I have heard and seen children who were abused in their own families as children become dedicated caregivers for their parents/s. How better to show love than to forgive and to have the love they wanted as a child be given to them. It gives the caregiver a chance to have the loving family they always wanted before they loose their parent/s forever.

Unfortunately, I know some people who hardly even talk to their elderly parents because the parents abused them as youngsters. They only seem to make an effort to care for them, because they see a huge amount of money that they might inherit.

Tired1of4 - Thanks for your comments. My childhood was one some odd dysfunction, also, and when I needed help during my divorce, my parents weren't there for me...I had a good life in spite of them, and now that my father is gone and my narcissistic mother tries to reel me in, I have resisted and hired caregivers to take care of her daily needs. As her dementia progresses, she will need more care, and we (my brother lives out of state) will have to deal with getting her into an appropriate facility. Thinking of them as 'human beings who need help' is a much healthier way to deal with the problem of mental abuse/neglect, and I can't afford the expensive counselling either.. thanks.

.... continuance from my writing below. I am not going to sit here, read what is being written and diminish the devestating ugly dark "trash that happens to some of us when we are children... but I am going to grab you by the shoulders and say while looking in your eyes.."you have made it thru some of the worse things a human child can go thru and you are still standing. So I' am telling you to place what has happened where it belongs, and it's belongs behind you... you have one life on this earth, just one, and you are the one who decides how to live it. Have you choosen to live your entire and one life standing frozen in deep shock and thought because of others sick junk ....or Have you continued to live in spite of it all. I don't believe living as an adult with childhood abuse in your past is about forgiveness .. I do not. I do how ever believe it is about choosing to stop letting it define who you are, and end its defining who you are meant to be as a human spirit ... we have zero control who we are born to, but you have 100% control of who you are around when you leave that environment. In any and all events of child hood abuse, beit physical, emotional, phychological or all of the above, You have zero obligation to anyone involved with that past, but you have all the power in the world to move forward and make your life the way "you want it. In an abusive childhood past, regarding your parents and their elder care is not your responsibility. It is not. No way.

My mother married at fourteen and had me at fifteen. My father was an alcoholic who began molesting me when I was 9. My mother didn't believe me when I reported to her, and eventually blamed me that it happened to begin with. Until dementia put an end to it she was still trying to make me say it was my fault. She said so many cruel and demeaning things about me and to me that five years after her death I am still trying to forgive--and, worse, trying not to believe the bad things she said about me. My father, I have been able to forgive, because I believe it was only the alcohol that caused him to behave as he did. And at least he didn't try to blame me for the molestation. My heart goes out to others struggling these issues. Counseling helps. So does a religious faith. But it a burden that never goes completely away.

.... I believe "therapy" of a troubled past is, for many nothing more than an "over rated "very expensive" hour long verbal diary session that is then turned back around to the client through many "therapy words" that boil down to offering them nothing but to fix it themselves. ... sooo, all I would suggest to those who are already being tormented by the thought of being reigned-in to care for the very ones that caused the turmoil .. just don't. Why would you... unless you're a glutton for continual pain and psychological confusion. As others have said on here, spend your time finding someone else, or walk away entirely. If the turmoil and abuse was real, then you owe them nothing in their old age nor in any other part of their lives. You owe them Nothing. Personal experience; I was not close to my mom, I chose to leave the family at a very early age, there wasn't "abuse as others may define it, but there was some pretty odd dysfunction. I have re-entered her life and have taken care of her for the past few years ... but able to do so based on the simplist basic fact that she's a human being.. I don't view her as a "mother/parent, she didn't act like one do why would I view hyper as one... instead I view her just a human needing someone to help and direct her care for a while. Other than that as I said I don't feel or see her as a parent, and I'm able to work within that dynamic simply because I "removed the "past and "removed seeing her as a parent, and replaced it with the "present need of a human" .... the other thing I did before I started helping her, was I held and still hold zero expecations of her as a parent, zero, and that is not an exaggeration. Dropping all expectations so quickly ended all animosity and ended any "waiting for apologies and ended waiting for any typical behaviors a normal parent would be presenting. If you can do as I did, if you can remove the familial connection and view the parent only as the human to human aspect, I believe that is the only way to survive this type of situation. But if you can't, don't... it is that simple, and don't let anyone tell you it's not. You are the one that decides how you place, evaluate, and think of every thing in your life, past and present, no matter how horrific no matter how troubling. .. there are no rewards for being gen one to actually experience weird sh** that some of us go thru as children .... So you decide, and the decision is easier than what others will lead you to believe it is.. because if everyone made clean cut easy decisions, what would there be to write about? .... make a decision, and make that decision shape and conform to what you want... not to what others expect.

