So angry!

I haven't spoken to my mother for a good few years. I'm 30 and the second of 5. 3 now adult kids and 2 younger kids.

My mother was very abusive, even T was shocked by some of the things she has done to me.

She was recently diagnosed with a heart condition and has stopped talking to my older sister who is very much like her.

She brought my daughter a present for only the 2nd time in her nearly 8 years of being on the planet and apparently was teary eyed telling my sister in law (who only knows that our relationship has been difficult) that she wished she could spend Christmas with us.

I knew she would try and find someone to emotionally blackmail me.
Using my daughter is a low blow and I said she might to my T before she went on her holiday!

I'm so angry!!!

Just because the doctors found a heart (which I wasn't sure they could!), and she is struggling with her mortality doesn't mean she gets to try and manipulate and worm her way back into my life! I have a child now- who is autistic and therefore even more vulnerable child to protect. How DARE she!

I know she is going to use my younger siblings for more emotional blackmail as they also don't know what our mother did to me.

I am going to come off looking like the one in the wrong and I am the one who is going to lose the family I do have because they all close ranks.

Why couldn't she just leave us alone?

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You don't owe her anything. You are not obligated to jepordize yourself for how she feels. You see the signs, heed to them, and you should pull through. I'm sorry this has happened and I hope you do what is best for you and your daughter. Happy holidays. *hugs*

Please don't let her do this to you, for your sake and your daughters. I have felt this way about my mother for a long time. She's in good health but sees NO need to make any amends for her behavior...

I'm so sorry she has put you in this position. It's not fair is it? It sounds like she isn't going to change. Maybe let things take their natural course, and over time your siblings will develop their own opinions about your mother and see through her manipulations. All the best.

Thank you all.

No she won't change and she is not intending to make amends for her behaviour. I gave her a chance when my daughter was a baby, she blew it.
I'm not going to let her back in. But I can't stand the thought of losing my younger siblings and my nephews over her.

They can learn to form their own opinions but unless I tell them the facts they won't understand just how different she was/is with me to them.

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Wow, 5 children is a lot of children to nurture and take care of. The oldest tends to resent the second eldest child and can get bossy as the parent tends to ask that child to help with the others. The relationship of the mother and the eldest child is not typically a loving nurturing one and the eldest child can be expected to sometimes mother the mother too much and can also imprint being bossy and impatient. It sounds to me like your older sister doesn't want to be the one your mother once again leans on with her heart condition. As a result, your mother is reaching out to the second eldest, "you".

Now that you have turned your mother away, she will reach out to the next oldest child and yes, she will talk about how hurt she is because her two oldest children are letting her down. And the third eldest child "may" sympathize because typically the third eldest child looks to the two older children as the ones that are "supposed to" be more able to pick up the slack. And the third oldest "may" choose to revel in having a chance to scape goat the two older children, it depends on what is asked of her/him and if it will take away from what they are doing in their life.

It's important to take a step back from what is taking place for you on a personal level and consider the dynamics that typically take place with children in general and the pecking order and the mother's time spent with each child as well as each child having normal childhood nurturing. Most parents are very unaware of each child's burden when it comes to having a few children and how each one goes without and how that can affect their self esteem and emotional maturing. I have been experiencing some big challenges myself and that has been what I myself have been looking at because I have been challenged and hurt myself a lot lately. My dynamic is a bit different from yours as I am the youngest of three and my older sister always hated my older brother and tended to be bossy with me and basically used me to be her little audience where SHE had to be the one in control all the time and I could never be as good at or better then her in anything. I did not realize what I imprinted from that relationship where I grew to believe I was not really smart enough or good enough somehow or that I would be suddenly judged and reminded I was "less than" or if it was not important to her, then I did not have a right to have something important to me. That hit me in a huge way at a time in my life where that is the last thing I needed to feel. And what was even worse for me is how my older sister encouraged others to be angry at me when I really needed support and understanding.

