The parental fallout peripheral to my double mastectomy has made me realize at long last it wasn't me & they can't have offered what they never had themselves.

I (35F, apologetic of the length of this) have the BRCA2 gene. I had a prophylactic double mastectomy this week with reconstruction (Tuesday, it went well!). It was planned 4 months ago and was emotionally huge for me, which I didn't expect. It's probably the most intense upheaval of emotion I've faced before a surgery.

My parents (65F, 66M) live 10 minutes away, are retired, and offered to help with a variety of aspects across the prep and recovery.

My plan was always to recover at my house (single-level, fenced yard, ease/comfort). My parents kept insisting their 3-story house would be “easier” (note: for them). They repeated this constantly and criticized the idea of me recovering at my own home. I didn’t want the conflict, so I caved (my mistake!) and agreed to stay with them for the first 6–8 weeks (until I can drive and walk my dog).

About 2.5 months before my surgery, I made a list of 12 Costco items recommended by others who had my DMX surgery (not the type my mom had). I asked my dad to get them at Costco since he'd offer to pick up surgery items for me. He happily agreed.

I ask him if it is possible to shop before they leave for their leisurely Italy trip, they said sure. Days before the cruise, he called from Costco and said he “didn’t feel like doing a big shop right now” and would get everything after their 3.5-week Italy cruise.

Fast forward...now it's 4.5 weeks before surgery (post-cruise, they're home), he says each week he will go. He didn’t go.

A few weeks into this, he again calls at Costco and said they “probably had some things left over” from my mom’s old DMX surgery, and told me confer with her to get a list (even though they live together, in the house with the items being inventoried, and could have checked themselves).

Fast forward, it's 2 weeks before my surgery and I went over for dinner. They still hadn’t checked anything on the list, nor shopped. Since I am physically at their house, I did it and gave my dad an updated list. He promised to go that weekend.

He didn’t. Jump to a week before surgery. He finally went and told me he got “everything.” Thank you But plot twist. Nope! Now it's 5 days before surgery, I went to their house for a holiday party and found out he’d only bought one-third of the items because he personally felt I “didn’t need” the rest and just… didn’t tell me. (This forced me to panic-order essentials. Some won't arrive until a week after, so...there is an actual inconvenience and consequence.)

Issue 2 is the Saga of Pre-surgery House Preparations

Part of the original agreement of me staying with them for 8 weeks was predicated by the idea they would:

1. help me deep-clean my house so I wasn’t leaving it messy for 8 weeks

2. they’d help me pack and move

3. all of this would be done before the final weekend so that the last 2 days before surgery would be low-stress

Similar to the Costco dynamic of "I'd love to help but then not show up", after their Italy trip, they are too jet-lagged to help a month out. Three weeks out they had too many social events. 2 weeks before: mom said she’d come clean, then never followed through. They never scheduled a real date.

Yes, I could have clarified a certain time, but by the same token, offering to help and then not taking any inertia without my prompting isn't helping. Offering to create a "warm and healing recovery environment for me" and then not considering my input, or following through on previously agreed commitments fundamental to the caretaking process, is not caretaking. If you wanted to, you would. Two retired people who live ten minutes away could make time for follow through on one (or any) previously agreed on plans.

Fast forward again, it's 5 days before surgery: my house was 1/4 clean. I’d done everything alone.

Issue 3: the move & misdirections.

The plan we agreed on also included that they’d “help move the first load” that Saturday before surgery.

Saturday: They cancelled. Sunday: They said they could come—but only from 10–10:30 AM because they had a holiday mansion tour, lunch plans, and a sports game later. I told them not to come because nothing was packed; I was still cleaning.

On to the finale: The emotional blow-up!

I said I felt resentful that they offered help and then repeatedly didn’t follow through, leaving me scrambling days before a major surgery.

My mom’s response: “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

"We’ve created such a helpful environment for you!”

"We decorated the house for Christmas!” (?? Not something I asked for.)

"You're being unreasonable/ungrateful/histrionic/manipulative"

I tried again. She escalated into: “I’m the WORST mother, okay?? Is that what you want to hear??” (When I say that isn't productive and is actually inflammatory, she replies: "You’re being hyperbolic and mean.”)

I hung up. They then sent a flurry of non-apologies like: "I’m sorry we didn’t help you move Sunday—you told us not to come.” Ignoring that they had failed for months before that.

For the first time in years I felt like a belittled, voiceless 9-year-old again. And I realized: If this is how they behave days before surgery, if even this minor conflict of feeling unsupported cannot be a conversation instead of a front-on collision, then I cannot and should not, be physically vulnerable in their house.

Surely central to caretaking is the opinion on what comfort looks like of the person needing the care. An unwillingness to see this situation from my perspective is intrinsically a lack of empathy -- they want to TELL me what will happen (dictating, power imbalance) not DISCUSS what could be (collaborative, showing up as equal adults).

So, from this, 48 hours before surgery I arranged a full, competent support network of friends: someone staying my first night, a handful of revolving check-ins over the first 3-day period, a dog walker every other day. I rearranged my house so everything was counter height or lower, so I'd not need much help with any daily tasks outside of maybe 10 minutes to prep me for the next day (like dishes or grabbing something overhead).

I told my parents I’d recover at home, not out of spite, but because recovering around them feels emotionally unsafe. I invited them to visit every other day if they still wanted to be involved.

Their reaction: I’m selfish. I’m cruel. I’m “endangering” myself. I'm being emotionally manipulative. I'm being histrionic. I’m “making their lives harder”. I'm doing this to hurt them. I need to stop being an asshole and "let them help me". They have done so much to support me.

They originally agree to come over once a day to visit. Then, the day before surgery, my mom decided she won't visit at all. Her therapist told her she has a right to maintain a boundary that she will only help if I move in, and any failure to accept her non-apologies is me being stubborn. When I did not back down, she said seeing me now is “too emotionally painful” because of “what I’m doing to her.”

She also told me she shouldn’t visit me at all if I “feel unsafe” with her (I said emotionally unsafe, not physically unsafe). Huge melodramatic misdirection.

While driving to the operation, my dad said I was causing them “unimaginable pain” with my stubbornness and that I “couldn’t imagine what I’m doing to them.”

I genuinely feel like I made the only decision that protected my mental health. But I’m being told I’m selfish, cruel, stubborn, ungrateful, and destroying the relationship—when they: insisted everything be their way, broke every promise, escalated every conflict, made my major surgery about their convenience, and refused to help unless I sacrificed my comfort and boundaries...

Meanwhile yesterday, he even wanted me to reschedule my postop appointment because it conflicted with his tai chi and golf lunch.

So Reddit: am I being a petulant child here?