Very nice article. I didn't realize how many old wounds resurfaced after bringing in my mom to live with us. I am working on using this time for healing wounds that I should have let go years ago but didn't. My mom is in denial about so many things from the past. I've talked very gently but pointedly about so many issues but I suspect her mind doesn’t want to go down that painful road this late in her life. My heart cries out to so many of you because I've thought or said out loud the very same things, that others who have not walked in my shoes, would think as heartless, cruel and ungrateful. We cannot change our parents but we can and must forgive so we can be the best for ourselves and our loved ones. Jesus Christ has been my best friend through all of this.

My mother was emotionally abusive; often threatening us with abandonment at a children's home. She also turned a blind eye to my grandfather sexually abusing my sister and I. Meanwhile she touted what a great mom she was. When it came time for my grandmother to need somewhere to live she publicly took her in but then privately made her life a living h*ll. Now she is 82 and lives in our home still touting what a great parent she was, completely in denial that she was anything but kind to my grandmother, and also denies any abuse from my grandfather. She is selfish, greedy, and hates everyone and everything. There is no gratitude for her free living. She complains constantly for everything she does not have and constantly runs down whoever she can to breed discord. I have my hands full with our adult handicapped son and his needs. I spend a lot of time traveling back and forth between two states to see our grandchildren and keep our son's appointments. When the day comes that I am only in one state and living with her; I am unsure how I will manage.

greenwitch, I'm so glad that the article helped. I hope that you are doing better.
Ruth67, you did what you had to do. Sometimes people have no choice if they are to survive.
BelovedPearl, please get some professional counseling that focuses on abuse children. It will take more than an article to help.
For all of you who were abused as children, I hope that you will read through this thread. If nothing else, you will know that you aren't alone and you will also know that you aren't a bad person.
Blessings to you all. I hope that your future is better than your past.
Carol

I was abused as a child. verbally,physically,emotionally. until i was 'damaged' in my mental clarity and emotional well-being and self-esteem and dysfunctional as a person. I suffered rejection in at home and among relatives, all credit goes to her. my sister had a smooth growing up years. she was her favourite. My mom's character has changed for the better- no more hot tempered and quarrelsome. but she denied totally any abuse of me. now i am staying with her. i also love her as much as i hate this denial part of her. i get along well with her until i am reminded of this denial (damaging my self esteem which i am trying to rebuild now in my late 30s). i need a breakthrough with this stupid recurring bitterness towards her denial . can someone please offer some counselling advice. thanks...

My parents were both alcoholics and were physically abusive towards my brother and I. My brother committed suicide at 21 and I put myself through a 4 year university and was very successful. I disowned my parents who died penniless living in squalor.

How I wish I had thought to find this wonderful article when I was still responsible for my mother - I didn't think of it because I felt I must be the only 'child' in the world to be so wicked!

Mother was a narcissist - though I only realised that after she died - so everything in our relationship was about what was best for her. Part of this was a rather skewed thinking that her birth family were fantastic - so all my cousins who were born into her maiden name were wonderful - and I, bearing my father's name could never match them. (Wish we had been Jewish!!) Unfortunately one of these was in my class at school from 4 to 11 so, feeling it futile to compete with this 'golden girl' I just gave up. When I was four she pushed me down stairs because I would not give her the doll Dad had bought me for my birthday. Despite having to go to hospital to have stitches it my head, I never told mother what had happened - which speaks volumes about how I had learnt to feel at such a young age.

