Title: My (M30) mother (F51) has convinced my family that I'm a liar

Compared to my actual childhood, this feels like a minor issue. But I have documented proof that my mother is lying, and she still denies it to my entire family. So yeah, it's pretty huge to me.

I was raised in a deeply religious household. Both of my parents joined a christian cult a few years before I was born. They seemed to distance themselves from it after I was born, but the religious tone was still present in my home. The religious dogma wasn't the worst part for me. Sure, I'd get beaten whenever I cursed, and whenever I had a cold or got otherwise sick I'd get scolded for letting the devil into our house. My father's night-time stories were about demons. How they followed us around because my dad was one of jesus' strongest warriors, and their mission was to bring me back to hell. So, naturally, both me and my brother started seeing demons in our dreams. We'd rush past the kitchen window at night when we had to go to the bathroom to avoid the gaze of the demons. It was pretty horrendous.

But, no. The worst part for me, which has taken me lots of time and work through hypnotherapy to deal with, was the abuse. The constant "you're not good enough", "your friends are so much better", "why are you so worthless", "I wish I had a better son". For a brief period I remember only responding to "idiot" and not my real name, because that's what I was referred to by my father. Whenever I couldn't find the right tool in my father's toolbox he'd call me dumb, tell me to go waste somebody else's time. Sure, he beat me, even burned me once as punishment, and for a brief period gave me waterboarding sessions for thinking I was good at the piano, but that was nowhere close to the mental torture. I was bullied at home, and bullied at school - but the school bullies were like unicorns in comparison.

My mother? She was there, sure. But she let it happen. Never spoke back, even reinforced it at times. She left when I was 12, taking my other siblings with her, leaving me there with my father for weeks.

There's a layer of resentment I've never fully shaken for why she stayed as long as she did. Though I understand it: she was a stay-at-home mom with no income, no real way out - it doesn't make it hurt less. I've always felt a strange distance from her that my siblings don't seem to share. I can't bring myself to call her "mom". It makes me cringe in a way that's hard to explain, like it goes against something deep in me. When I was 13 I came up with a nickname for her instead: "morsus", a playful twist on the Swedish slang "morsan". Cute on the surface. The real reason took me years to admit to myself. My siblings hug her. It looks natural when they do it. When I try to imagine doing the same thing, it just feels wrong - like my body refuses. I've hugged my mother-in-law more times than I can count. My own mother, almost never.

I don't think she ever processed what happened to her. I know one thing for sure: what happened to me was bad enough, but she probably went through 10x of that. I didn't resent her for leaving. In fact, I needed her. By the time I was 13, my parents had separated, and after an especially rough beatdown from my dad where I was red and bruised across my face and upper torso, my mother convinced me to file a police report. She was given full custody, but she couldn't handle foul teenage me (understandably so, I was a mean child), so I was inevitably forced to spend weekends and sometimes every other week at my father's house with his new, equally cruel partner.

When I was 18, my stepfather kicked me out, and I refused to live with my father, so I got my own place. Rent was split between my father and state study grants, with me recycling bottles to cover the rest. Luckily school had free meals. I battled with my utterly ruined self-esteem, demons in my dreams, and my poor relationship to my family overall. I always felt like the black sheep. Always left out. My family went on holidays abroad before the divorce and left me home. I was honestly happy to be alone. But the feeling stuck regardless.

My fiancée, who I met at 18, has always been my rock. Her family showed me what that's actually supposed to look like. She always championed a proper relationship with my own family, and for her sake - and for my brother's - I've kept trying. I always saw a lot of myself in him. Until he met his fiancée we were inseparable. My poor mental health (suicidal for most of my life, especially my 20's) eventually became too much for him to handle, and he pulled back slightly.

I meet my family members roughly monthly, and I've been trying to maintain weekly visits to my mother for my daughter's sake. Last year I went through multiple hypnotherapy sessions which was miraculous for my mental health. I finally felt like I could grow up and be the parent I always lacked. Sadly, that awoke a whole other issue. My mother. I have REALLY good long term memory (and a very shitty short-term memory due to severe ADHD). My first memory was from before I could properly walk. I remember emotions from these memories vividly - the pain, even the smells. I've made a habit of going back through it all, which brings restless nights but near-perfect recollection.

My youngest sister doesn't recall a single thing from our childhood. My other sister insists nothing bad happened until after the divorce, despite arguably going through the worst of it beforehand. My brother was 3 when the divorce happened. He doesn't recall much, instead relying on my mother's re-tellings.

So whenever I've brought up old memories, it's been a whirlwind. One sister remembers it differently, the other not at all, and my mother always sides against me - arguing that she was older and therefore remembers better. And for a long time, I believed her. I figured I must have fabricated memories just to cope.

...until a physician last year pulled out my extended journal. The one patients don't have digital access to. For the first time I could read documentation from social services, from child psychiatric health care workers - written records of their conversations with my parents. I decided to bring some of it up with my mother.

I started simple. "When I was 14, you said this to a psychiatrist on the phone." She said "You're making memories up again, this never happened." Oh, except it's fucking WRITTEN DOWN. So I kept going. Again, again, again: "you remember it wrong".

The way I see it: either she's actively revising events to avoid shame and guilt, or she genuinely misremembers. It could honestly be both. It doesn't matter. What matters is that she has weaponized the 'truth'. She actively tells my siblings that I'm a liar who invents or distorts memories. Which brings us to a few days ago.

I posted a TikTok for that trend going around: "Do something that would make your 10 year old self proud." So I sang a full screaming metal song. In the caption I mentioned that my two christian parents hated when I sang metal, and that my father had started to suspect I was possessed by a demon. My mother had actually warned me about that suspicion at the time - that's the part I included. It was set to friends only, and in hindsight maybe a clumsy detail to put in writing. But my brother saw it, texted my mom, and she flatly denied it. "I've never been a christian."

...ok. We live in a small town. I've worked with friends of hers. I have close contact with my grandmother. I've had friends whose parents were in the same cult. I have seen pictures from their meetings. She has the nerve to deny this when outside sources can confirm it. Maybe she stopped believing in the later years and was faking it for my father's sake - but that's still a strange hill to die on. My brother, a conspiracy theorist by nature, then messages me: "You're remembering it wrong. Mom clarified everything. We think your trauma has caused you to fabricate things. You should stop." I responded calmly: explained the cult, the specific memory, the documented evidence. No response. I tried calling. He never picks up. Days have passed. All I know is that they've kept talking about what a chronic liar I am.

I don't really know what to do. I don't care what my brother thinks of me - the guy believes in lizard people, so his verdict on my credibility means very little. What bothers me is my mother continuing to demonize me, to cement me as the black sheep. I'm not bringing my daughter to see her this week. I don't think I can keep my cool, and honestly I don't think there's any point in discussing it with her - she's nowhere near ready to process any of this. For now, my family is convinced I'm a monstrous liar. I have a wedding in four months and I'd like everyone to get through it without things blowing up.

I don't have a clean resolution to offer. Mostly I just needed to get this out. If anyone has been through something similar and found a way to navigate it, I'm all ears.