Rant that I need to get out. You don’t have to read. 

My mother is getting out of hand. I know that having younger siblings would mean that I would have to see them get away with stuff I didn’t. But she was so nip-picky when I was a kid and now (at 26) about things when it comes to me but not them? That’s not the problem though.

She tells me that I live in the past (when I try really hard to let things go despite my anxiety constantly reminding me of that time 15 years ago I said something that I shouldn’t have and I hope that that person doesn’t remember it when I agonize over it at least once a week) when she literally throws shit in my face all the time. Like last night, my brother was doing something math related and made a simple mistake. I teased him and was like “Come on, man, that was simple math. No wonder you’re struggling in math--” He laughed and hit me (playfully) and said something about how I suck at math. 

My mother says “said the girl who dropped a class.”

First of all, my brother having a D in math is because he doesn’t do his homework. I dropped a class because I was going to fail it if I didn’t because I had a mental breakdown that almost broke me down. I wasn’t getting out of bed. I wasn’t eating. I was just sleeping because I couldn’t face the world. I went to get help for it because I thought that I would try that before driving myself off a mountain, thank you very much. 

My dropping a class was a two-week decision that I cried over to my therapist and to my best friends. It was a REALLY hard decision for me to do that. 

This is why I am terrified to tell my mom that I am dropping out of graduate school. I told her I hate the program and that it makes me miserable and it makes my anxiety/panic and depression (clinically diagnosed mood disorders, not just issues that come and go normally, real and legit mental illnesses, each with a diagnosis and medication) completely unmanageable. I have been rediagnosed with PTSD because of unresolved trauma in my past and the way that mom has invalidated everything I have been through this semester. I was told that bipolar disorder was an option for me to be assessed on (which, ultimately, as of now, it is believed that I don’t have bipolar disorder even if I show signs of it--that’s where the PTSD came back in). My mom said that “bipolar is the new shrink fad, everyone has bipolar now.” 

I’ve grown up with this but it’s the times that I needed it the most that my mom makes me feel foolish for having emotions and reacting to comments that she doesn’t see as triggering but make me go from 0 to 100 real quick because she’s attacking everything I’m experiencing and telling me I’m just dramatic and sensitive. Oh, but she loves to tell me when I actually fight for myself (because no one else ever will), that I shouldn’t be yelling and get worked up because it’s “bad for my anxiety.” Bitch, fuck you, you don’t know shit about my anxiety and what I go through. You only fucking care NOW because your precious little baby favorite kid may be diagnosed with severe anxiety. NOW IT IS ON HER RADAR AS A LEGIT THING WHEN A THE KID THAT’S BEEN IN HER LIFE THREE YEARS HAS IT BUT HER DAUGHTER OF 26 NEVER HAD IT AND DIDN’T NEED MEDICATION FOR IT. 

Yeah. 

Then she gets passive aggressive and is just “I can never do anything right for you. Guess that’s what I get for giving you a good life.” OH MY GOD THE RICHEST OF PEOPLE HAVE MENTAL ILLNESSES TOO IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY LIFE?! I fight back because I’m tired of being attacked??????? And feeling like everything hard thing I deal with is peanuts compared to her hard life growing up. I know had it hard and my childhood wasn’t like hers in the terms of physical abuse. Emotional abuse and mental abuse are just as devastating, and real as the physical abuse. Telling your kid at the ripe age of 16 that driving into a wall sounds like a good idea because her kid is driving her crazy is NOT normal. It’s not comforting. Telling your daughter that was raped only months before that you think she’s overreacting and it was just a bad decision she made and regretted because it was the first time she had sex (or her first kiss) and it wasn’t really rape is NOT OKAY. It’s humiliating, it’s shaming, it’s devastating, it’s debilitating, it’s abuse. 

If it weren’t for my brothers, I would have walked out and never come back into her life again. It’s an option again, honestly. I’m so tired of being made to feel small, shameful, worthless, disgusting, like my life doesn’t have any point anymore because of a person. 

The reason that sparked all of this is that in my final paper in the class I hated the most this semester, and got a C on WOO, my professor made a note that she said she knew I had a hard semester and that I did well despite everything going on, that she hoped I have a good summer, that she hoped to see me next semester. My god damn professor seems more understanding of my fucking mental state knowing nothing except that I got help and that I’m working through stuff to get a diagnosis and that I’m taking medicine. My professor that I dropped the class talked to me about it and said that he could tell I was struggling last semester and even more this semester, and that he’s glad that I made a healthy and mature choice to drop the class. 

My professors care more about my mental state than my own mother.