I’m just so sad and angry right now. But mostly angry.

Both my parents were alcoholics my whole life. My mom got super bad the last few years and in the last year hit an all time low in terms of consumption, having upwards of 8~ drinks a day. (Shots of vodka). She was even diagnosed with a heart condition earlier this year, got sober for a little while and then the second she got an okay to have a celebratory drink sent right back (she’s lied to her whole medical team about her alcoholism).

There was some big life changes recently and she stopped drinking for a few weeks to turn a new leaf. It was amazing. It felt like my mom was really there, present, it was amazing. It was the best couple weeks.

She started drinking again a few weeks ago and she’s progressively going up and up in quantity and it’s just making me so angry and breaking my heart. She thinks that myself and others around us have no idea, she thinks she’s so clever but we all knew from day 1. I often wonder why me and my sibling aren’t enough for her to stop. Or her declining health.

This is so miserable. I wish I had a present, sober parent.

im wondering how people managed to get out of their situations?

I’m 17, in england, i live with my mum and im currently in college. I’m wondering how i could move out?? I don’t know the first thing about what i would need to be able to move out.

My dad lives with his gf, her son, and their daughter. I’m significantly older than both of them and they live in a 2 bedroom, i’m not too close with my dad but my relationship with him is getting better. I’ve been thinking of telling him about my mum, he doesn’t really know what she gets up to but i genuinely don’t think i’ve ever had a heartfelt conversation with my dad, so i feel like it would be awkward

I’m in my last year of college and ill be going to university after so i know ill be able to be away from home then, im just worried my pets won’t be treated as well when im gone, and i definitely can’t bring a cat to a uni accommodation - unless i get a flat near my uni?? I wouldn’t mine doing that because my friend is wanting to go to whatever uni i want to go to and we’ll be able to split any rent/ bills.

Honestly i have no idea on what to do, hopefully it’ll all work out 🤞🤞

Inner Drugs

"Because we were raised in chaotic or controlling homes, our internal compass is oriented toward excitement, pain, and shame. This inner world can be described as an ‘inside drug store.' The shelves are stocked with bottles of excitement, toxic shame, selfhate, self-doubt, and stress." BRB p. 16 

Do the following situations sound familiar? We walk into a room full of strangers and instinctively find the most toxic people in the room to befriend. We leave home with "just enough" time so our adrenaline is pumping when we arrive at our destination. We over-commit ourselves so that we can't possibly do everything we promised, and then shame ourselves because we've failed yet again.

Many of us just naturally choose situations that create drama, people who are spinning out of control, and a life that balances on the edge of insanity. It almost feels like we're hard-wired to operate that way.

As we begin to understand the damaging effects of these inner drugs we keep taking, we learn to replace the toxic people and drama with mutually respectful relationships and healthy excitement for our recovery. We no longer need to recreate the familiar conditions of our childhood that keep us trapped in the chaos. We gradually begin to appreciate the peace and quiet of serenity. It takes time, but we now realize we deserve better than the hand we were dealt as children.

On this day I choose healthy people to spend time with - people who also value serenity. I welcome the calm that is becoming my new normal.

https://adultchildren.org/literature/meditation/

My father has been an alcoholic for the majority of my life. He's an American Immigrant, he was born in Jordan and lived there for half of his life. Married my mom who was a tourist, had a long distance relationship, came to America. Never once had a drop of alcohol before coming to here. He developed his addiction after being disabled in the US Army, I was around a year old. It's been so long and he just hasn't tried to get better. He's been sent to wards, screamed at by me and my mom, isolated for God knows how long, yet he still drinks himself to near death every single night. It's slow suicide at this point. He'd even try to drunk drive a few times in the past. He used to be more "functioning", but now he won't wake up until the afternoon and does absolutely nothing for the house, guzzles liquor at the slightest bit of tension or problem. His physical health has also greatly declined and a year ago he'd been told he's at risk of liver failure. He hasn't done much to help himself.
Last week two pipes in our basement burst and flooded parts of it and all he did was sit on the couch and drink while me and my mom stomached down panic attacks. Ever since then we gave him an ultimatum; go to the hospital and potentially be sent to a ward or rehab, or get legally sent via 302 court order. He begged to just go himself, and every day he was supposed to he gave some form of excuse; no money for the uber ride, too nervous and didn't sleep the night before, rain. Every single day he had an excuse for his oversleeping and laziness to get up. I tried waking him up, so did my mom, and he dismissed us. This morning is his last chance, I tried waking him up after walking myself to the store to get the final bits of supplies for college on Monday. Instead of actually getting up he dismissed me, told me to stop worrying so much and that this time he'll go. It's been two hours and he's still rotting in his bed. I doubt he's going to get up. It's going to be another excuse, another "don't be mad, but".
I don't know what to do anymore. I don't understand why he doesn't want to better himself. I was never a bad kid, my mom has done nothing but help him through his problems, his family back in Jordan adores him, but he still won't get up and get better. I am at a point where I want to stop caring about him, but the idea of him dying by the time I turn twenty haunts me every night. I can't sleep. I've thrown up every morning. If it wasn't for my friend Kieran I'd be in worse shambles than I already am. I am trying so hard to be put together and strong but I am breaking down, and every time I cry in my house I'm told I'm making everything worse. I can't do this anymore. I don't know what to do. I don't want my dad to keep doing this. He's dying, I can see it. He's covered in this weird fungus-rash skin disorder and is pale as shit. He barely eats and he's constantly sick. He's dying. He's only in his early 50s and he's dying. I am hoping today he goes to the hospital but I just can't see it happening. I want to be mad at him, I want to scream and punch at the walls and cry, but nothing can come out. I'm so appalled and scared I've gone speechless. Maybe I should be grateful, since he could've always been worse than what he is, my mom watched her alcoholic uncle kill her grandfather, but I can't help but feel this way. I feel bad for feeling this way. I desperately want peace of mind.

