The very short version of this story is that I lived in a blended family with my step-mother, step-sister and father and siblings from the age of 8. It was not great - I was the oldest and the scapegoat for everything which was wrong and I don't have many happy memories from then until I left home.
Since then I have had therapy and my father has died. I've got on OK with my stepmother and stayed in contact because she has been a good grandmother to my own children.
But I'm now finding it difficult. My oldest child is now a teenager, and this reminds me of when I was the same age and, frankly, was not cared for very well at all (that I was not raped or attacked given how much I wandered around on my own late at night is nothing short of a miracle, and no one was interested in me whatsoever).
However my step-mother - who has been rewriting history anyway for the last twenty years - has Alzheimers, so no conversation is possible.
It's all complicated by the fact that I know that when she dies most of the money will go to my stepsister.
I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I find it incredibly hard to pick up the phone or visit, but I know I should. How do I get round this? Should I?