First time poster so please go easy on me. Feeling very lost with my life and just generally looking for some impartial feedback as friends and family are too involved to give constructive advice.
A little background -
I'm in my late 20s. Single with no kids of my own. Recently finished a degree after working for years in the public sector. Currently a full time carer for one of my mum's parents after a temporary contract ended.
My childhood wasn't great but it could have been much worse. My parents divorced when I was a toddler and I grew up not knowing my dad even though he has always lived a few streets away (remarried with no other kids). I have tried several times to develop a relationship with him but can't seem to forgive him and when I recently told him how hurt I was that he decided not to be in my life (his words), he has decided that he is very hurt and doesn't want to see me.
Mum remarried when I was a toddler and she had my sister soon after. My step-dad used to smack me often (as did my mum but not as bad) and I'd regularly have purple hand marks on my legs. My sister would be smacked too but not as often. My step-dad would pack my school bag and drive me into the country and drop me off outside my grandparents house in the middle of the night saying he didn't want me in the house. I last remember this happening when I was about 12. My mum would often tell me she wished I hadn't been born and I was just like my dad (she still despises him so this wasn't a compliment). One evening my step dad even went to my real father's house and asked if he would take me as they had 'had enough of me'. This was when I'd moved up to high school and I was suffering with bad anxiety so I'd regularly come home crying. I remember them both trying to sit on me in the living room once to 'calm me down'. When I look back, I never felt loved by either of them.
Fast forward to my late teens and my mum's parents both fell ill. They had been more like my parents so it was quite natural for me to want to step in and help them both (mum is an only child). At the same time my mum started having an affair and my step-dad threw her and me out of the house. I later found out that my mum told my step-dad and my sister that I introduced her to this man when she actually met him through work. They didn't speak to me for several years and that side of the family has never been the same with me. Initially her new partner was very nice with me but I became uncomfortable when she became ill and he started making comments and gestures that I had been sleeping with him as she 'couldn't do it'.
I have spent the last ten years or so caring for my grandparents and also for my mum when she developed a serious health condition which she has now recovered from but we have lost my grandfather and my grandmother's health is very poor.
A few years ago my grandmother had an accident and was in hospital (this happened when I'd gone away with my then partner). I came back and because we brought his puppy with us, my mum and her partner didn't speak to me for months (I had checked it was ok with my grandmother who's house we stayed in to enable us to visit every day). He still doesn't talk to me because of this and my mum defends him saying 'well you shouldn't have brought that puppy to my mum's house'. They however have a very large dog which has been in my gran's house many times.
I have been seeing a counsellor but I am struggling to forgive certain family members and I'm starting to resent how I seem to be the one who is the scapegoat but also expected to be the responsible one. I feel my own life is slipping away and I'm being used by people who don't actually love me like I have loved them when they have needed support.
AIBU feeling hurt and angry?