I am 30f and have been mentally dealing with my nMom all my life up until recently. My eDad has been the only sense of relief that I would have growing up in that home, but come to find out, he is becoming a lot like her now and in fact, he may have been the problem all along.
We are latinos and for my nMom, she happens to be first generation here in America where the opportunities she had growing up in the 70’s-90’s were more abundant to build a life for herself and make her parents proud.
She didn’t do anything with this opportunity. But her younger sister who got pregnant in her teens did. Recently, a couple of months ago, my grandma (nMom parent) told me that her daughter never did anything with her life and she is depressed because now she is dying from cancer. This is important to this story of mine because as I have been raised without any type of genuine and unconditional love from my nMom. I feel that I have been robbed of having a woman in my life help me to keep me from becoming like her, but instead, I got the jealous nMom that wouldn’t even let me use the only working printer (not uncommon lol) in our house for a college assignment. I had to tell my nMom in that situation that I was appalled and stated, “you don’t even go to school, what do you need to gate keep the printer for?” I had all my electronics taken away and my car taken away for that one! So, nMom is also morbidly obese, had started when she was pregnant with my little nBrother about a few years after having me. I seen the photos from Disneyland and yea, she was already pretty unhealthy at that point. I tried to think about maybe she was going through some sort of depression with me and that’s how that happened? My eDad told me that when she was trying to have me, she went through so much pain and torture (medical examinations I am assuming). They told me how they wanted to have me so bad ONLY DURING the times that they would lecture me about something at the time that I did “wrong” just so they can seem like they are personally suffering from me forgetting to put my dirty softball clothes in the hamper after a long day of school and practice and homework.
All the while, as a kid growing up in that place, I discovered lying was the only means of survival if I wanted to steer clear of any judgement and put downs for my own mental health. I had a lot of distractions at that time like sports and hobbies like reading and playing musical instruments. I did not get to have any friends that I could ever really feel comfortable around because my nParents made me feel insecure by comparing me to my more popular cousins and their friends kids who are educated and now married with kids of their own. They judged 6th graders when we were all dancing to pop music in my nParents pool and they accused me of being a slut. 6th grade… I mean, if I think about the reality of my childhood, a lot of it was spent being compared to my own nMom who did everything the “right way.” My eDad continues to brag that his wife was a “good girl” before anything else and because she did not have a body count is basically what he is saying LMAO homie forgot to check if she was wifey type and good mom type though 😭
They judge their siblings so much to the point where I look back and remember all of the outings at restaurants with my nParents and nBrother would be spent with them, both overweight “adults,” complaining about their parents letting their siblings “get away” with behaviors that are fine to me at the time, so my defense of my nMom family would result in me getting in trouble over trying to get them to reason with them and tell them to their faces. My nParents wasted so much time complaining about shit to my nBrother and I that they forgot to BE PARENTS. I feel so robbed and neglected because my eDad allowed my nMom to do this to herself and us. Here we are in the present and my nMom parents are telling me my eDad changed her and I kinda feel they blame her for her diagnosis now. Why would she tell me this if I haven’t seen her in months and now she wants to tell me that she had always tried to help my nMom by telling her to lose weight and eat better. I remember my nMom telling my eDad and him getting upset that her family is judging her and then eDad would proceed to call all of them obese and other obscenities in that process. My nMom never defended her own family.
So, yea, the present… My nBrother is a few years younger than me and he is so cooked. I mean, this guy has no sense of self-awareness. He has no skills other than playing back up rockstar I guess. He is an academic burn out and doesn’t even speak to me. He uses my moving out, (which nParents call “running away” to get away from nMom abuse, yea, sure) as a justification to his poor behavior. He decides to date a woman with a toddler and a deceased baby daddy during all of this and right at the beginning of my NMom diagnosis, decides to move out without a job, to play house in an apartment my broke nParents paid for them(plus some months of rent). Every time my boyfriend comes around, my eDad finds it okay to tell him how I am not doing enough or contributing to his house with financials and with cleaning up. Growing up, every weekend would be a lecture about how no one was helping my eDad and he would even call himself a derogatory term, prefacing it with slave. Disgusting. My nMom would just sit there quiet, NOTHING like the trucker mouth foul mouth that we get 24/7 from her. When I would bring up her health in the past, they would get so mad at me and then throw all the mistakes I had made when I WAS A CHILD back in my face and say I was a bitch for talking about my nMom weight and not what I did wrong. Yea, here we are now and with the man I have now, I have been able to heal and break from this curse. I give myself more credit, but it is not easy.
