AITAH for refusing to help my family who basically raised me?
I'm not really good at wording what's in my head so sorry in advance if it gets a bit confusing.
For context, I (18F) moved out of my family's house when I was 17, well technically, I was asked to move out. When I was 7 years old, because of poverty, my mother went to work overseas, so me and my siblings were left at our father's care, but was soon taken out of his side because our family from my mother's side didn't like him and said that 'he'll raise us poorly and won't have a future with him', all because my father didn't finish elementary.
After that, we moved in with out family in my mother's side, but of course, not for free. Because me and my siblings were still minors back then, we couldn't handle money yet, so all of the money that my mom sent us would be handled by our aunt and grandmother. We didn't really think much of it, until we got into highschool, that I started wondering why our money always ran out so fast even though my mom would send around $500(which is a lot for us) a monthly, sometimes even twice a month, but they would always say that it's because of of our electricity and for food. Again, we didn't think much of it cause that actually might be the reason afterall.
Our days with our family was a mix of an easy living(because we can slack off at times) and like literal hell, which is most of the time. I have 5 uncles and 3 aunts all living at the same roof, which is normal for our culture, but that also means that's there's always frequent troubles.
Most of my uncles are alcoholic, but theres someone that was the worst of them all, we'll call him Jim and he actually have deep hatred for my aunt Kyla (the one who handles our money), but we don't know why back then. They would always have fights whenever my uncle's get drunk, things would fly around, furnitures broken and authorities were always called.
And those frequent fights would be the reason for my mental health to slowly deteriorate, but by the end of it, my uncle Jim would always come to me and apologize for what happened. That would've always worked to make me feel better, but then he moved out after being kicked out by my grandfather and of course, something happened that changed my view of men.
When I was 15, I was gr@ped by my grandfather while I was asleep, I just laid there and pretended that I was still sleeping because I was afraid of what he might do if I fought back because there was no one in the house that time and if it wasn't enough, one of my other uncles would also SA me whenever I'm alone at the house with them to watch over my cousins. And that made me terrified of males, even to this day.
My grandmother and aunt Kyla knew about this, but they refuse to tell my mother because as they said they 'didnt want to make my mother worried' while she was away. My siblings didn't know too, because I didn't want them to fight with them, because I know that all of my other family vs my brother would just end up really badly. So I kept shut.
I could go on with all of the other things that they did, but I'll get straight to where I moved out. It was a peaceful night for me, I was studying for our midterms exam and when I noticed one of my cousins who was 7 at the time was hitting my younger sister who was just watching on my phone and wasn't doing anything back to my cousin, I told gently my cousin calmly to not do it because it's hurting my sister, and obviously, she didn't like that.
She went to my grandmother and told her that I scolded her and screamed at her, but my grandmother didn't believe her so she took out her anger to my grandmother and threw a glass bottle at her, of course, I got angry because that was out of line, so I slapped her hand. She then cried and ran to her father who was drunk at the time and got angry at me. He then slapped me hard, to the point that I couldn't feel my face and the insides of my mouth was bleeding.
That was the final straw for me, I called my mother and told her everything, to the money(which apparently, my aunt Kyla have been spending for herself), the gr@ping and SA, and how they all treated me and my siblings. She of course, immediately took our side and started crying to my grandmother and telling her how wrong that was, and even then, my grandmother and aunts got angry at me for snitching to my mother and told me that it would've been better if I wasn't there and maybe I really should move out.
So at just 17, I moved out, I didn't know where to go, but to my relief, a distant relative took me in and made me stay at them, in exchange of helping out at their shop and tutoring my cousin there. And I was paid daily too, so after about a month, with the help of my mother as well, we managed to get my siblings to move out aswell.
And now, just a week before, my grandmother got into the hospital because of stroke, and they've been asking me and my mother to help out and lend them some money because they really need it. It gnawed me because it was really cruel to do, but I ignored them and blocked them. To this day, they've been trying to reach out, either through my siblings or by going to our house.
So, AITA for doing that?
Posted Aug 12, 2024, 12:04 AM UTC