She didn't like me being ill - much too much bother - and anyway she had appropriated illness as her thing and used it as sword and shield throughout her life. She actually hit me for being ill, but only when we were alone of course. My developing epilepsy went undiagnosed for 5 years, but when it was her main concern was that I tell no-one. And so it went on - every crisis in my life marked by mother finding it much too stressful to deal with - even when I lost a baby, she didn't phone me once.

When Dad died, she expected me to sell my home and disrupt my husband's job, my children's schooling, my work, and all our social lives to move to an area she wanted to buy a house for all of us in which I could look after her for the rest of her life. As she was a fit and active woman in her early 70s this was not necessary. I refused. She took two overdoses - the first we discovered to have been 3 aspirin - I repeat 3 aspirin! The second a few more, but she phoned me possibly even before taking them (I only lived 5 minutes drive away). The doctor told me I should have to live with us, but I refused. The guilt from this kept me dancing to her tune for the next 22 years - the last 9 of which she was disabled.

When she was 90 she phoned me to tell me the 'golden girl' of my youth was an alcoholic. Emboldened by her fall from grace, I told mother about how she had pushed me downstairs - and mother said, "I know." She had said noting as she didn't want to upset her brother or get my cousin into trouble. Can you imagine how betrayed \I felt? Suddenly all I had 'forgotten' came flooding back.

From this point I was unable to touch her. The duty-kiss I gave her - she never kissed me - nauseated me and I stopped it, never to do it again. If she noticed she never said. I got carers in - one of whom was wonderful, and enabled me to continue festival-going with my husband - but the guilt was awful. I put so much into making her environment beautiful - I bought her treats and spent ages getting just the right thing - I did everything I could to make her life as good as possible - but I could not touch her, nor could I shed the guilt.

She was often unkind - always ungrateful. I would come home to cry and overeat. I put on weight - she told me I was fat - I cam home and ate some more! I caught every cold going, and they developed into throat infections. I wasn't well much of the time. I would wake in the night in a panic, and not be able to sleep again. I bet some of you are saying, "Me too!!"

And then, one month after I had decided that I could no longer go away and leave her to others' care - she died. The death certificate said old age. I was free - of her presence, but not of the effects of our long relationship. I could not touch her, even in death. I did not cry - not then or ever since. I had imagined I would be euphoric, dancing round singing, "Ding-dong the wicked witch is dead." but just felt indifferent.

It was 4 years ago, and only now am I beginning to feel free. I have just shed the weight - literally shedding her influence with every pound and my self-confidence is returning. I realise now what mistakes I made - the greatest of these was not telling people - but I was ashamed of having a mother who felt like that about me, taking the blame for her behaviour. I was wrong not to have sort help in self-help groups (strange when you consider I was a befriender to bereaved parents , and always thought of self-help in any circumstance.) I was silly to put so much effort into her - she didn't deserve it! But it has put me in a good position to advise others in a similar position.

Remember you are not alone - you are not bad for what you can not do, but you are fantastic for what you do. Look after yourself - it's the selfless thing to do, after all if you burn out who will care for your parent then? Find a confidant, someone you can of load to. Find someone who has trod this path before you and can tell you all those little things that ease the way. All these things and more - but most of all DO NOT FEEL GUILTY! My thoughts are with all of you still coping with this.

Wonderful article with helpful recommendations to seek help to resolve previous historical dysfunction in relationships. Parents do the best they can based on their life experiences. It's up to oneself to come to terms with how we view and reconcile the past; we do our best based on our past and current life experiences too. We can't change the past and can only change how we feel through healing. Try to forgive her for what she cannot or will not see or understand. Good luck.

It's so sad that the adult children ruin what could be loving visits to your mother-in-law. Considering your history with your mother, it would be wonderful for you to have a more loving connection as your mother-in-law's life ends. But you can only do what you can do. If your husband can help mend this, that's great but I'm certain that you've considered this possibility.