On the cancer diagnosis, it was last year in the beginning of the year and I was told by 2 doctors that my nMom had 1 year. This really made me try and drop all the animosity that has built up over the years due to me being the vocal black sheep and also hiding away in my room or gone over the weekends. I managed to villainize myself with that behavior over the last few years apparently. While I was doing this, I guess my nBrother had to deal with the fall out from my nMom and eDad complaining about my mental health issues that they took so personally like I hated them so much that I was acting up and not cleaning my dishes to the point where they threatened to kick me out if I didn’t respect the house or their property. I fell into financial despair and they never offered to help. My nMom has been the root of all of this disposition against me to the point where my eDad and nBrother have weaponized her thoughts of me against me now. They really believe everything she tells them and they are really good performers. They don’t know how to love at all. They are really insecure men that have poor character and pretend they are the big dogs lol what kind of big dog needs to disrespect their daughter (the only child that is HELPING) by telling her she is not a real adult for not being the big dog in HIS HOUSE all of a sudden? (Sir, sit down) My nBrother even told me to be a MAN, UMMM? It must be hard to be outfoxed in every category with me, I can see why they need to disrespect me to make themselves look better. Well, in the whole last year, these two men alone have been so rude and disrespectful with me and NOT ONCE has nBrother asked if I am okay. I have receipts, oh believe me I have them and a couple of voice memos too. It is like I am talking to myself when I text my nBrother and it’s funny cause I even showed my family the proof and they are like, yea, he is f*ing up too much right now. They (the family) think because I am the eldest and the woman that I need to be the one to reach out to him. I have and tried multiple times. His partner is a small problem that he thinks is not and chose her side over nothing on my end, I already know who she is and clocked her on the first day. I was trying to help her out and ask if she would get a job instead of relying on my broke nParents to pay for their groceries and gas and my eDad has to find jobs for my nBrother to work to be paid or not since he loses my eDad jobs for poor effort. (According to eDad) she doesn’t realize my eDad takes $ from me to cover HER and HER SON too. Yikes.
nBrother and partner are constantly breaking up and getting back together since according to my eDad she texts him these updates. They also can’t come through to see my nMom right now in this time apparently too. Not 1 contribution except for washing dishes once have they contributed to the wellbeing of my nMom, like not even research either. But she wrote a song about it, but I wouldn’t know because they have me blocked on their Instagram and band profiles and I am kinda relieved in a way. I had a close relationship with nBrother growing up, but my mental health is more important than nostalgia at this point and we need to focus on getting my nMom better. It has been over a year now and they do not apologize to me for how they have been ignoring me and purposefully not inviting me to family events or emergencies. not good people basically. I am glad I can see that now.
Not being respected in this time no matter what the past was like, I realized these men, especially my eDad whom I held to the HIGHEST regard at some point before the last year have completely let me down AND CONTINUE TO PUT ME DOWN. He is needy as hell too, but when I need someone to talk to, he somehow makes it about himself. He apologizes to my nBrother for how blunt and honest I am towards my nBrother by saying, “your sister is just a bitch.” I have no grace, no agency, no voice in the family. It sucks cause I have confidence and I know I am more than capable of being a leader and getting us fixed, but THESE MEN refuse to let a woman tell them they are disrespectful. They gate keep my nMom information from dr and my dad only discussed it with me when my bf is around. It’s rude and cruel to be sarcastic with me when I am genuinely trying to know what’s going on.
Funny thing is, these nParents of mine just exposed themselves in the last year too and honestly, from what my grandma told me, I believe they knew who my nParents were this whole time. They talked crap and made themselves victims to my nBrother and I. I found out. I also found out that my uncles with money offered to help my eDad and also told him that he is an ENABLER. My eDad was so offended, but they are afraid to talk to him because my nParents believe they “BEAT” everyone by getting married the “right way” LMAOOOOOO DELUSIONS!!!
No one even cares! nParents built their whole brand off of being such good kids and a good husband so my nMom parents can be proud of them, when the reality is, THEY ARE THE MOST DISAPPOINTED because of nParents ACTIONS.
Now I am leaving out the parts where eDad has charged at me 4 times in the last few months because I am pressing him on his character. I am making them question their “manhood” too apparently, so all I know is that I am more capable of actually caring for my nMom even after everything she put me through and continues to triangulate my nBrother and I because I do believe she enjoys the drama and hates me so much too.
Any way, that was exhausting and I left a lot of details out, but this is the summary of the frustration and pain that I have inside from these faux men that perform rather poorly and I am done keeping up. I am not a fan. I am finally at a point in life where I am okay with forgiving, but NEVER forgetting. I just hope my nMom recovers and she is able to survive. I do really love her so much in a deeply heartbreaking way. I wish she had a better go at this life than having to be in the pain that she’s in right now. No one deserves that. I guess I will never know if she really loves me and no daughter deserves that pain either. She apologizes when my eDad is not there, so he just thinks business as usual when putting me down in front of her and she just sits there, almost amused. Idk, I just wanted to get this off my chest and I just set a boundary with my e, NOW nDAD couple of days ago and I feel like I went through a break up.
My bf and I have been there since the beginning with my nMom diagnosis and nDad has text this to us too. We will and are continuing. My bf has been a huge contribution in this journey for my nDad specifically btw. I feel at some point my nDad will use him just to use as what nDad calls an “asset” in this fight against cancer. We are now keeping our distance due to recent events, but we are still not giving up and I am not going NC at least not yet. I will see how things play out and update when I do.
I hope all of you are well and taking the time to care for yourselves and not be too hard on yourselves, por favor!