Hello and welcome to PC!

Your post is very well-written. I can see the love and care you have for your mother, and how you don’t want to betray her with revealing her abusive behavior.

One thing you are not taking into consideration is that she is fueled by alcohol. She is not just acting out due to mental illness. She is drunk.

Is your step dad strong enough to tell her that her behavior is unacceptable and that she needs to stop drinking. Her drinking is causing these abusive rants. None of you should have to be subjected to it.

My mother goes off, but she does not drink. It is her natural reaction, and my late father and my step father both did nothing to discourage her behavior. No one told her it was unacceptable! She simply says that she’s a screamer and makes no apologies for it.

I went through my own thoughts about my whole situation, also my own issues that I took on as a result of my family history. At this point, I am amicably close enough to Mom, so as not to be estranged. But no where near as involved I had been, which fed a toxic dynamic. She won’t change, and she’s now elderly and sick. So, I appreciate the time we have left. I feel very similar as you do about her.

But, you have a factor that your whole family can come down on Mom about- her drinking. Heck, I’d even secretly video tape one of her drunken rants and show it to her. Maybe your family can gang up on her and tell her it is unacceptable.

But, mine never did.