You are a remarkable person in so many ways. Consider that and just do what you can.
Take care of yourself,
Carol

My mother was abusive in all ways, don't need to elaborate. My father gained custody of me and my younger sibling when I was twelve. I did not see her. When my child was born we connected briefly, I would never consider leaving my child with her, unattended, for one second.
Our connection was brief.

When a man called several years ago and told me she was dying and wanted to see me I did go to her. I went for me, because I have to live with myself.
For some reason I have been blessed, the cycle of violence in my part of this family stopped with me, I have never been tempted to strike or humiliate my child. PTSD, anxiety, depression, they all plague me. Very frustrating and painful.
My late mother, she was smart and beautiful and crazy and mean and had accomplished many things. As she was dying I did not attempt to reconcile, what would be the point? I do not forgive her at all, I miss her very much, I miss the mother she could have been. A mother any little girl would love to have.
However, I lied. I told her I loved her (as another suffering human, this was true), and refused to discuss her sexual abuse as she meant to apologize for a very watered down version, and the thought of discussing the topic with her was revolting.
As her illness progressed, I became her mother, this she always wanted. I told her she was a good girl, and I that I knew how hard she had tried all her life and how painful things had been and how she had not had the love and understanding she needed.
Yes I did have to set limits. No I did not have to have her live in my house.
She was in very reduced circumstances. Her medicare and insurance provided for enough home health, her wish was to die at home and she did.

Now my mother-in-law is in assisted living. She has more resources and is in a very nice facility. My husband's brother and sisters and not kind to me, they do not like me. They do not like their mother either. Her facility is fairly close to me. I would go visit more, yet most often when I talk with her, a sibling, some complaint follows. This does happen to her own children too.

This triangulation I find hard to take, it hurts my feelings.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

This forum helped me to lessen the guilt I'm in.. I was 13 yr old when my father got jobless and a drug addict at the age of 14 I got boyfriend and everytime my father caught me getting home late he always beaten me that time I decided to escape out.. at my young age I learned to step on my own.. after so many years my mother couldn't take my father's laziness so she decided to leave him.. he's jobless for about 18yrs and haven't send any of us in college.. I'm 26 now a mother a wfe and a self supporting student I learned lesson from my past but I never regret being a young mother. Now my father is 52 yr old, and I decided to give him another chance.. planning to help me out because I'm a working student and my husband's salary was not that quite enough so I do get a job but my nightmare starts again.. I'm so tired of his being lazy,selfish, like he doesn't care for anyone who's inside the house. Honestly he don't have any health issues to understand why he always like to sit around watch tv,eat,facebook,and sleep.. I can't even feel his presence as a father who's concerned to his daughter getting tired from school and work.. I'm so sick of it he can still do things to make his own he's not disable or so what.. it gets to the point that I don't get peace of mind and privacy on my own apartment.. I always have sleepless night thinking why he doesn't give a damn I just want to finish studies for my daughter but how can I focus on things when everyday I was with someone who doesn't really care but his self. I was always asking myself if I was a bad daughter if I send him back home and get my normal life back cause right now I am so depressed and I don't want my own family to suffer. He is just like a king and we are his slaves he don't even helped doing simple house chores.. I'm tired of it.. he's not that old to take care of. Do I have to deal with it what should I do?Any advice would help.

Also, the therapist I had 15 yrs. ago was surprised I didn't break off contact with my mother completely. The therapist I had several years later, was the one who turned the light bulb on about my life. She told me about narcissism and that that's what my mother was. She lent me a book about it, and it described my life to a T, it was like connecting all of the dots. The only reason I kept my mother in my life was because I wanted my daughter to have her grandmother. But it's been very difficult and painful.

honor thy father and mother"

How do you honor parents who tried and nearly succeeded in stopping you having life-saving hysterectomy just because you have a disability - and then spent the next few years screaming abuse at you because you had a hysterectomy

"If our parents abused us as children, which mine did, we should not be forced to care for them in their old age."

