Would love some feedback on this..not sure if it makes sense! Sorry so long..
As far back as I can remember I have always had a feeling of being adopted, not sure why this was a feeling I had growing up as part of 3 girls, maybe due to middle child syndrome, I wasn?t the revered eldest or the baby? When I was 11 my brother was born and 2 yrs after my youngest sister was born. From early on I remember my mother only really as being an absent figure, more often than not she was out in the evenings and working during the day. At weekends I remember park trips with dad only. It came to light years later that my mum was having an affair with a priest friend of the family.I remember there were a few day trips to Enniskerry with himself and mum, I felt bad about it afterwards. I'm convinced there may have been other affairs too.
My overriding memory of my childhood is parents fighting, I remember being huddled under my duvet and wishing they would stop. I still get churning in my stomach when I hear fighting to this day, I do everything I can to avoid conflict, perhaps to the extent that I get walked on.
I am and was as a child quite sensitive and anxious. This has probably led to my anxiety disorder in later years, I am not quite sure how to resolve this as it seems to be part of my personality. Even now at family events its easy to see how the atmosphere changes depending on her mood. If shes in a good mood its fine, if shes in narky mood, everyone is affected.
I went to live in London during college holidays in my late teens to get away from the atmosphere in the house. Over there it was hard as the boyfriend I had followed there had no interest in me when I got there. I ended up living alone in an dodgy flat in the east London area. I spent many nights very alone but it was too late to go home and anyway I didn?t know which was worse. At the end of the summer, I returned home to find my mother had moved into my bedroom at home, no warning no nothing. All my stuff had been moved into my sisters room and I was expected to share with her on a pull out camp bed. I was so so so angry. That was such a betrayal not to even tell me before I got back. I moved out straight away to a shared house with other students. I cant remember how often I went home, not that often as far as I can recall. At the time the atmosphere in the house must have been bad, I just wanted to get away and out of there.
The next big let down from her I found out years later but I kind of knew it at the time. She would arrange for me to have interviews up north for a college there (continuation of my course), through the educational place she worked in. The guy who was sorting this all out was the guy she was having the affair with. Again I felt uncomfortable meeting him as in my gut I knew there was something going on. I was sharing a house with 2 other male students, there was nobody to confide in, that was a very low point in my life, I had a boyfriend who had two timed me and I was shattered by that. I don?t think my mother visited many times when I was in college over the next 4 yrs, I met her once up there. Apart from that there was very little communication. Weekends I would spend with my next BF family, by now I had met my husband to be on the same course as me and was very happy (still am!) however there was a glitch in the beginning when we met where he also asked me to leave?think I was smothering him too much.
When I was 30 my parents separated, I was torn between not wanting this to happen and also wishing they had done it years ago to save us all listening to that fighting and banging doors for years. Even when my mother was in a good mood there was a underlying tension in case her mood swung the other way, this is probably still true to this day, I am afraid to upset her for the most part although I have yelled at her about her behaviour a couple of times. We don?t get on and never have really, I don?t remember any affection from her at a young age, I remember a few times in my teens getting hugs but few and far between. At the time she separated, she spoke to us each in turn and the thing I remember her saying was that we were very alike, I was so disgusted I didn?t want to be anything like her at all. Perhaps this was the key to why we never got on that we were too alike?
At the present time I don?t see her that much. She rarely visits me at home even though I work from home for the past 6 yrs.(she lives about 10 mins away by car with her current partner) My sis lives 5 mins away and she is always over there. My sis has younger kids than I do but I also think there is a bit of favoritism there in the fact my sis allows her partner into their house whereas he has never met mine. I have never visited her in her new house with her partner, not sure I ever will. I have always said it would confuse the kids as they see her in my fathers house too. My father misses her big time and she spends alternate weekends there (mainly to see visting kids and grandkids im guessing) Shes in and out of there with his blessing, asking him to clean up tidy etc as if its still her house. She wants to have her cake and eat it. In her own way she thinks she cares for us all.
I have seen evidence that she doesn?t treat us equally. Another big let down from her was the time my Dh was away and I had a reaction to an antibiotic, felt ill and dizzy and so bad that I wanted to ring out a doc on call. I asked her to stay with me and she refused, then eventually she did but she kept wanting to call a taxi and go. I was so let down. The next time I had an emergency I called my sister, now she is LAST person on earth I would go to if I had an emergency or needed help..the very last person. She so let me down, I was in the house and afraid as there was nobody to+ look after the kids. I don?t k now how to finish this except to say in a weird way I love her but I don?t really LIKE her at all. I would never be able to have her in the house for more than a day or so as we grate on each other. She definitely has some narcissistic tendencies as does my older sister. I see the same haughty controlling selfish behaviour there. At this stage I have to accept that she isn?t going to treat me like the others, she is not going to pick up the phone and ask me to go anywhere with her. I think I miss her and then when I see her I realise I DON?T and I want to get away from her. I have had thoughts that I wont miss her when shes gone but maybe Im deluding myself.