TRIGGER WARNING: CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND ABUSE
(Note: my family consists of me, 2 biological sisters, 1 step sister, 1 step brother, my mom and her partner)
I have a situation. One that has been on my mind quite a lot recently. It is incredibly personal and has been happening for months. I have absolutely no idea where to go with this situation and it has been weighing on me ever since it started in August. I just need some people to tell me I am not being a complete asshole here. I have to go back quite a long time to give this story proper context and as such I expect this diary to be relative long. I also expect it to be quite personal.
In 2017, I went to a technical training in Arizona when I was working for a plasma center in town in their plasma processing lab. I was fairly competent at the job, and my bosses knew I had some technical prowess, so they invested the money to send me through machine school. These machines are highly complex, involve many moving parts, and requires quite a bit of manual dexterity and knowledge of electronic components. I was quite proud, this being my first business trip. I had a hell of a time there. The dude I went with drank himself stupid on the second night and spend the last day very very sick. I went to dinner with the group on the first night and really felt included in a group for the first time in a long time. Plus I learned about a very cool machine. I felt like I was riding high.
Getting off the flight from Phoenix back to PDX, I texted my mom just to make sure she knew I was back home. My mom and her partner said to text them right as soon as I got off the flight. I texted her with a generic “hey we landed” type text and minutes later I get a call — my mom. I assume she just wants to talk about the trip and answered. “Hey, ma...just got off the plane! It was so awesome!” I remember telling her right as she said hello. She asked “who is this?” which I found very strange. My mom and I talked quite a bit back then and I am sure she knows my voice on the telephone. “Your son?” I say, thinking she is joking or something. “Ohhh. Hey” she says, “I meant to ask you...did you mess with my healthcare?”
Her voice sounded different, she sounded frantic and filled with anxiety. “No mom I didn’t why do you ask?” I said, extremely curious about her sudden suspicion of me. ”Because...I just don’t trust you.”
“Mom, what are you talking about? I don’t even know who you have healthcare through, how could I have messed with anything?” I ask her.
“I dunno, you’re my son. You could have said something! You could have done something!” She shouted into the phone
“Mom, what is going on?”
Then the line went dead. I called her several times from the airport and once or twice from my coworkers car but she didn’t pick up. I called her partner, and she filled me in. She had been on edge and grouchy for about a month and was changing her medication. I knew she had been working on childhood trauma and her PTSD for a while, so this didn’t surprise me, but the change in her behavior did. Her partner said she had been staying up all hours of the night online, researching various things. She also said she was acting paranoid and scared, said she was coming up with conspiracy theories, one of which involved the newly sworn in President Trump. Her partner continued that she spiraled from there. She had an appointment with her psych coming up, she said she would tell my mom’s doctor about all of this. I was certainly shaken, but I knew my mom’s mental health hadn’t been great throughout her life, due to abuse and trauma by her family.
So I told my mom’s partner to keep me informed, but I was tired from the flight and needed some sleep. She said alright and we hung up.
Over the next couple of weeks my mom’s mental health would take nose dive after nose dive. She would run out into traffic, wander the streets day and night, stay in hotel lobbies and out in the elements. She had several interactions with law enforcement, three of which lead to an arrest. She tried to hang herself at my mom and her partner’s work (they worked at the same place). As days turned into weeks, her partner began to shut down. Her calls began to decrease to a point where I was hearing things second hand. And then, my mom attempted suicide again, this time more serious. We held a family meeting at my sisters house and we had all agreed that if she got violent to herself/others we would try to get a directors hold (ORs version of 5150/Baker Act) on her. She eventually spent weeks in the psychiatric medical center being stabilized.
