My mum raised me as a single mum and worked her arse off to provide for me. Unfortunately that meant I hardly saw her, was constantly having to go to family’s house after/ before school, and didn’t get to have a relationship with my dad until my teenage years. Although my mother speaks about my childhood like I was spoiled (which I was in some ways) and had a beautiful upbringing, this is just generally not how I recall it. When I think of my childhood, the things that stick out the most are screaming matches my mother would have on the phone with my dad. My aunts forgetting to collect me from school regularly. Being woken up in the night when my mum finished work to go back home with her, my dad calling up drunk as a child and crying down the phone at me, my dads mother trying to kidnap me from the front door. I had so much terrible anxiety and depression growing up and I used to fight with my mum a lot. Only recently she has admitted that she feels partly responsible for my terrible anxiety but she also blames me for being terribly rebellious claiming I was spoiled. I generally avoid trying to think about my childhood because although my mum did some amazing things for me, I can’t help feel she just tried to stuff the mum hole I had with gifts. I’m starting to wonder if I really was just too spoiled and that it’s normal to have some bad memory’s from childhood?