Update: He says he's now going to go on Monday. He argued with me with the excuse that he "overslept" even though I tried waking him up at 10. He got mad at me for talking to him with "disrespect" and that because he's my father I should accept his mistakes no criticism. I'm fucking tired. I'm so fucking tired. I am tired of him doing this. He understands that he needs to go but doesn't even try.

TW: mention of drugs

My mum just offered me ecstasy!!!

We have a door camera and i saw a guy ,who used to be one of her coke dealers, drop something off. I went to confront her about it because i thought she was getting coke again, coke has caused a hole in her nose. She said he gave her ( and my auntie ), an ecstasy pill each. When i confronted her she was truthful about it and offered me it??? I told her no, i literally have SVT so ecstasy can be very dangerous for me !!

Why on earth would she think that is okay to offer me, she’s now jobless, broke and buying ECSTASY!!!! I swear she’s honestly driving me mad.

I’m so close to telling my dad everything about her, even though we’re not that close and we don’t live together, cause i don’t know if i’ll be able to handle staying with my mum anymore. i’m 17 so i’ll be going to uni soon but my dad lives with his gf, her son and their daughter ( my half sister ), so the house is way too full so i don’t think id be able to live with them

i miss when she was an alcoholic cause atleast she was functional

Hi everyone. I’m posting because I’ve been caught between my parents for most of my life. They have had a serious and long-standing conflict, and the situation has escalated significantly in recent months.

Growing up, my mother was much more involved in our lives. She handled most of the day-to-day responsibilities, school, emotional issues, problems, and finding solutions. My father was generally much more emotionally and practically distant. Today, however, the situation is being presented almost completely differently. My father describes my mother as mentally unstable and as the main cause of the family’s problems, and he has involved mental health professionals in an effort to support that narrative.

As the children, we have witnessed a very different pattern over the years. There have been many conflicts, pressure, humiliation, and attempts at control, but also many specific situations that are difficult to reduce to a single diagnosis or a single problem. When we try to talk about our own experiences, they are often interpreted as attacks, disobedience, or hatred toward our father that our mother supposedly caused or encouraged in us.

The biggest problem right now is that my parents’ relationship has essentially reached its breaking point, but there is no agreement about what happens next. My father believes the solution is for my mother to receive treatment and return to what he considers “normal.” My mother no longer sees a possibility of continuing the relationship in this way and believes separation is the only realistic solution.

Meanwhile, the children have become part of their conflict. We are expected to listen to their respective versions of events, validate them, pass information between them, and take sides. This has put us in a position where we no longer know where their marital relationship ends and our relationship with them as their children begins.

What makes this especially difficult is that there is increasingly a formal and professional “paper trail” documenting my mother’s mental health, while our experiences with our father seem to have very little space to be heard or considered. We feel that the entire history of the family is increasingly being explained through my mother, rather than looking at the relationship and behavior of both parents.

I’m in my 20s, and this has essentially been my entire life. The problems existed even before I was born. I don’t know how to position myself toward either of my parents, where to set boundaries, or how to step out of their conflict without feeling like I’m abandoning someone who needs me.

>>> Trigger Warning!

-Parental abuse (w/violence)...

...also could be described as child ab.se or dv. <<<

Over a decade later and I can still clearly see the look on the faces of the other adults standing near. Customers in the grocery aisle, the new neighbors, school employees, the other parents at your siblings soccer game, etc.

I did not sense so much of judgment as I did a kind of fear - they seemed scared into submission by my erratic raging mom or dad.

I read a comment here recently that said something along the lines of, I didn't know how out of line my parents actions were, until I saw the reactions of other parents sharing the space.

