Always the last to be picked

[SansaStark90]

I don’t know if I’m feeling really sensitive or right to feel valid. I’ve been feeling very low on myself. Very. My family know this. I mentioned in passing to my mum I’d like a little tattoo to cover a scar. She said oh lovely idea. Then we had Sunday lunch with my brother who declared he was having a large tattoo on his arm. She said he’d look awful, begged him not to. I said well you didn’t mind when I said I wanted one. Bearing in mind me and my brother are in our 30’s. She said yeah, but he’s good looking. Meaning he’d spoil himself but must mean no chance of me spoiling myself. I went over this comment for now over three months.

Jump to Wednesday last week. A family member messaged my brother on social media. I’m not on it. Asking if he and I would like to come to see another family member perform at a large venue. Now everyone in my family know how down I am to the point of being suicidal and really struggling. So you’d think I’d be treated a little more gently. She said in the message which was forwarded to me, if my brother couldn’t make it. I should come along and join them. This event was in the next city. Having not been on any form of a night out other than meals I became excited and told him to message her id love to and for to text me the details. In the meantime, I ordered an outfit for next day delivery, booked my nails and lashes in and makeup for the Saturday the day of the event. Presuming as she’d asked and she was driving there, I’d be getting a lift.

So she text me. Tickets are available online. Brother has said he can’t make it due to working….i would have offered a lift but we have a car full (I had no idea and still think this was a lie as when I’ve heard of them going to these events, no mention of others attending.)

For one, heading there on my own where the nearest car park is a fifteen minute walk so I’d be walking to my car late at night in an unfamiliar city. And two, I just felt like she wanted my brother there. But not me. I felt small. Inferior. And unwanted. I’ve been very emotional about the whole thing since.

I’ve always believed if someone says something. It must make it true. Or why would they say it.

I went to therapy and couldn’t bare the realities of all what has happened in my life. As saying it. Would make it true.

That's awful.

I had the reverse - my mother never said she was proud of me until I got a Phd scholarship at a top ranked university (not the Phd acceptance stage, just the scholarship).

Honestly, I think your head is in a bad place and it won't help you to focus on the minutiae of how other people treat you and read the tealeaves as to whether they like you or not. Are you seeing your GP for your mental health? Taking medication? Getting talk therapy? Doing any self-help?

AIBU isn't the place to share vulnerability, @SansaStark90. Perhaps post again in the mental health section? There's also an ongoing thread for families where there's golden child/scape goat dynamics, in case that feels relevant:

But you say this is a cousin you ‘rarely see’. If you don’t know one another well and are only in sporadic contact, have no particular sense she’s fond of you, and you’ve barely gone to any family events for some time, I don’t see why you think you’d be top of her social list, or why she’d somehow know you would be nervous about going or needed a lift. Also, if this is in the same ‘next city’ where you dropped his/her mother three times a week, wouldn’t the cousin assume your happy to drive there?

Oh, it’s just my mother. She has an ingrained horror of looking as if she’s ’showing off’, and fails to grasp her adult children are separate people.

You have a thicker skin than me. I think putting you at the bottom of a pile of three, when let’s face it, looks play a large part in life, would have made me feel utterly shit. It’s hard to not focus on negatives when they repeatedly occur.

I have some resentment towards my brother. But ok the whole love and have gone above and beyond in supporting him. His antics would make for a great daily mail article.

With the lift... I think people often would not realise what your obstacles are. I would assume and adult person would be able to drive (if they have a license) and walk 15 minutes in a city in their country. If it was an unfamiliar country where you dont speak a language it would be different. If the cousin does not know you all that well and unlike most of the family you are not on social media where they often chat, there is no way of knowing how you internally feel about driving and a walk.

Is a cab an option? Either to the venue from yours or at least from the venue to the car park?

People say things for all kinds of their own reasons, not because it's objectively true. People aren't oracles of truth. Sometimes they say things deliberately to hurt, sometimes they have their own agenda.

Therapy often makes things worse for a while. If you're not ready for it, that's OK, but the stuff you're not dealing with won't go away.

@SansaStark90
I’m going to try and write this in the best possible way.
When you are mentally unwell, it’s common to view things through grey tinted glasses. It sounds like you are doing a bit of this here.

There very well may be slight hostility from cousins regarding inheritance, but surely, depending on the amount left, you can appreciate why that would be. Your uncle left you money, presumably for the most part as nice gesture to you, but also as a dig to others, and you will obviously have to deal with the consequences of this action.

