Thread by @Lauramiaow

When you look back at things with older eyes, what seemed normal, wasn't. My parents split when I was 8. My mum would constantly slate my dad, come into his house when she was dropping us off & look through his stuff. She would often tell us how SHE looked after us...(1/14)

...when I was young, as my dad left us a lot.(When in fact, he was simply doing a graduate placement for 3 months, not abandoning us).She'd tell my siblings & I that he had another family,when he didn't.I'd often listen at the top of the stairs as she would scream at him,(2/14)

...for anything and everything. He would tell her to stay quiet as we were sleeping. The morning after, she would ask us if we heard anything & we would deny it. She'd then tell us that my dad was yelling and SHE begged him to stop.
Our house was full of her (3/14)

...conveyor belt bestest friends, whose names after a couple of months would be mud. Same for bfs. One in, one out.I was both the agony aunt & the strict parent who would obviously take a dislikening to these boomerang bfs after all she said about them during the break up (4/14)

Same with family members. A well to do family with ' family politics' that they promised they would tell me about as I got older. She would tell us stories of their maltreatment of her as a child, especially during her parents' breakup.(5/14)

At her family's occations, the mood was always tense. Dad's family was the opposite. My mum slated her family to me & they would say how they 'knew how difficult' my mother was to live with. They were nowhere to be found when things became harder at home with her. (6/14)

Coming home to her was Russian roulette. A smile at the door but scowl in the kitchen. It was only when I started questioning her accusations / lies, that I became the bad guy that my dad had once been. Family members would call to chastise me, friend's mums would glare. (7/14)

Sometimes she would have a clear day. She'd apologise for being 'crazy', talk about her struggles and would say she would get therapy. My grandad would always pay for it, she'd go for a few weeks and stop. Why? New bf or didn't like the therapist. Same with tablets. (8/14)

My dad was just steady.He wouldn't badmouth her, he would listen. Sometimes he would tell us to stop talking about it because he felt helpless but would coach me on how to get her to settle to keep the peace. He was petrified of her frequent threats to have full custody. (9/14)

I moved out at 15, but I checked in every year or so to see if she had changed. It was like a film remake- storyline was the same, all that would change were the goodies and baddies.We'd promise not to not dwell on the past & within 2 visits, she was back to her old ways.(10/14)

At some point, you realise that you cannot change them without them wanting to help themselves too. There was therapy/money &friends available,but she didn't like the introspection.Sometimes I felt she liked the comfort of blaming her actions on her issues so we couldn't (11/14)

Tell her what she did was wrong. As an adult I tried to say 'yes some bad things happened to you as a child, but wouldn't life be nicer if we tackled these demons?', she'd cry and promise to. She even moved away but carried on the cycle. (12/14)

I had joint therapy with her once - it ended in tears as she refused to accept my version of events. I know all recollections differ, but she would completely change the narrative and called me crazy. After that, I called it quits with her. (13/14)

How did I move forward? I read lots to understand. I talked lots to understand. Most importantly, I knew I had to do something to help others in similar situations to my father and myself/siblings.Helping heals. You can't change the past but you can help shape the future.(14/14)