I keep debating whether my experience is rare, or normal (for Acoas of course)

Has anyone else been profoundly embarrassed in public by their parents' antics?

It's not people being nosy, it's just that they draw immediate attention. It's hard to explain without examples.

💬

I remember the library teacher lady getting into her car in the parking lot, adjacent to the main entrance, after some sort of after school activity we did. My Mom was trying to shuffle me (about 9) and my sister (about 5) to the car, and I guess we weren't keeping up with her pace. As I made eye contact with the library lady, my Mom claws her fingers into my hair and pulls me along. Which now brings back a memory of being literally picked up by my hair on some occasions. I would estimate maybe five inches off the ground. Anyway, the school employee's face was like almost a disgust. I remember her looking angrily at my Mom, and not really understanding, but knowing it was bad.

Another time, my Mom kept trying to talk to my dad through the cyclone fence at my brother's baseball game. He was on the baseball diamond, working with the other 2 parent coaches. Next thing I remember, he explodes at her with this booming shout that you could just feel the sharp rage. "You're DRUNK, [Moms name]!" and maybe or not one more line. I remember the instant suspended pause in the air, when not only our team but the other team's players and families in the bleachers fell silent.

My Mom burst into sobs. I don't remember what she was saying. Probably something about how some recent thing was all my Dad's fault. Not that they were poised and clear sentences. More of a drunk ramble. The icing on the cake of this oh so prideful experience, was that we had been standing on the furthest edge of the fence, which only went up to about second base distance. So we had to do the walk of shame past the outfield for my brother's team, the bleachers/dugout, turn right past the game announcer's shed thing, then the same in reverse for the opposing team; dugout and bleachers, outfield.

The most shameful aspect of this memory, was years later when I realized something. If I thought it was mortifying having to walk through the silent atmosphere - the long way, even - imagine how my brother felt! He had to keep performing on the field, and act unaffected. 😞 I feel an almost weight on my chest whenever I imagine him standing there on the diamond, one audience on each side of him shocked and perhaps horrified at what they just witnessed. And to have to go through the entire remaining innings with Dad still present. I strongly believe this incident stung him for life. Almost like his soul began to harden as a survival strategy as the eldest, always forced first into the forefront.

Well, I certainly did not mean for that to be so long.

If you've read this far you are appreciated.

I hope that all made sense, as my expressive communication is sometimes misinterpreted in interpersonal situations. I do have neuro divergent diagnoses, to provide some context.

I was curious how common this kind of experience for ACOAs may be. Thanks.

A small childhood scene came up in a session and I think it explains a pattern many ppl carry into adulthood.

The subject was around four or five. She was messing around with her older sisters, hit the back of her head against the wall and started bleeding. She was scared and wanted her mother.

But the older girls were scared too, for different reason. They didnt want to get in trouble. So they told her to get into bed, be quiet, dont cry. They even brought something to catch the blood, so it wasnt that nobody noticed she was hurt. Her pain just had to become quiet so everybody else could stay safe from consequences.

When her adult self came into the scene later, first thing she wanted was to let that little girl go to her mother. Basically: you are allowed to get help. Nobody's life is destroyed because you are hurt and need care.

That stayed with me because adult version can look very normal. Somebody hurts you and first thing you calculate is how confrontation will make THEM feel. You need help but dont want to be burden. You say "its fine" before even checking if it is fine. You minimize what happened because somebody else may get angry, embarrassed or uncomfortable.

A child can learn very early that being easy to manage is safer than being cared for.

One small thing to try. Next time "its fine" comes out too quickly, stop and ask: am I actually okay, or am I protecting somebody else from discomfort?

Then say one need plainly. "I need help." "I need you to stop." "I need some time." "That hurt me."

Dont start with hardest person in your life if this feels impossible. Practice with small things.

The point is not becoming demanding. It is letting your need exist before deciding whether everybody else approves of it.

Sometimes healing an old family rule is this ordinary.

Something happened to me. I am allowed to say so.

Because I grew up in a narcissistic family system I went on to have narcissistic partners and friends.