Yes, your mother will now experience how her oldest child is going to let her down in her time of need, how even you may feel impositioned as you are describing and you are right in that she will be hurt and reach out to her other children looking for comfort and it's possible that none of her children will actually be receptive the way she needs them to be, she probably never taught any of her children to do that. Yes, it's possible your siblings may be angry with you because after all, aren't you supposed to know how to take care of "mom"? That is often assumed, because of them being younger and just thinking the older children are supposed to "know" what to do. I don't know how old your younger siblings are, but if you are expecting them to "know" how to react, they won't really know and instead may get angry and confused. So don't be so quick to think they are going to side with your mother and think badly of you because you are bad, truth is, they won't know what to do or think.

Ok but our family dynamics are off.

3 children first all 2 years apart -then 16 year gap- then 5 year gap -

I am the second, the only one who wasn't given my mothers maiden name, the only one physically abused and neglected. All that happened before the last 2 were born,

My mother always felt guilty with my older sister for not telling her who her real dad was, so even though I was the middle child I was the one who my mother turned to and unleashed on. The oldest two being girls, mummy's boy was born 3rd and got away with everything.

The oldest was disowned by the mother. I was disowned ages ago. My brother is too immature to help her. She is in a loveless relationship and white frankly made it that way herself.
Her first husband left her, her own mother went to 'find herself' on another continent, her sisters moved away.
That is what happens because my mother is toxic.

She made her bed with me and I might have gone back if it wasn't for the fact I have an autistic child to care for. I don't have the strength to carry my mother through while her dad moves away and she comes to terms with the physical issues she has.

She can't expect to treat people like crap their entire lives and then expect them to come running because she got some bad news

The youngest two are 13 and 9. No they won't know what to do and default is to stick to mum because they haven't a clue and they weren't born while my mother was beating me black and blue, locking me in the house, refusing to feed me.
It will be confusing for them, they will have no choice but to cut ties because they are too young to make their own decisions

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You can stop torturing yourself any time now! Lol Perhaps you can stop worrying about your younger siblings because they'll have to form their own opinions of your mother. If they don't see the dysfunction you are attempting to tell them about (if you do) you're credibility with them will suffer.

What is the dynamic between you 5 siblings? Is there enough understanding of the maternal dysfunction for you to bond as a team? That way your mother can't cut one out of the herd to abuse like she did to you? 5 of you protecting the sibling unit as a whole is a lot easier than each individual attempting to battle your mother.

Individually she can manipulate each personality like she's learned to do so well. The team concept works well because not only is there great strength to be drawn from it, each member knows what transpires and is being said by whom so your mother can't play the he said/she said game.

My mother was an extremely hateful narcissist. When my bipolar kicked in around 15yo and I stopped performing for her, she hated my guts for the next 45yrs. She was toxic to me and I walked away from her finally when I was about 35. I would only see/talk to her on her birthday for a few years, and I enjoyed the peace immensely.

As an only child, I guilted myself into moving back to grant her wish to die in her home. She was 93 and I had hoped she had mellowed...but no. She picked up right where she left off so many years before. Finally my wife jumped her azz and told her we could leave just as fast as we came in. She liked that Wifey stood up to her, but it never had worked for me through the years. If I was alone in the room with my mother, she would start in on me about tearing up my toys when I was 5, and was still at it 5 days before she died.

Call it karma, but she passed within 2mos of our arrival and peace was mine forever now. Don't allow your mother to pick your family apart! Here's sending you peace and strength.

We can't team up, to save their own skins my older sister and younger brother would blame me for things and watch me take the beatings.

My older sister is very much like our mother personality wise.
She has two young kids but spends her money on drugs and hates me because apparently I remind her of my dad, the man that brought her up but wasn't her dad. She causes just as many rifts as our mother.

My younger brother and I have an odd relationship. While I don't blame him for the abuse I suffered because he would save himself (I would happily take it for him again), he is too much of a mummy's boy. We have only been in contact for a year now because his fiancé said she was sick of the way our older sister created the split and then tried to control everyone.

The two minor siblings- no.
The 13 year old knows our mother isn't all there but she is her mum and she wouldn't know what to do if our mother disowned her, and I don't want to start our mother off on abusing her.

I don't have a relationship with the 9 year old. I didn't even know he existed until he was 2 I've met him a hand full
of times.

The rest of the family have moved away. Our grandad is the last one and he leaves in a week to go the other side of the country.