This incident blew my family apart, which I felt like was my fault. My brother was pissed at me during one of the suicide attempts because I left the hospital early, saying I couldn’t handle it. He hasn’t talked to me since. My youngest sister (a pathological liar) said that the mental health court would subpoena me if I couldn’t make it to the hearing due to work, which was a blatant lie because I didn’t have first hand knowledge of my moms behavior as I had never seen it for myself. I haven’t talked to her because her lying made that situation 100 times worse. We all stopped talking to each other, stopped going to holidays together and eventually it had been years since we had all gotten together in a room, mostly because of me. My brother I had already had trust issues with, and my youngest sister spent years lying about me to get me into trouble. Ditching my most of my family was not a hard choice but I have to give a little context as to why.
My childhood was not a good one. I was exposed to far too many adult situations at a very young age. It took my a long time to realize that a lot of what I experience was abuse. I never thought that way because the only basis for comparison I had for the longest time was my mom’s childhood, which was awful. Remember that movie “Precious”? Her childhood was the white people Mormon version of that. I wont get into that because that’s my mom’s story to tell. But her father, mother and later step mother were extremely abusive in all ways to her. From a very young age my mom told me these stories, promising to give me a better life than she had. And she did, my childhood was nothing compared to her. As far as she’s concerned, she broke the cycle of abuse. I think, though, my mom experienced things differently than I did.
In 1994, my mom split with my dad and got with her partner. My dad was a drunk, gave himself ulcers, never worked, and even had to be taken by ambulance one time when he got alcohol poisoning. That might’ve been the last straw for my mom. Anyway, it was a nasty, contentious divorce and my mom did not hold back when talking about my dad. Deadbeat this, lazy that. Ingrate, asshole, owes child support, cant put down the bottle. That sort of thing. You ask her now (well, when she is fully medicated and in her right mind), and she’ll deny it up and down. “Oh I never fought your dad in front of you kids” “we were friends, we never screamed at each other” etc. But even though this happened when I was 6-7 I remember it clearly. Her cussing my dad out on the phone on a bi monthly basis, my moms partner pushing my dad and her wife out of the door after calling my mom a bunch of homophobic slurs, constantly down talking my dad to us.
One time when I was eight I asked my mom if I could live with him in Vancouver WA and the answer was obviously no. I remember screaming and crying, throwing an absolute fit demanding to go live with him. After about two straight hours of this my mom called my dad and basically told him to come get his son. She told me to pack my shit, and as I was doing so, my mother said something that would shape my negative self image for years to come “You are a devil child”. I dunno why that shook me so bad, I don’t think it was the words. It was the look on her face, pure anger. Rage, basically.
The agreement with my dad was that I would live with him on a trial basis, for 30 days over the rest of the summer. I packed my things, and my dad and his wife whisked me away. About two or so weeks after that, my sister (who was a toddler) had her regular visitation with my dad. Another two weeks pass, then another two. My dad is struggling to support both his wife’s kids and his own. He spends a lot of money on alcohol, leaving almost nothing to eat. Makes me babysit my sister who is about 3 while he goes to the bingo parlor (like friggin bingo, really?). Eventually, he gets fired from his job for showing up to work drunk. Brainwashes me and my sister into making allegations against not only mom and my now step-mom, but my step-sister as well. It put them through hell, and I have carried that burden ever since. My mom got a judge to subpoena my dad and bring us to family court or else he would face charges. Eventually, my mom got back custody and that was that. For the next couple of years it was status quo, my dad calling my mom asking if he could finally see us, her saying fuck no etc. Eventually he dropped out of my life completely. He came back and forth into my life until age 19, including a period at age 13 and 18 where I lived with him once again. Every time I did, he would choose the bottle over me, my mom would take endless pleasure in pointing this out, until eventually I just figured he would never give up the bottle.