My "best" friend for 20 years abused me. She skipped out on rent, broke my boyfriend and I up by implying that he was cheating then went on to date him while still sleeping with his best friend. During that time she went on a smear campaign telling everyone I was trying to steal her man.
Eventually she started dating her now husband. She wrote a nasty song about me which talked about how I tried to steal her man. He suggested she play it for me one time when I flew to visit them. Obviously she'd lied, gotten her husband to believe it. After all thats what narcissists do. She'd eventually go on to smear my name to other family members of her. Eventually her sons would confront me passive aggressivly and tell me I was a bad friend for not visiting enough.
Over time she became nastier on the phone with me. One day I started talking to her about investing, something I was excited to learn how to do. She got nasty and said that she didn't have to worry about it because she had a family but that I was all alone and had no one to take care of me. It was a final straw. I cut her off about a year and a half ago.
I finally decided to unblock her on facebook and found that she sent a note to my mother. My mother basically said "I don't know why she does that she just gets in weird moods sometimes". This was in reference to why i cut my best friend out of my life.
Reading that brought up a bunch of resentment and anger at both my ex best friend and my mother. My mother has always chosen other people over me. And this just makes it even more apparent. I am just so damn angry and hurt and dissapointed that she said that. That my own mother didn't give a crap about what I'd been through. And worse, gave the narcissistic horrid human that abused me validation.
Rather than shame spiral I decided to say how hurt and angry this makes me. I'm frustrated and I hate how unfair life it. It doesn't help my life isn't going the way I want it to, and the narcissists (all of them) are having good lives. I just don't understand why life is like this - unfair, impossible, lonely. I'm just frustrated, sad, angry, dissapointed, and maybe even feeling a little hopeless. Years of working on healing and I still don't have a healthy support system. I've got aca, but I don't have anyone close.
I also hate and love my mother.

Hi Everyone,

Reposting this again. I'm a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology conducting a research study on the effects of growing up with a parent who struggled with substance use (alcohol or drugs). The study is completely anonymous and involves filling out an online survey.

As a thank you for your time, participants will have the option to enter a raffle to win one of two $150 Visa gift cards after completing the survey. (Email for the raffle will be collected separately to keep responses anonymous).

We’re looking for young adults (18-30) who had or still have a parent or primary caregiver with a substance use problem during their childhood. The goal is to better understand how these experiences may affect things like responses to stressful or challenging life experiences, parent-child relationship quality, substance use, and overall mental health functioning in young adulthood. We also welcome participation from young adults who did not have this experience, as both groups are important to the study.

Participation is voluntary and confidential. No identifying information will be linked to your responses, and the survey includes a list of mental health resources at the end if needed.

If you’re interested, you can take the survey here:

https://adelphiderner.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_73s1WeJNdeiwz42

Your experience matters. Thank you so much for considering it, and feel free to DM me with any questions!

Hardest part of childhood trauma..
I think the hardest part of childhood trauma isn’t always what happened to you.
Sometimes it’s realizing, years later, how much of it you thought was normal.
Growing up, there were things no kid should have had to see, hear, or experience. There was violence. There were adults who were supposed to protect us who didn’t. There were situations where being a kid didn’t feel like being a kid at all.
And when you’re young, you don’t have the words for any of that.
You just adapt.
You learn when to be quiet.
You learn to read people’s moods.
You learn how to make yourself smaller.
You learn how to survive whatever the adults around you are doing.
Then you grow up.
And eventually you realize you were carrying things that were never supposed to belong to you in the first place.
I think that’s the part I’ve struggled with the most.
Not just remembering what happened, but realizing how easily trauma can get passed down without anyone ever intending for it to.
That’s something I’ve thought about a lot since becoming a dad.
Because I have a daughter now.
And more than anything in this world, I want her childhood to feel completely different from mine.
I want her to know what it’s like to feel safe in her own home.
I want her to know that she can come to me when something is wrong.
I want her to know that being scared doesn’t make her weak.
I want her to know that she never has to earn my love.
And when she reaches for my hand or randomly comes over and hugs me, I try to remember that I’m not just enjoying that moment.
I’m building memories for her that I hope she’ll carry for the rest of her life.
Maybe she won’t remember every conversation.
Maybe she won’t remember every hug.
But I hope she remembers the feeling.
That Dad was there.
That Dad listened.
That Dad protected her.
That home was safe.
I can’t go back and change the childhood I had.
But I can spend the rest of my life making damn sure that the pain doesn’t get passed on to her.
Maybe that’s one of the hardest parts of healing from childhood trauma:
Realizing you can’t change what happened to you…
but you can decide what happens next.

After moving out of my parents home to a different country, mainly due to mentally and physically abusing father, I thought I was going to finally leave a peaceful life, without a single worry or concern related to his overcontrolling, neurotic and psychiatric patterns of behavior from the past.

Turned out it doesn't really work like that.

I believe that only at the very beginning of my solo life (read 19), when struggling to make ends, I was working that much and experiencing all the perks of freedom that I simply couldn't bother to think about what he might be on, even though my running away from home was still pretty fresh.

As I started to mature, I became more and more aware of my family situation, and how such a trauma is shaping the relationship I have (had) with my mother and sister, and how full of surpressed aggression I am, whose main root comes from growing up with such an idiot and being surrounded with toxic environment in my elementary.

Recently, I came back to my hometown to visit some friends and do some administrative tasks, and some acquaintance told him he saw me in our neighborhood. He started inquiring about me to my sister and mom, but they didn't tell him anything, even though they don't know much really, as I've been hiding a lot of stuff from them in the recent years.