I'm not going to allow my mother back in my life, and it will eventually cost me my siblings- again

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She likes the power people are toys she plays with.
Don't get sucked into her games.
Even if she has a heart condition it does not change the abuse she metered out to you.
Look after yourself

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So sorry you have to live in a mess like this that you didn't deserve. Looks like its every person for themselves at this point. Keep in mind its ok to save yourself...and thrive.

I didn't meet my birth family until I was 39. My father and his two brothers had to scatter from an abusive father to survive. My father attempted to fight with the old man to protect his mother, and it got ugly...but all that stopped when my grandfather sobered up. Too late though...the damage was too deep.

After the grandfather passed away my father started in on his mother for not protecting them, and also for not protecting herself. Add some bipolar/social anxiety/personality disorders into the mix, and it was a real mess.

But once on their own, the boys settled into an ok life, and even the ones with a little untreated mental disorder did ok once removed from the family drama. Perhaps that can happen for you too.

Sounds like you know what you're doing as far as your mother goes. I'm concerned you might have some guilt years from now perhaps from thinking you could 'save' some of your siblings but didn't as you tried to save yourself. Check with a therapist or councilor of some type and run that by them to see if its the right way to go.

The idea a child should look after/care for a parent who did nothing for them makes me angry.
And the utter self absorbed selfishness of the abusive parent never ceases to amaze me.

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I was perfectly happy on my own without my family. But I missed my 13 year old sister. I hated not knowing my nephews (brothers sons). And I think my brothers fiancé got in touch so my dad and I could help my brother stay away from our older sister who was giving him drugs and trying to get him to leave his family because she didn't approve (my older sister is too much like our mother).

My dad really wanted contact with his son. I'm ok, but his son means the world to him. As my dad doesn't drive and it is nearly 2 hours away, I take him to my brothers house and we spend a few hours there. His fiancé phones me all the time for chats or advice with the family or just to vent about our family because I'm the only one who understands what she got herself into.

My brother could do with cutting ties for his sake and his families sake but he is only just starting to think independently and his choices haven't been great (drugs ect).

I will lose them rather than be involved with my mother again. It is just horrid that that has to happen

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My favorite coping mechanism these days is to raise my arms in the air and say 'whatever'. I've spent too much time over the decades worrying about things I have -0- control over. When I found my birth family, I was the first born and given up for adoption. Then I discovered I had a full brother & full sister & half sister. I saw the pictures of them all together and wondered if she ever thought about me...about 'ol what's his name...but what was I going to do about it? Drive myself insane? Whatever.

I talked on the phone with her for 10min...that's it. She had told no one about me. She pleaded with me to not tell 'her kids', and that pissed me off. Obviously this was getting nowhere, so I told her I'll give her two weeks to clean up her mess...then I was coming to town to meet my siblings. I knew at that moment that I would never speak to my mother again, and didn't. Out of my hands. Whatever.

I had fantasies of a big holiday dinner with all these newfound blood relatives...but after spending time with them and hearing the stories of mental illnesses and dysfunction I had to realize that was never gonna fecking happen. Whatever.

After my diagnosis and treatment of meds I had terrible guilt and regret over missed opportunities handed to me...$100s of thousands squandered...careers blown...relationships destroyed...all of it. My therapist saved my azz. She said when that blackbird lands on your shoulder...knock the son of a bitc off! And I was free! Free to raise my arms and say: Whatever.

If I had my way I would be able to get my brother to think for himself and to see the damage our older sister is doing to his new family- he has responsibilities now as a husband to be and as a father to 2 young kids. He can't be doing drugs with our older sister and putting that in jeopardy. He was pissed that our dad walked out on our mum, but if his fiancé leaves him due to drugs then he became the absent parent by his decision making and when he realises the loss I think it might just kill him. He will go majorly into drugs and lose his job and have nothing.

Despite everything I want to protect him.

I know I'm not going to be able to help my much younger siblings. They are stuck there and I will have to wait until they are older.

The 13 year old I bottle fed when she was first born. I did a lot of the night feeds, changed her, comforted her when she cried. I put myself in danger to stay part of her life. I was there for her first steps ect.

I am a mum to my own child now and I feel almost as connected to my sister as I do my daughter.

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