a 28 year old female who suffers from severe anxiety/depression and i can remember being suicidal as early as 5 years old. My life is a complete mess and i cry everyday.
I have to REALLY summarize my life in order for you to understand why im posting on this site.
My mom and sister (33) have a really close relationship. My sister is calm, happy, anxiety and stress free. Youd never believe we were related. We grew up with my single mother who had just immigrated to canada when my father left her, she was alone in a foreign country with 2 kids. I GET her hardships. She has told me time and time again how hard her life was. She never got remarried, BUT i can NEVER forgive or forget the anger, physical and verbal abuse i suffered from her which she blames on the stress of her life. Coupled with her numerous attempts at suicide since the time i was 5 until about 3 years ago, all of which i saved her from. I lived my entire life filled with fear that my mom will kill herself and that i had to save her at any moment, this led to my own demise and for it i resent her. During all this, at any suicide attempt my sister would go hide in her room and leave me to save my mom. My sister recently acknowledged that if i wasnt around, my mom would be dead.
As a teenager, my family moved and my mom kept my sister at her old highschool while enrolling me into a new school. I was very upset and didnt understand why my sister got to keep her old school. At my new school i was bullied. My mom never asked how my days were, she was very angry back theb and not approachablee so i kept all my feelings to myself. In an effort to self preserve, i made friends with kids in my new building. I had a dog and would walk him and this made kids want to be around me. This helped the bullying stop as now i had friends. However my mom, who was very strict and she tells me now it was how she was brought up, hated me having friends in my building. I was only 13 so she didnt want me going outside to play. These were good kids but my mom was a little racist and also just strict so she banned me from going outside. There was no curfew, no communication, just i wasnt allowed outside. At this point her and my sister started traumatizing me. They took the locks off my door so i couldnt have privacy. Being a teenager i rebelled and went outside. My sister would come outside and take me back upstairs. Until this day i dont understand what i did wrong, but im trying to understand their point of view. Maybe they were worried about me? I know they thought we lived in a bad area and the kids were a bad influence, but until this day i keep in touch. They are all successful and were super good kids and friends. Anyway, the last straw... in order to stop me from having any freedom, my mom gave away my dog without telling me to whom and doing it while i was at school. I came home and was shocked, angry horrified. I loved my dog with all of my heart. She gave him away because she knew she couldnt stop me from going outside as long as the dog was around...i had to walk him.
I got so angry that i broke my mom's dishes and broke some stuff in my sisters room. I can still remember it not being blind rage. I remember i sat down, thought about how to get back at them and decided to break a few plates, nothing too expensive. But still if you came in the home it looked like a war zone. Anyways my family came home saw what i did and called the police. At 13 years old i was arrested. At 13 years old i was strip searched. My childhood ended then. I am sobbing now just thinking about it. Only years later does it hurt so much. At the time i didnt even really care. All it did was muster up anger.
I told myself that day for some reason that i would cut off all my friends and study really hard so that nobody could say i was bad. No police, no authority..that i would make something of myself and not live in fear of oppression by anyone.
So thats what i did. Except i put so much pressure on myself to succeed, i built so much anxiety. I told myself that success was the only goal in my life. I never talked to my mother or sister. I spent my next 10 years studying away in my room. I graduated university with highest mark in my entire program, but struggled in my last year crippling with anxiety but forcing myself to finish. I became a lawyer and just when i thought i achieved success, i couldnt do it anymore. Years of severe insomnia, severe pressure on myself, severe anxiety were too much. I tried to kill myself. I couldnt focus. I lost my job. Everything i worked so hard for. And now i sit here and all i can do is feel ANGER at my mom and sister. I have so much anger i cant even talk to anyone without getting angry. I cant hold a relationship without getting angry and going from 0 to 100 in seconds. I want to know, is it worth building a relationship with my mother to help me? At this point, i have to do whats necessary to help myself. I cant live another day in this misery.
This past year all my attempts at hurting myself, my mother was at my sisters house living with her in peace. She told me i stress her out too much that she too has depression and needs peace. It makes me think of ALL the times i damaged my own life to save hers and now when i need her to save mine, shes not here. Granted to be truthful, shes not here because anytime she tries i lose my sh*t and start screaming and yelling. I admit for the last 5 years..shes completely changed from angry abusive mom to blessed angel mom. And its SO confusing to me. I cant hate her anymore because shes no longer the psycho she used to be. Now the tables have turned and im psycho. I think its because shes aged now. The other day we finally had a real conversation for the first time in my life. She came to my place saw me huddled in a ball sobbing. She started crying and said shes sorry. She said she knows she was a bad parent and that ill never understand the hardships she went through but that she loves me. She saw me at my worst and thats when she cried and told me she loved me. I want to believe her. But i know she loves my sister more then she will ever love me. She knows it and has frequently said its because my sister hasnt done anything bad. I hate that as a 28 year old i am still a child. I am seeking love from my mother whereas i know if i just let go of the past and move on with my life i can probabaly find peace. My mom keeps telling me to let go of the past. Easier said then done. Why does she think 28 years of neglect and trauma will disappear just by me saying okay, i let go and forgive you.
So should i try to fix my relationship or should i let go of my family?. I think my biggest mistake was loving my mother too much. As a child i cared for her more then my own health and years of saving her life ruined me. Its what makes me hate her and my sister. My sister is so nice to me as an adult but i hate her. I tell her i hate her and she ruined my life. I tell both of them i hate them so they let me lie in my misery in my apartment day by day. The truth is i love my mom so much, but i need to let that love go. I wish i was indifferent to both of them so all of this didnt hurt so much.
Sorry for this long post but i need perspective on the situation. Part of me thinks i am inheriantly dysfunctional. Its in my genes. I was born this way, with mental health issues or my brain was still developing when too much conflict was going on. Its all me not my family. The anger, anxiety, depression is all me and just the way i was born. The other part thinks its all them. They are the reason i am like this, they both ruined my life. So is it them..was i just being a rebellious teenager and they were trying to help me. Its so confusing