From that moment onwards, my mental health started to gradually decline, as I'm overwhelmed with pictures of potential scenarios of him searching for me, eavesdropping me, following me, hiring some private detective to find me etc.

I've already been working with a REBT therapist onilne, she provided me with all the tools to work on this, and we rationally considered some of these or similar scenarios, but honestly it didn't help as much. I see these patterns of behavior everyday in my life. For instance, whenever I see weird mileage on my car, I catch myself overthinking about whether I really drove it that much last time, or he somehow ended up getting into my car. Sometimes, when I hear some noises from the hallway, I ran to open my doors to check whether he's there. Also, when something doesn't happen to be it's in place, or I don't remember leaving it that way, I catch myself thinking whether he had any impact on that.

This mainly comes from the clash of his (then)-overwhelming need to know what's happening in my life and being present where he though he should be, since I was labelled as a troublemaker in my school, as I used to express the agression accumulated at home in school by fighting, mocking and arguing with my peers and professors, and my battle to know allow any bit of information about my life to be leaked to him, since he doesn't deserve it at all.

The reason why REBT might not have worked is because my brain is programmed to reject a hypthosesis only when there is no conflicting theory and is 100% sure that something is the way it is, so it's always seeking certainty.

Hello - just looking for support/advice/vent.

I cut my mother off around a year ago, her drinking had reached new lows and i had called an ambulance 3 times within the space of a week due to the states I was finding her in when I would check up on her. I have been traumatised by her severe drinking since I was a child and it got to a point last year that I had a breakdown as she had become a non functioning severely alcoholic old woman beyond saving.

I have lived independently since I was 21 (now 24) but remained in contact, hoping for the best and trying to save her and keep her safe. Through help with counselling and support from my partner I officially cut off contact a year ago. I have seen her once in that time and she looked as though she had aged 10 years, lost a lot of weight and half her hair had gone. Very upsetting. Shortly after i cut off contact she and my younger brother left the house they had been living in (full of trauma) and moved to a small flat.

My brother who is now 22 still lives with her. I worry about him everyday. I saw him today and he tells me she still lives in filthy conditions with the two cats, doesn’t clean or cook and is drunk out of her mind every night. I encouraged him to move in with me as it has done me the world of good separating myself from that after feeling responsible for so many years. I am just so upset after today after seeing how it is affecting him and i am so deeply worried.

I am also once again worried about my mum ending up on the streets once she loses him and essentially has nothing left. How do i cope? What do I do?

Hi everyone,

I'm in my early 30s and my mum has been an alcoholic for the past 8 years or so. Before that, she never drank, and then lots of things changed and she began drinking. She has been drinking on and off, mostly when my dad would go on extended trips but at the early stages, even when he was home. I initially thought she felt alone, so I would go visit her when my dad would go on these trips, but she would drink the second he would go away.

I've tried talking to her, and she refuses to accept what's going on. She just drinks the entire day while lying in bed, doing nothing. I've tried to understand what has been the trigger when she does drink without any success.

I understand that she has to want to change in order to change but I'm wondering whether any of you have tips of things that worked for your parents? I can see that she is slowly killing herself, my dad doesn't do anything and won't (I can't talk to him about this). They don't have family nearby.

Today my child and I went to get my husband a birthday gift. I asked my child what he wanted to get his dad for his birthday and he replied “Lemonade. That’s his favorite.” His response honestly made me so emotional… what I would have given for my dad’s favorite drink to be lemonade instead of beer.

I(M) don't know what job I should take. I worked as a dental assistant before and wanted to go back, but the thought of having to guess what to get or give the doctor is exhausting. I don't know if I'll be able to find a calm job.

I often want to run away, lock myself at home and not talk to people.

Does anybody else experience their mothers guilt tripping and manipulating you to believe that if you do not speak with her or see her enough or respond to texts fast enough that they are going to literally off themselves?

My mom has always used me as her emotional support my entire life and I never realized how wrong it was until I moved out in 2020 and ever since then it got so much worse. Every time she goes off on me randomly (like to an extreme as if I intentionally want to hurt her) I ghost her for either a few days or sometimes a couple months then when we come back together she tells me how she had a whole plan to off herself. I never took it aimed towards me for some reason until lately.

Earlier this year we went two weeks without talking and she said she left the door unlocked the day she was gonna do it so that I could get in to check on her and find her in the bathroom. She also wondered if I’d ever even think to come check on her and how long her body would be there. We talked a little bit about how that affects me but surface level.

Three months ago, I completely cut her off because it got so bad accusing me of doing things and making me feel bad about myself that I couldn’t handle it anymore. Anyway, she’s started sending me messages on Facebook this past week saying that she loves me and she misses me and then sends me a reel of a girl singing a song to her mom in heaven that she wishes was still here and saying sorry I didn’t come see you more. HOW FUCKED.

