him and my stepmom.

Their response, "No that couldn't have happened. We never would have allowed that"

Well, actually guys, it did happen. Stuff like this happened lots in our house because you guys are extremely selfish and what little care I received was because you felt obligated to do it.

I know you felt obligated to take care of me because of all the times you yelled at me and acted like something you were doing for me was a giant favor.

Even stuff a child should expect like food. You acted like it was some favor that I should be eternally grateful for.

The results of this treatment went long into adulthood where anytime anyone did even the slightest favor for me or anytime someone was nice to me in the most basic and cursory way would cause me to be indebted to them emotionally.

That is what you taught me. How to be indebted to pieces of shit who treated me poorly at zero cost to them and every cost to me.

It sucks is all. It really really sucks. Being poked and prodded and fucked with and then all of a sudden you explode but the thing that made you explode is never truly addressed. It's bullshit. It sucks. I hate it.

My stepmoms favourite tactic with me was, whenever she did not like an emotion I displayed, was to essentially attack me physically in some way.

Then, when I grew too big for that and she began to fear I might fight back she would scapegoat my blood Mom and use the fact that my blood Mom was an alcoholic.

"You are only acting that way because your Mom is an alcoholic who fucked you up"

Nevermind the fact that stepmom was an alcoholic too lol. Nevermind the fact that my blood Mom's alcoholism was, in part, caused by the brutal way my Dad dumped her when he decided to cheat around with my stepmom.

It was my stepmoms favourite phrase, "Jesus your mother fucked you up".

Whenever I hear it I think...yeah...a little bit. It was her choice to continue to be an alcoholic for a bit but who is the one who helped wreck her life? You stepmom. Who is the one that is continuing to use a situation she helped cause as a "get out of jail free card"? You stepmom. Who never bothered to go to rehab? You stepmom.

My blood Mom may be a fuck up in some ways but at least she takes some form of accountability sometimes. You never did stepmom. You never did.

When I had a problem with the way she treated me and reacted to her abuse she would throw a giant tantrum and take my emotions out of context. When that was not enough she would scapegoat my real Mom and act as though any issue I had with her was because my Mom "fucked me up".

The reality is my Mom had alcoholism and was hard and scary to deal with but she never physically assaulted me or emotionally abused me in the same way my stepmom did.

The reality is my blood Mom's alcoholism pales in comparison to the physical assaults and the emotional abuse heaped on me by my stepmom.

Its like she uses my blood Mom's alcoholism as a get out of jail free card anytime I tried to hold her emotionally accountable for anything.

It's like...she scapegoated me for any issue I had with her or her treatment of me and when that wasn't enough she scapegoated a person who wasn't around.

Arguably you could also say that my stepmom was partially responsible for the start of my Mom's alcoholism in the first place because my stepmom was one of the reasons that her marriage to my Dad broke up because step Mom and Dad were fucking around behind my Mom's back.

Yeah...my stepmom is a malignant narcissist with a pretty big sadistic streak.

Can't believe I survived.