At age 13 I had a serious disease (Necrotizing Fasciitis) and almost died. I spent 4 days in the hospital receiving antibiotics with an IV. My doc said I could have easily died. The hospital bill was astronomical. At the time, my mom worked with people living with intellectual disabilities at a not-for-profit. The job did not pay well nor did it offer her health insurance. This was in a time before Oregon had mandatory health insurance for all children. Essentially I saddled my mom with a hospital bill somewhere north of 13k. For two years, every day straight, my mom and her partner would run a looong paper route. Starting at two in the morning with rubber banding and wrapping papers, and ending at around 6:30 am after all had been delivered. This job had no weekends off or vacation time. If you wanted a day off you had to have a replacement do your route. Since it was my medical bill that had gotten them into this, everyday weekend day and everyday in the summer my brother and I (who got into a scrap and got punched in the nose, breaking it and causing even more bills) would bust our asses off running this route with them. Two years worth of summers and weekends totally gone, because of hospital bills.
This was where my mom’s toxic ideas of masculinity really shined. My mom has this idea that a man is someone who provides, who never complains, who suffers silently. Men should smell good, be clean shaven and have short hair. To her men shouldn’t have feelings, they shouldn’t have problems or issues, physically or mentally. I was a pudgy out of shape nerd, and my mom constantly pointed this out on the route. Its ironic, given my family’s make up that my mom would cling so steadfastly to gender norms like this, and, again, it effected my self image to this day. I remember one night my brother and I were going to take the route from my mom and my step mom so they could get some sleep. For whatever reason, my alarm clock did not go off and I overslept. My mom, realizing what happened, woke me up, told me to get dressed while berating me, then slammed me up against the fridge when I told her to stop. She leaned in real close and called me “little boy" which I felt was especially mean. She had done this a number of times in my life until at age 17 I pushed her back and told her to never touch me like that again. Unfortunately, at this point, I was sort of a doormat.
My mom’s ideas of masculinity didn’t just extend to jobs and physical labor, it was also mental health too. Throughout my childhood, and even today, I have terrible anxiety and phobias. All my life I have been scared of vomiting so much so it sends me into panic attacks, I have also have severe social phobia and since a young age. My mom, really my entire family (besides my two biological sisters who were too young to understand) would mock and make fun of me for this. My mom was the worst though. One time she threatened to put ipecac in my food as punishment. I spent the next several months eating as little as possible. One time when I was having a panic attack and asked to go to the hospital, she berated me in the car so much I asked her to turn around even though I still felt as if I should go. Sometimes I felt like they would intentionally trigger panic attacks. For instance, they knew I had a fear that we would be poor, what with the medical bill shit. So they would sit and talk loudly about declaring bankruptcy and having to move etc as a way to get me to not be scared of it. Pretty much backfired. They would make gagging and vomiting noises in front of me until I was in tears. Im sure I have forgotten many more instances of this.
At age 17 I showed some interest in the Air Force. I brought home a flyer, and my mom became absolutely gung-ho about the idea. My family has a long history with the military. My mom, my dad, my grandpas on both sides, all of my uncles on my moms side have all served. I must admit, I liked the idea for a while. A purpose, a sense of direction. Seemed awesome to me at the time. First term of senior year came and went. My parents put me on a diet, I was biking to their work and back. I lost quite a bit of weight. Then someone I had a HUGE crush on started paying more attention to me. This culminated in her bringing me a rose when I was in the chorus of a play, kissing me on the cheek and asking me out. I was all for it. Before the date, I told my mom I did not want to go to the air force any more, I wanted to stay in my high school, not graduate early go to prom and graduation. Maybe experience a romance. The answer was nope all the way through. She accused me of being lazy, that she was afraid I’d be in her “basement” for the rest of my life. She was scared I was a failure to launch case because I liked video games and not sports basically. She gave me an ultimatum — join up or get out. I joined up. Eventually I was given an administrative discharge for misconduct (I was so depressed I couldn’t clean my room, stopped taking showers etc).
My childhood wasn’t all bad, I don’t wanna just sit here and cry about things that happened to me 30 years ago, but it shapes my decisions today. All of it does.
Back to 2017, my mom was still having severe mental health issues. My step mom called me sounding very desperate. My moms behavior was so poor that their roommates moved out, making them unable to pay the mortgage. She asked me if my wife and I could move in, maybe help with rent. I said no, coldly. “What, WHY? She’s your mom!”