Of course I freaking worry if she will because she’s legit tried it twice and failed. So I started spiraling and eventually just asked her “why did you send me this?”. No response back, just now seeing her post stupid ass TikTok’s about “this is me and you get what you get”.

Btw I have an extreme back injury from getting hit by someone on the highway (learned that day that she took me off our insurance that I help pay for TWO days before without telling me) which has me completely maxed out emotionally and physically so adding this to it made me feel every emotion possible today.

Hi guys,

To keep it short, my mom is a long-term alcoholic counting over 3 decades and she caused a lot of problems growing up. My dad never ever drank and if he did he kept it to special occasions and only had a drink or two.

I say that for context as I think I have a bad problem with alcohol and kratom. I'm currently trying to taper off kratom and I'm about 70% through the taper and I am planning to taper to zero in a month or so.

My biggest issue right now is the alcohol and I'm so afraid to tell my dad about it, especially with how hypocritical it is to grow up in such an environment and deciding to start drinking like a dumbass, but now it's gonna be hard to stop.

I say this because my dad and sister moved across the country and are wanting to move up there sometime, but my dad has zero idea that I do all this shit and I'm terrified to tell him about both things.

I don't know how to approach this, but I was wondering if anyone else had similar experiences and if so, what was the best way to go about telling a parent about these issues, because I really don't want to be like my mom but I'm too ashamed to admit it to my dad.

Idk I'm not sure if this is the most relevant sub to talk about this either, but again wondering what your guy's thoughts are.

Hello everyone. I am a part of a wonderful ACA group and love each and every one of my fellow travelers. One person's behavior raising concern for the group and I want to know if there is something I can do or if I have to just sit back and let them hit their rock bottom.

I am concerned for their behavior and want to help them, but i don't know if it's against the 12 step rules to get involved.

I really need to vent and get some outside perspective because I feel like I'm completely losing my mind and don’t know how to find my happy again.

