Some really strong messages of support have been written on here overnight. For that I thank you all.
There is a bigger picture here, a huge backstory of 40 odd years. For those of you that can be bothered or are interested I will explain. Sorry this will be long:/
When mum fell pregnant with me, 3 rd child, in the 1960s, she was in her 40s. She was devastated. I was an unwanted mistake. The night I was born she walked for miles in the snow hoping I would be born dead or that she would somehow perish herself. They had to send out a search party to find her.
With a much older brother and sister who left home as soon as they could and my dad working away for all my childhood I was left with a mentally unstable seriously depressed mother who often could not drag herself out of bed. There was little food in the house and rarely any tea on the table, i remember being about 7 and learning to boil the kettle so I could eat SMASH potato or powdered chicken soup. When dad did come home there was a lot of shouting and mum would rip money up in front of him and throw it at him, he worked away to earn the money and she couldn't cope. Somewhere along the line I got it into my head that this was my fault. If I hadn't been born, dad wouldn't have to work so hard and mum wouldn't be so unhappy. But that was normal life to me, I had no concept of what " normal" family life was until I was older and went to friends houses after school. It was only then I realised that my life was different to other peoples.
I was exceptionally bright, school was my haven, books were my escape. As my o levels approached I was top 1% in the country. The pressure was huge. I ran away in the middle of my exams to be a model in Paris. I had worked part time, often missing school to pay my way and get the money to escape. I was reasonably successful, came back, worked in London, came home sometimes. Dad was semi retired by then and mum was better. They had some property and provided me with a flat so I had a base near them. For once mum showed an interest in me and would carry round magazines I was in so she could show anyone she met and say "that's my daughter".
Then I got pregnant. I found out when I was 5 months on and couldnt fit the dresses anymore. Mum and dad sold up, lock stock and barrel and moved away. Me and the father got a flat and tried to make it work. It didn't. I was a horrible, selfish person who thought she could have a baby and just go back to the life I had before. Which I did, dumping my baby with exBF mother for long periods so I could go off working and earning money, and carry on with my glamorous life.
What a useless mother I was!
Fast forward 3 years. I meet DH to be. I realise the error of my ways. Set up a proper family home and set about learning to be a decent mother. We marry and I get pregnant with DD1. Mum and Dad meanwhile divorce. Dad apologises to me because he said he never realised what my mother was like, he never had to spend time with her before?! I have mum come and live with us. She has sunk to a new level of depression. I become my mothers mother but with a new baby in the house and mum refusing to get help and again, taking it out on me, I can't cope. Again she leaves and moves hundreds of miles away and we have no contact for 10 years. dD1 has some health issues. We spend lots of time in hospital over the years. I get some therapy, learn I cannot change my mother and cannot allow the past to influence how I bring up my children.
I have DD2 and for the first time I feel I am mature enough and capable enough to enjoy being a mother. I also make contact with my own mum and while she has huge resentment against me and shows little interest in her grandchildren I am strong enough to accept it for what it is. Some things you just can't change.
Mum is diagnosed with cancer, which she recovered from and Alzheimer's which she won't. Dads heart starts to fail and I bring him to live with us so I could care for him until he died last year. Only then did I find the hundreds of press cuttings and photos and letters he had sent to family saying how proud he was of me. We never talked about it and I never knew he felt like that.
DD1 goes off the rails and runs off with the druggie boy. She wasn't into drugs. She felt she could save him. We get her back on track and into the aforementioned college. DD2 (9) starts having panic attacks and thinks every time someone leaves her something bad will happen.
You know the rest. There is a pattern here. I am terrified that I will turn into my mother. I am terrified DD1 is turning into me. I do know that sometimes the more support you give someone the more you enable them to carry on behaving in a selfish way. I am scared that this child will be another generation of a dysfunctional family.
There is a poem by Phillip Larkin called They F**k you up, your mum and dad. Google it if you don't know it. The words seem to be the story of my life.