“Because she and by proxy you have never lifted a finger for me. You shoved me into the air force, wouldn’t cosign for a student loan even though FAFSA considers parents income until age 24. Hell, I could only live at my moms for two weeks when I was down on my luck at 21, then it was straight out. You couldn’t afford another mouth to feed! Remember? I went to the air force where she forced me. I have been on my own since 17. No I wont move in with you”
“Fine, can I be on your phone plan”
“No.”
Then she hung up on me.
After this I didn’t talk to my parents or my siblings for about three or so years. I didn’t want anything to do with them. My mom wasn’t herself and getting arrested, her partner is begging me for money. I just blocked them all. I felt like a total douche, but this was way too much and every time that phone rang it hurt me deeper and deeper.
Around 2020 or so my mom and I reconnected. At that point she had been two years or so medicated. She was very apologetic about her behavior. She didn’t want to lose me. After that, we started talking again. Eventually I was also talking to my step-mom. We talked a lot about what happened to my mom during this period. They could never get their story straight. First it was a reaction to Wellbutrin, then it was a case of cPTSD that lead to psychosis, then it was just a mental break. So many different stories about what was actually wrong with my mom. I didn’t really care, I was just happy to see them again. I was happy she was healthy again.
From 2020 to September of this year we had established a nice status quo. My mom would take me out to lunch every couple months, we would talk via text, even go down to their house to spend a night or two. During this time, a lot of memories came back. I remember replying to facebook that asked about an extreme punishment that you got during childhood. I mentioned the time at around 7 when my parents trashed me and my brothers room, then took my sisters out for McDonalds. I got so many comments that that was abuse. Lots of memories popped up like that, but I only ever posted that one. I knew I had to re-examine my whole childhood.
I asked her about a lot of stuff during this time. We hashed out a lot of things. I forgave her about a lot of things. I was happy with my family for the first time in a very long time. And this lasted 4 amazing years, until September 2024.
I knew something was off a month before, in August. My wife and I had just moved at the beginning of that month, so I texted my mom and asked if she wanted my address, and she was like “No, dude, I don’t need your address”, this was strange, because we had a lunch planned for next month, and we always started at my house then went out to eat. I shrugged it off and awaited our lunch on the 22nd.
On September 15th, mom called. Said that dad had died. I hadn’t even thought about him in years, and I pretty much hated him. I told her I didn’t care, and she suggested that I reconnect with my other younger sister, the one that had been “kidnapped” with me all those years ago. Her and I had just sort of drifted apart over the years and hadn’t talked in a very long time. I thought it might be time for me to text her, even if I didn’t care for my Dad I know she did. So I texted her and we talked. She said she named searched dad every once in a while, and one day in July she name searched him and found an obituary. She found my uncles phone number about a week later. She called him and confirmed that my dad was indeed dead and called my mom which started this chain of events. Fortunately, her and I picked up right where we left off and began texting each other nearly every day.
A week later was the appointed time for the lunch plans my mom and I had made. I waited, and waited and waited for her to text me and ask where my place was. At around 5pm I got worried and called her. No answer. I tried my step mom, no answer. Finally I called my step-sister and she filled me in. Since the 15th, my moms mental health had taken a severe nose dive. Come to find out she had gotten off of her medication, something I had never expected her to do. As soon as she dipped below clinical levels of her meds, she was right back to her previous delusional and frankly psychotic behavior. This time she making up conspiracy theories about big pharma and Phil Knight (she lives in Springfield, OR) being out to get her. She had stayed up for three days straight wandering around her town. Two days ago she took her car and disappeared for nearly a day. Basically the same exact shit that happened in 2017 just with new things to be paranoid and delusional about.