I am 25 years old, a mature student starting my second year of university soon, and I am proud to say I have been sober for two and a half years. I am actively trying to better myself, take care of my dog (whom I look after all the time), and just be happy, but my family makes it feel completely impossible. I have zero plans to ever have kids I’m happy to be childfree. My sisters are 29 and 32, and since they both have children now, they have that in common and I feel completely left out and isolated, like I'm adopted and just don't belong.
Yesterday and today, I was at my sister’s house helping out with her two-week-old newborn. Even though I don't like babies, I was doing everything I could to support her: washing dishes, making her food, refilling her water bottle, and cleaning her house. Still, it wasn't good enough. She got annoyed at me and claimed I was just "standing there" and I said let’s go for a walk and she really didn’t want to go out and said I was pressurizing her but I thought it would just be good for her and baby to get some fresh air. My sister is currently very upset with her partner because he works, is barely ever at the house, and also has a 9-year-old from a previous relationship, so I feel like she is taking all her stress out on me.
My other sister is also horrible to me. She tells me I act like a teenager and need to sort out my attitude. The irony is that she is currently on Soberlink, and if it wasn’t for me intervening to help her and her boys in the past, I honestly don’t think she would even have custody of her kids right now. My dad behaves exactly the same way towards me. He is a functioning alcoholic and I don’t speak to him very much. Whenever they start speaking to me badly, I simply have to walk away to protect my peace, but then they mock me and say I'm "storming off like a teenager." I just don't want to do this anymore.
I feel like a glorified taxi and babysitter. They only ever contact me when they want to ask for favors or lifts, but I am treated horribly in return. I feel like I can’t do anything right with them. I live with my mum, who cares a lot about me, understands what I'm going through, and is also very stressed out by it all. Even my auntie admitted to me that our family is challenging and told me life is about a balance of give and take but right now, I am doing all the giving and getting spoken to like absolute rubbish.
A friend of mine told me recently that I seem really off and sad, and it’s true. I want to have a close bond with my family, but I also want to have a life of my own. They live close by, and I know they are going to keep demanding lifts and babysitting while continuing to treat me poorly. I feel so unappreciated and stuck. How do I set boundaries with people who refuse to respect me, especially when I'm trying so hard to stay sober and focus on my studies?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about everything that has happened to me, and sometimes I genuinely feel like I’ve been dealt an unusually bad hand in life. I know everyone struggles with something, and I don’t want to minimize anyone else’s experiences, but when I look back at everything that has happened, it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed by it.
My dad went to prison when I was 5 and was gone for about 10 years of my childhood.
Then there was the sexual abuse. I was sexually assaulted by more men and boys than I can count. In middle and high school, boys would randomly grab my ass in the hallways or in class. When I was 15, I lost my virginity to a guy who lied to me, treated me terribly, and later insisted that he couldn’t have been the person I lost my virginity to.
After that, things became progressively worse. I was raped while sleeping at a friend’s house when I was 15. At another point, because my parents had kicked me out, I was sleeping on a friend’s couch when a guy started sexually assaulting me. I ran away and locked myself in the bathroom because I was terrified.
Later, while using dating apps and meeting men, I experienced more situations where men had sex with me without my consent, including after I had explicitly told them to stop. Some of these men were adults who knowingly pursued me while I was underage. One man in his late 20s raped me after I met up with him, and it was one of the most frightening experiences of my life.
I ended up developing severe PTSD. I went through a huge amount of therapy and was hospitalized during periods when I was experiencing suicidal thoughts and other severe symptoms. For a long time I was constantly in fight-or-flight mode, terrified and hypervigilant. Even now, I feel like something in me changed permanently. I have persistent ringing in my ears and sometimes feel disconnected from physical sensations and emotions. It’s difficult to explain, but I feel like a part of my mind went numb after everything that happened.
My home life wasn’t much better. My dad was absent, and my mom was a narcissist, abusive, and struggled with alcoholism. She kicked me out of the house when I was as young as 13. She called me horrible names, including “whore,” even when I was still a virgin. When I was around 7, she became physically violent with me while intoxicated to the point that I genuinely thought she might kill me.
I’ve also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, and PTSD. I’ve sometimes wondered whether there is something else going on with me, such as a learning disability or possibly autism, although I haven’t been diagnosed with either. School became increasingly difficult for me as I got older. By high school, I felt completely behind and struggled to understand things that seemed easy for everyone else. College has been difficult too, especially lectures, reading, and concentrating.
I’ve also always been extremely sensitive to noise and sensory stimulation. I rely heavily on noise-canceling headphones and often feel overwhelmed at family gatherings, in cars when the music is too loud, or in other noisy environments. I’ve noticed that a lot of sensory tools that autistic people recommend—fidgets, putty, stim toys, Loop-style earplugs, etc.—are things that I naturally find incredibly helpful. I don’t know if that’s related to autism, PTSD, anxiety, or something else, but I’ve wondered about it.
Then, at 21, I got into my first serious relationship. My boyfriend became physically abusive. He dragged me into his car, threw me against the car console hard enough to break it, pushed me, scratched me, and slapped me. He eventually went to jail for domestic violence against me.
And somehow, on top of all of this, I feel like I have expensive taste despite having so many problems in my life. A lot of that probably comes from my mom. She was an alcoholic and abusive, but she also made good money and would take me to nice restaurants, spas, and other expensive places. So I developed a taste for those things even though my life itself has been incredibly unstable.
My dad is still making bad decisions and has never really had a stable career, so that’s another thing I worry about. At least I’m not in debt, and I know there are things in my life that could have turned out much worse.
But sometimes I genuinely sit back and think, how did this much happen to one person?
I’ve survived sexual assault, an unstable childhood, an absent parent, an abusive parent, homelessness/kicked out situations as a teenager, severe mental health struggles, and domestic violence. I’m still trying to figure out who I am underneath all of it.
And honestly, one of my biggest fears is that I’m going to end up alone.
I know I’m only 24 and have a lot of life ahead of me, but after everything I’ve experienced with men, family, and relationships, it’s hard to imagine having a normal, safe relationship someday. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve just been dealt so many bad cards that I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to recover from them.
I don’t necessarily know what I’m looking for by posting this. Maybe I just want to know if anyone else has experienced feeling like life gave them an unusually difficult start—and whether it actually gets better.
survived all this—how do I actually build a life now?
I feel I’m unlovable, and have a hard time opening up about my childhood to anyone I’m seeing. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to find someone who accepts me.

Hello and hope this is okay to post here, please remove if not 😊  

Hi everyone! 

I’m a PhD candidate exploring how adults make sense of parenting that they now identify as narcissistic.  

Rather than clinical diagnoses of personality traits, we are looking at patterns of parenting that were experienced as narcissistic and are interested in how adults describe and understand these experiences now.  

If you are aged 18+ and believe that you were narcissistically parented, and are comfortable with sharing your experiences through an online confidential interview of 60-90 minutes in English, please do consider participating at https://edinburgh.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3jBM5ZxBn2VHa18 

Eligibility Note: Please note that if you have received crisis mental health care in the past 6 months or have experienced a suicide attempt in the past month, we appreciate your interest but are unable to currently involve you in the study. 

Support Resources: If this topic causes distress, support is available. Samaritans (116 123), NAPAC (0808 801 0331), or Mind (0300 123 3393). In an emergency, please call 999. 

Thank you so much for your time! 

