Hello all, I could have written about all this nightmare a thousand times over but for my own mental health I try to stay 'up' and level (I'm fairly recently recovered from serious psychiatric illness, but I'm ok now- but still Bipolar!) but recent events have really got to me and I could do with sharing.
My family history is such a mess that I could go on forever, but suffice to say that my dad never really wanted to know me (was absent for 95% of my life, wasn't very nice and we don't talk anymore) so he's now out the picture, my ex-stepdad was violent and mentally abusive (which resulted in me being very mentally unwell) so he's out the picture too and my mum.... well, where to start.
She stood by and watched all the abuse at the hands of my stepdad, and likewise she has always been so gaga over whatever man she's with that she's put them (horrendously) before me and my sis. This includes not taking in my sister when she was anorexic to the point of constantly collapsing (mum has a spare room but 'the computer was in it already'), not coming to visit me after a very serious self harm/ suicide attempt that I could have died from (because she wanted to 'paint the hallway') etc etc. I could go on endlessly but you get the idea.
In a nutshell, she won't be there for us because her no1 all-conquering priority has always been whatever boyfriend is on the scene.
Since I've been pregnant I have distanced myself from her a bit; I think the love I feel already for our little one has magnified the huge disappointment I feel about my own upbringing, and as a result I feel like I don't want to and don't know how to be around her. Sometimes she can be very sweet, but if you ever need anything that takes more than a phonecall then she doesn't want to know.
So- here's what heightened my anger again this weekend. Mum got married and is on her honeymoon break at the mo. While away she has asked my 75 year old grandfather to feed all her pets, water all her garden every day and also do the same for her allotment (which involves digging up god knows how many fruits and veg in the boiling weather). I was aleady cross about this (should be used to it as she's a serial user of people, but hey ho) but then my sister told me something that made me even more furious.
Mum's new husband is growing weed plants in their house. My sister asked what they were the other day and both mum and her hubby burst out laughing like children, saying they're marijuana and that my grandad will be unknowingly watering them for them while they're away.
I feel so cross about this because my grandad is very strongly against drugs, and he'd be mortified if he knew what they were. He'd probably never speak to them again.
Not only that, but WTF is my 53 year old mother and her husband doing growing drugs like 18 year olds?!! I know that he smokes weed sometimes but this is something else.
I don't want our baby (when he arrives) staying at grandma's house when there are bloody dope plants in the kitchen and my stepdad smoking weed as well. I'm no prude but I don't want our baby exposed to it.
Plus, I can't believe how pathetic they both are and that once again, she's being both stupid and selfish by making my grandad water them.
Our relationship is so complicated. On the one hand she's very bubbly and positive and has been very good at times, and at other times she drives me nuts and hurts my feelings by being how she is. She has changed her entire personality for this man- she swears all the time, rides a motorbike (and is now growing weed!), and yet normally she's a well-dressed, well-spoken, reserved person. It frustrates me and I just don't know how to deal with it.
Her hubby is nice, but he's just like a big kid, and often he makes me and my sister very uncomfortable with jokes about 'wanking' and stuff (he even started doing a thrusting sex motion in my living room on Boxing Day for no appartent reason).
I don't know where I'm going with all this really, I just needed to share it and get my frustration out somehow. My lovely hubby tries to boy me up by pointing out that my mum has her faults but its not all bad, but still, I can't shake how I feel. My cousin and aunts have commented that they don't know how I still talk to her, but my family is so fractured already that I'm afraid of having nothing left.