Weird feelings at 21

[Lee-21]

I had a strange thing recently happen,although it's definetly due to the past so i guess i should go over that quick. all my life i've never been able to spend time with my mom, when i was little, the babysitter spent time in most of my life(brother too), when i was in highschool, we lived with my gramma and she worked nights so again, never saw her(BTW i know she was doing this to support us and herself so it's not that i don't understand any of what she did) while my gramma was renovating, i was told i had to move out for a year and a half until they where done,to live with my dad,who hates himself and demeans everyone around him to the point of mental breakdown(guess what happened :\ ).

 

2 1/2 years ago she moved away to live with my step-dad and left me and my brother to live with my biological father, even when she knew what he was like(hence why she left him). with my dad,it's all about money, he let my brother come because it meant my mom had to pay him child support and let me come cause he thought i was going to school right away and he'd get money for me too, that didnt happen and when it didn't he just told me i had to get out, no reasons or anything, just "your not living here anymore" ,and i had nowhere to go(my family is pathetic and turn their backs on anything that requires possibly helping out), she told me the option of coming there was out cause,well,it's complicated really, so in the end my boyfriends parents let me come live with them (their so sweet) and im still here.

 

I guess most people would think its great to live with their boyfriend,and it is, but i recently spent a week at my moms, and my week was like how it would be if we were all a family together, and when i came home, to people who were a family but not mine, i got really upset, and spent pretty much the rest of the night crying, not to mention i found out that my mom is going to let my brother come live with her (not that i dont want him away from our horrible father-only-by-blood) but it just seems he is the one who always gets her, he never had tomove away and now he gets to go there cause of his hard time and when i had nowhere to go, it wasn't even an option.

 

I'm 21 and you'd think i wouldn't really care about being with my mom or my close family (since my mom,brother and now step-dad are my ONLY close family) and would really care more about being with my boyfriend (even though we're not really living on our own for school reasons) but it seems that since she's moved i've spent more time with her than i ever have (but not really, everyother weekend) and i kind of feel cheated that everyone else gets their family and i never have, like my brother has, only recently i've felt like this, and even now i can hardly think about it without feeling upset.

 

is this weird at all? has anyone else felt like this before? and is there ANYTHING i could possibly do to help get past this feeling??

 

thanks for listening to my ramblings

[norajane]

That sounds really rough. I think it's perfectly natural to want a good relationship with your mom, and to want her to be in your life, and to want her to treat you and your brother fairly.

 

I don't think it's easy to get past this. Often what might help is to understand where your mom is coming from, what her reasons/motivations are. For example, maybe she really can only have one child in her home (not sure why, but...), and she feels that you are an adult at 21 so better able to take care of yourself than your brother is.

 

It's also possible that it's a step-dad issue...maybe your mom isn't comfortable with a young, attractive daughter in the house.

 

My point is not to make excuses for her, but to make sure you realize that YOU are not at fault, that there's nothing wrong with YOU. Adults are sometimes way more messed up than their kids. Keep in mind there are lots of people with dysfunctional families out there - you are not alone with this problem.

 

Good luck, sweets, and take care of yourself.