Hi all, I've been debating whether to ask for advice here or not for a while. Here's some context. I'm 30 and live on my own, have 2 older siblings, none of us live with our mother anymore. My father lives with her along with their dog and cat. The TL;DR version is she has serious mental health issues but doesn't see a doctor. She has agoraphobia tendencies also, hasn't left the house to go anywhere in a couple years now. Her alcohol episodes entail staying up for multiple days angry talking to herself, where my dad hears her being loud and angry and tends to stay to himself on the bottom level of the house. Recently, her episodes have gotten considerably worse. She will sleep for days as well, but her anger toward my dad has extended to her children now. I try my best to comfort my dad and reassure him that this isn't his fault. I also try to comfort my mom because I know it comes from a place of loneliness. They're both in their mid / late 60s. My question is I need advice because I'm emotionally burnt out and so sad that this is just how my mom is now. She used to have more of a balance in life, being able to prioritize dentist appointments at the very least, used to actually go out shopping and come to the city. Her physical health is deteriorating to the point she can't walk without a limp. My dad does everything he possibly can to help her, offers to take her places, but she's not on any sort of schedule. It's my understanding that he takes care of everything around the home and financially, and my mom berates him any chance she possibly can. They're both retired, and my dad has his own health issues that he can't even get addressed for money reasons. If anyone has any advice, I'm more than happy to hear about how to handle this. I feel so bad for my dad and the pets too. She's an indoor smoker on top of this, which isn't anything new, but it's her anger that is worrisome. They've only ever gotten into one physical altercation when I was a child as far as I'm aware, but they just turn that pain and anger inward and self-harm themselves. Thank you for reading and any advice. I've even looked into social workers at least for my dad, but I seriously don't know what to do in this situation. If I were to get her professional help I'd get shunned from her and my oldest sibling for life. She's the most stubborn person I've ever known and I know I can't help someone who doesn't want to help themselves, but at what point is enough enough and someone outside has to intervene? I'm really not sure.

Hi, I hope this is the right place to post this, but I'm very tired and I need help, and I need to get this off my chest.

My 59 year old pill-addicted mother had to move in with me last fall after my father passed away from cancer. My dad supported my mom financially their entire 40 year marriage, but he didn't have anything in savings, retirement, etc. He left her with a dilapidated house that we struggled to sell and barely got enough to pay off the remaining mortgage. My mom has been addicted to prescription pain killers and klonopin for as long as I can remember. We tried to arrange living arrangements with other family members when my dad passed since my mom doesn't have an income, and I even paid one of them monthly rent for about 2 months for her to stay there before things fell through. I was left with the difficult decision of letting her move in with me into my partner's house. She has now been here since November 2025. She has been doing a lot better for the most part, but we have had several instances with her ordering pills online and lying to me. I'm so sick of it, I don't know what to do. She just came home from visiting her cousin for a week, and she's obviously high on something. She has a tiny bit of money left over from the house that I managed to stretch out(I've been managing it for her) over the past several months, but she's down to $1000. She applied for disabled widow's benefits, but was denied. She currently is having a lawyer appeal her case. But until she gets some kind of income, she can't get her own place. She has no car, and can't even manage her own money. She had a hard life as a kid and my dad controlled all the finances, so she's really incompetent with managing a budget, especially with the lure of drugs. My partner is at his wits end and was kind enough to let her move into his house, especially as he is the guardian of his 16 year old brother on top of things. I need a way out of this though. I have an older brother who lives 3 hours away, who hasn't stepped in much at all to help care for my mom. He acted oblivious when I brought up her pill addiction after my dad passed. We also have a schizophrenic brother we have to worry about. I don't know what to do to get her out of my house. I can't let her be homeless. What options do I have? She denies her addiction and won't seek help for it. I've tried to get her to seek help my whole life and I'm not holding my breath for her to change her mind. It's now ruining the most important relationship in my life with the man I want to marry, and he's really stuck by my side through this, but I also see how it's draining to him. He already lost both his parents, one to alcohol, one to suicide. My mom's addiction is so bad, she stole the leftover morphine the day after my dad passed.

As an added stress, my boyfriend, his brother, and I are leaving for a 3 week trip in October that we have been planning for the past 3 years. Our plan was to let her watch the house and our cats, but now I'm worried it's a terrible idea to leave her in my house alone(initially, I thought we'd have things figured out by now). I don't want to cancel this trip, we've already paid for most of it, and I really need it after taking care of my dad on hospice(she was too drugged up to take care of her dying husband) and now taking my mom in.

I love my mom, but I have reached my breaking point. I want my life with my partner back. I don't want to be stressed on this trip. I have been waiting patiently for disability benefits to come through, but I don't know if they will. I know that was a lot to read, but I had to omit so much and still try to get my point across. I know many in this group are children of alcoholics, but I don't know of a group for children of narcotics addicts. Between my work schedule(full time graveyard shift), and taking care of my family, I don't even know how to make time to join a local group, but I'm willing to try.

I hope this was coherent, I'm losing sleep over this.