Try and think about how else your cousin could have done things regarding this event, if true that the one car was full?
She invited you and your brother? It wasn’t her fault that your brother couldn’t attend. Should she have invited your brother first and only then when he was available said why don’t you ask your sister? Presumably that would have felt more like an after thought?

I hope your post grad wasn’t in English. As upset as I am. I’d always know it’s “you are happy to drive there.”

You are clearly as cold as your mother as you’ve offered little sympathy to someone who has clearly been treated poorly by her family.

Here: www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5272966-february-2025-well-we-took-you-to-stately-homes

The second post has lots of information.

Opinion is not the same as fact. Someone's opinion of you is not fact, it's just a view expressed at a point in time for whatever reason.

There is any number of reasons why people say things that are hurtful, from lying, to get a hurt reaction, to keep people miserable, to having a distorted take on reality, to being misunderstood in their attempt at a joke, to being clumsy or unthoughtful with words, to just wanting to hear their own voice or to dominate through coercive control.

I feel for you and am sending you a virtual hug. Maybe see your doctor ?

This response, @SansaStark90, is not remotely justified by Imaginedcorners’ post, which came across as sensible and helpful. Seeing criticism where there is none and getting unpleasant in response will not help you at all.

If you post on AIBU you are likely to get much more critical replies that ImaginedCorner’s post.

My dm rang me once to complain that my db hadn’t got a wedding invite to a family wedding.
I pointed out that I didn’t have an invite either.
Dm replied ‘ yes, but nobody likes you.’

Out of my 4 siblings she’s always put me last.
I’ve had to let it go for my sanity.

Well if that's just a tad rude and a rather bizarre response to @ImaginedCorners! 😵‍💫

Typo.

And I’m pointing out that you’re focusing on negatives — on the lack of a lift rather than the fact that your cousin suggested you attend an event with them, and on being negatively compared to your brother rather than your uncle’s bequest to you.

Surely there’s another way of looking at this? Your uncle left you enough money to put yourself debt-free through university and buy a house, even after you’d split the money with your brother.That’s huge. I wouldn’t call that being ‘someone who has clearly been treated poorly by her family’?

There is a huge difference between a little tattoo to cover a scar, and a huge sleeve. Perhaps your mum isn't keen on tattoos at all but knows how down you are, so gave a positive response to be supportive.

And the night out, just arrange to travel in convoy, park together and return to the cars together. Perhaps one of the others will prefer to travel with you, to avoid being so cramped.

OP I don’t doubt that you have had a very hard time especially with your mum’s mental health problems growing up. But you simultaneously don’t want to examine what’s happened in therapy and want other people to sympathise and make allowances. I hope you will try again with another therapist. You deserve to feel better than this and it can happen.

Not a good reaction to someone who is making perfectly reasonable comments.

Well yes @ImaginedCorners (apologies for the double tag!) But if as in pp if op has constant grey tinted glasses on, or a constant 'everyone is jealous of/against me' they'll always have that 'I'm treated so poorly!' belief.

This. I'm not surprised that your cousins are upset. That's an enormous amount of money. Did you pass anything on to the cousins or keep all of it for yourself and your brother ? I'm surprised they speak to you at all.

Sorry. But I guess I’m looking for kindness. Validation. That I’m not sensitive and I have been treated poorly. My mum spent my entire childhood up until I was 18 severely mentally unwell.

I think me mentioning I have been struggling mentally makes people immediately assume I always see the negative. If it rained every day for a year. Would you expect the next day to be sunny?

One man treated me with kindness and care, my uncle. My own mother having the nerve to critique me when she was an unfit mother, yes, is a hard pill to swallow. It’s a miracle I turned upto school and got good grades. I once had to turn up to an exam after she had taken an overdose not knowing if she was alive or dead. When I saw a therapist, they said the abuse I had suffered was one of the worst they’d heard. I couldn’t face that.

Could you not area re to meet and return to the car park together?

If they’ve got a full car, then they can’t accommodate you.

honestly, I don’t think inviting someone to an event means taking them in the car etc.

Clearly you've been through a lot. Everything you write now has a negative outlook, which suggests not only that you find life hard, but also that you may be tricky for others to spend time with. It looks very much like depression, and I think you really need to get some therapy to help with strategies for how to improve your outlook. Once you have a positive mindset, it will be easier for you to consider if there are underlying issues with your mother meaning you shouldn't see her any more.