A few days later, my step-sister, my wife (who is a social worker and works with this EXACT population) and I planned an intervention. My mom was staying with my step sister and had convinced her husband to go to the vape store and buy her a new vape for whatever reason. My wife and I quickly went over to my step sisters house and waited for them to come back. We talked about the last time this happened, then my step sister dropped a bombshell but I didn’t absorb it until later. My mom wasn’t diagnosed with all the shit I had thought previously, she was diagnosed all that time ago with schizoaffective disorder with bipolar features. That’s what she was getting medication and had services for. It was only later that I realized how serious it was that my parents withheld this from me. Schizoaffective disorder is genetic — people with close relatives who have schizoaffective disorder have an increased chance to have the disorder (30%).
My step sister had also mentioned not telling my other sister who I was so close with and had just started talking to again. Her reasoning was that she suspected my sister was an alcoholic and depressed so she “just couldn’t handle it”, I agreed without thinking and moved on.
My mom came back. She was pacing and sweating and smelled as if she hadn’t showered in a week. She finally sat down on the bench in front of us and we started talking. I asked her how she was, and she was already on the verge of tears about something. We made small talk until I casually mentioned her mental health and she said “here we go”. Her whole demeanor changed, and she became aggressive. Started shouting at my wife an I. At this point, I was so sad and so enraged I just told her to get back on medication. She implied that she knew I was going to say that, fitting me into her little big pharma delusions pretty nicely. She began ranting and raving about meds and her past and I cut her off and walked to the door. “Mom, just go home and take your meds. Your team is in Springfield, your home is in Springfield, your wife is in Springfield. What are you even doing here?” Then she shot me this look and it put me right back at 8 years old. That was the only other time she had ever shown me that face. It shook me to my very core. All of a sudden I was once again the devil child. I remember walking to the door and my mom started saying pretty emasculating things about me and I cut her off once again saying “Fuck this. I’m gone” Before I had a chance to go through the door my wife called after me and said “I need to say something, I’ll be right behind you”. With that, I left my sisters house and sat in the car, head in my hands.
After about ten minutes she came back to the car, and I asked her what happened. She said “you don’t want to know”. I told her that whatever she said I supported and loved her, and that she has stood by and watched this for 17 years and she had every right to say negative things. She said she had recommended she go back to her home and take her meds. She mentioned that she works with people like my mom all the time. She said that my mom snapped back with a “I KNEW you were going to bring that up” At that point she said she couldn’t contain herself. “You know what, I have sat here and watch (rexy) suffer for a very long time. He has done nothing to you but love you, and you give him absolutely nothing in return. I suggest next time treating your son with a little more dignity. You could try being a mom and not a cold hearted bitch”
I told her that was fine.
For a long time after that, we didn’t hear anything. I had blocked my mom and step mom in my phone and hoped to not get updates. I receded into myself, I have to admit. I have mental health issues of my own, I felt like turtling through this, just like last time. So I blocked everyone excluding my sister who I had just reconnected with.
During the days that followed I got angrier and angrier at what I heard and saw. And I also had a terrible moral dilemma on my hands.
Lets start with the anger first: How could my mom withhold information about her health that had implications for my health for so long? I get not wanting to tell your kids everything, but the BARE MINIMUM would be nice, especially when I have an elevated chance of being like this. I was especially angry because I have had a break not too much unlike hers and she knew about it and still lied to me. I am angry that she didn’t tell me because I’m her son and I deserve the truth. I don’t care if you disagree with your diagnosis, I don’t care what her shit woo-woo self-help books say, in fact I don’t even care if she believes the diagnosis or not, I had a right to know. Especially given my own mental health.
And now the moral dilemma: My step sister and asked that I withhold this information from the sister I had been reconnecting with and I agreed. But if I had every right to know, so does she. Regardless of how much it’ll hurt her, not telling her about mom’s recent mental break was just a bridge too far. I am not going to start our newly found siblingship off with a lie. A lie by omission, but still a lie. But I told my step sister that I would keep it quiet, and she even made the point that my other sister might blame herself, since she was the one that told my mom about my dad and everyone suspects thats what kicked her recent break off. So I had to weigh my sister’s right to know with the possibility that the information and more importantly the guilt would crush her. I chose to tell her. I had to have faith that she could get through it, because it was information she deserved to know.
