Hi?

My name's bitterbunnyball, I'm 33, and I had a really messed up childhood.

I'm the eldest of three. My Mum breastfed me until I was just over two, and then along came my younger sister.

For whatever reason, my Mum really struggled to breastfeed my sister and my younger brother, and she was told repeatedly by healthcare professionals that she had to work extra hard to have the same bond with them as she did with me.

My Mum took this as isolating me from my younger two siblings, and doing any and everything she could for them, all the while treating me as though I didn't need any affection because I was breastfed, therefore I was fine.

This manifested in a lot of different ways. When I was eight, my Mum turned insanely religious. She was a single parent, so maybe it filled some void in her life, I dunno. She had herself confirmed as a member of the Church of England and forced my sister, brother and I to be christened. I was seriously against it - I've never believed in God, not even as a child, but it felt so wrong to me. My siblings were happy enough as they knew doing what Mum told them to do meant an easy life.

I hated that, and refused to go to Confirmation classes at 12, and told the Priest I didn't want to be there, I didn't believe in God, and furthermore, my Christening was meaningless as I denounced God and was comfortable being an apostate.

I was beaten so hard when my Mum was told this by the Priest (who actually found it rather amusing, especially when he asked "do you know what Apostasy is?" and I replied "If you're needing that explained by a 12 year old, you need more help than me") that I pissed what looked like raspberry juice for a week.

There was no chance of a trip to A&E for me. My Mum has/had severe issues regarding even the most routine healthcare when I was a kid, and used to talk about medical professionals as though seeing one were a punishment or a threat. She never drove, and as a single parent would have struggled to take us to Hospital on her own, but we had plenty of relatives and neighbours who would have willingly helped. But nope, I pissed blood for a good week and now have renal issues because she was too tight for bus fare (funny how with smokers, there's always fucking money for cigarettes, right, but none for anything fucking important, eh?).

And yet when my younger siblings were ever ill, I got shipped off to my Grandparents (not that I minded, they were lovely) as my Mum had to devote every waking moment to them as they weren't breastfed, so they needed all her attention. I'm not making this up, I've had her actually tell me this is why she treated me badly and them with so much care and attention.

I got to sixteen, and my Gramps dies a week before my GCSE exams start. It was awful, and my teachers tried to tell my Mum to apply to the exam boards for special consideration - basically, in exceptional circumstances, like a death of a close relative, they grade your paper, taking into account the trauma you went through and go easy on you.

My Mum refused flat out, telling them that was absurd and I was lazy, and any poor grades were my fault. I did okay, overall, and passed (Cs and above) in all my exams. Two years later, my sister failed all but three of her exams, and that was because she was "too clever" for school. :/

I moved out a few years later, put myself through Uni as a mature student doing a healthcare degree. Before that, I had a series of crummy jobs (whereas my job now is crummy but pays well, haha) but was lucky enough to never be out of work. My sister had two kids by two different men, and has, to date, never, ever worked a day in her 31 years on this planet. My Brother is in jail for council tax fraud.

But nope. It's me who's the difficult one because I walked on my abusive husband and refuse to have kids. It's me that's evil because I moved, first to the USA, then Canada, then Sweden, then back to the UK. I'm awful because I rejected God, refused to be a Christian, wanted to be vegetarian (I took on a paper route to pay for my own vegetarian food and my Mum arranged to have the owner of the paper shop pay her directly, thus taking my wages) and it's me who is wrong for not taking her drunken, rambling phone calls.

She is severely overweight, has appalling dental hygiene (her teeth are actually, honest-to-God, falling out) and she refuses to see a Dentist. She drinks a lot, every day,sometimes before going to work (as a teacher!FS) and doesn't take her medication for several ongoing health issues as she should. But I'm wrong for not wanting to deal with her, and wanting to cut her out of my life like the fucking cancer she is.

I'm so done with this.