Originally Posted by PamelaJune

Hi Almond, you're story mirrors mine in so many ways, only my sister & brother were the golden ones. My brother left at 15 to join the airforce as an apprentice, so he escaped, my sister went onto study nursing and was able to leave at 17 moving into junior student nurse accommodation next to the hospital. I was 10, left behind to endure the meanness that amplified after the departure of the favoured. Ironically, while they acknowledge they were favoured they too bare scars from her often cruel and callous treatment. What we all know and remember vividly is once she made us cry, she became nice. If we were sick, she was tolerating. At 6 I had a heart arrest, my 12yr old sister sat by my bedside daily until 8pm end visiting hours, I really can't recall mum being there, but I know she had to have been. Dad bought me a bike on discharge.

I've recently had the epiphany moment, I don't need an apology from her, it will make no difference to me, I've stopped trying to make her "like" me. I remain her child even as an adult and somehow, I don't know how or when it happened, but I forgive her. I love her and always will. I don't want my last years with her to be filled with grief and arguments anymore and so I see her much less. I take her to medical appointments and do all the things to keep her life running smoothly, hearing aids, clean filters on appliances etc. My sister, well she takes her for weekly hairdresser appointments and has hers done as well courtesy of mum, then lunch courtesy of mum and then an extra 40-$50 for petrol. She is 62 & still getting handouts from her mum. I can laugh at that and it no longer bothers me. It's her money, she pays for the company of her eldest child.

But last week I had a horrid dream, I woke from it sobbing, it's why I woke. Mum died, it was sheer agony, it tore my soul, I saw her that day, burst into tears and hugged her, told her what happened in the dream, she hugged me harder & had a little cry herself, then made us a cuppa.

I still have no answers, I think many of us were traumatised by the keeping up with the Jones concept and if we didn't meet the "vision" woe betide what happened. I didn't meet....
I'm wondering how you are faring now 2 years down the track following your first post. Do you see much of your mother?