I called her about a day later and told her. About everything. Moms new symptoms, her getting off meds, her diagnosis (I didn’t know what mom had told her about that), the genetic implications of said diagnosis, the fact that everyone wanted to keep it from her, the fact that I had agreed to it. Everything. She was absolutely devastated that people in my family would keep that from her. She decided to play stupid with my step sister to find out more. My sister had a weekly call with our mom, and she had already missed one. In a few days it would be two. She would ask my step sister about this and not mention me. A few days later she called our step-sister and she spilled the beans.
Throughout this time I am hearing stories about my mom staying in hotels, once again wandering all day and night, buy train tickets to places. She was truly sick. I heard that my family had tried to get a hold on her, but I guess there wasn’t enough evidence so they turned her loose. She still refuses any medication and she has been discharged from her mental health program because she no longer attends appointments. Just really bad stuff.
A month passes and neither I nor my sister heard anything of note. Then, one day, my step sister adds everyone in my family to a group chat, including my brother who I haven’t talked to in years and feel physically unsafe around. The sister who I have been reconnecting with said in the group chat that she lives very far away, theres nothing she can do for mom at this point and that she’d prefer not to get minute by minute updates through the group chat because she is absolutely powerless. She said she was already struggling with my fathers death and that this was too much. She let me preview the message and I said she was just asking for boundaries. She sent it, and they absolutely dog piled her. Started with my asshole brother saying that if she couldn’t handle it she could just get the fuck out of chat and that she was barely a member of the family anyway. I saw this and immediately left. My sister told me later that my step sister called her later. During that call she mocked her, called her an alcoholic then hung up on her. My sisters husband called my step mom to find out what all that was about, and then she laid into him and my sister. All over asking for simple boundaries.
And now, after a very long story we come to the last event in this unfortunate chain. About two weeks after the group chat that killed my sister emotionally, my step sister all of a sudden texts my wife (remember, I have her blocked). My wife shows me the message and it simply says “How much support is (rexy) willing to provide? She needs a place to stay”. My wife asked me if I wanted to respond and I said I don’t anything to say. My wife volunteered to respond saying “Hon, it killed you last time to say no, this time let me handle things. After all, I pay the bills, technically this is MY house anyway.”
She sent my step sister two messages. The first read “Frankly, none.” and the second expanded on that idea. “All throughout (rexy)’s life she and your mom have done nothing for him. They sent him into the Air Force, made him feel bad about himself for years, treated him like the butt of every joke. And now you don’t even ask me, you ask HIM how much support he can provide. You know the answer is none. By the way this is my house and even if he was a “yeah lets let her stay here”, I would be an absolutely not. Maybe she can ask (my brother) to stay with him, given that she did his laundry till the age of 28” and my step sister sent a simple “understood”
And thats that. The situation that has been haunting me for months. Add in the election, me worrying about whether or not my mom will continue to have medicaid has been pretty much keeping me awake at night. I feel like such a failure, honestly. I feel like this: what son wouldn’t help their mother in this situation? What kind of monster does this make me? I don't want to talk about this to my wife because she sells her emotional energy for a wage, and I don’t ever want to be a drain on that. I feel like my job is to lift her up, not burden her with all this bullshit. And honestly, I don’t really have friends, and even if I did this story is way too long to just casually tell someone. So, I have settled on typing this out and publishing it here. For emotional support, for reassurance that we are not making a terrible mistake by not taking her in. Something like that. So, I have spent the last 3 hours writing this whole situation down. I know that no one on this site is my absolver but I really need to tell someone about this, anyone. This situation is poking at me. Maybe someone here will have some advice or something that will make me feel better about all this, not that its anyone's responsibility to do.
If you got through this entire thing, congrats. And sincerest apologies for the trauma dump.