Oh, please please, I wish that was the case! I've been expected to do all of the caregiving for my mother, while she has my siblings off the hook. I don't know what it would take to get the people around me, including my husband, to grasp how much I'm on the edge with doing so much and spending so much time with her. I don't know why "I can't take it anymore" doesn't work.

They also say that you should keep geographic distance from that parent. My mother used to live over an hour from us and now lives 5 min. away. I've been feeling suicidal, don't want to get out of bed, don't want to talk to anyone. Just feel like screaming.

If our parents abused us as children, which mine did, we should not be forced to care for them in their old age.

My parents were abusive and controlling - in my mid thirties, I got a thrashing from my now late father for wanting freedom of choice in some minor issue. My mother was also abusive and controlling - yet when dad died and mum got dementia, I was forced to go it alone with dealing with mums dementia and looking after her - to the extent of literary sacrificing my own health - I am now on a walking frame and I'm still only fifty. Looking back, I wish I did something to force the system to have mum admitted to care - like doing something not bad, but silly - silly enough to get myself into trouble with the police - just to get attention - just to get out of sacrificing my physical and mental health to care for an abusive mother

This is my second comment here. My first was about my biological mother, who pretty much decided she didn't love me (because of a tradition of bad mothering ever since a female ancestor died in 1859 and left my mother's mother's mother a three-year-old orphan etc. etc.). She made this decision when I was ten, married a malignant narcissist when I was 12 and joined him in scapegoating me for the unhappiness of their marriage. There's a one-sentence summary that took me 50 years to write. Anyway, she died in April of this year of dementia and COPD. Now I have a new problem: my husband's father's widow. A lot of personality disorders there plus drug abuse of almost every kind along with sexual adventurism... and they were born in the 1920s. In spite of inheriting a lot of money and a house that might have sold for a quarter of a million more than he paid for it, the widow is dying poor, having placed herself completely in the hands of an attorney who today denies have been her attorney or having her power of attorney for health care as of today. He denied having her POA for finances last week, but now says he did. Sometimes I wonder if he has dementia; sometimes I wonder if my husband and I have dementia too. As I write this, her personal property sits in a tarp in her backyard with rain approaching -- said attorney having moved her stuff out of the house so he can rent rooms. He's had a couple of ethical breaches under his belt, but he has been quite devoted to her, e.g. stopping by to tune her radio because she cannot all the while insisting she hasn't gotten dementia. He may feel differently now that she wants to kill him and then herself. She likes to turn on people and has accused me and may daughter of theft (along with my husband and my widowed sister-in-law). My daughter was borrowing her grandfather's CD collection to do something modern with it invovling the cloud or something. Her project was stopped with an allegation of theft, she was required to return the portion of the CD collection she'd been in the middle of recording. Now the whole collection is in the attorney's house he said last week. Some of her artwork is in the yard on bare ground. This woman had no children of her own; she sees her husband's caretakers and the attorney -- not one person without a vested interest in her life. And she's quarreled with all of her friends. She sees no one except the two caretakers who knew her more than 24 months ago! Yet she once gave parties for dozens of people on an almost weekly basis. The wine collection my father-in-law had was sold (during his lifetime) at Christies. Yet now, here she sits after a stroke with no friend but the stepson she despised and to a certain extent, the daughter-in-law she despised most. Of all the people in the world she knows, she likes my daughter's husband best. She's met him maybe six or seven times, but he's young and attractive. He's a wonderful husband and father, but that's so unimportant to her. My husband and I are pretty much powerless, so we have gotten Adult Protective Services involved. The widow had a stroke in May, and this attorney took almost a week to get her to a doctor, denying all the whilte that she'd done more than fall. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T MAKE GOOD FRIENDS OF YOUR FAMILY or if impossible, GOOD FRIENDS ANYWHERE. Friends are like money: bad friends drive out good friends just like bad money drives out good money. Now I am really scared of getting old myself. Really scared. I don't even have a will or a DNR or anything. I feel panicked and paralyzed and the Adult Protective Service social worker assigned to the widow's case is dragging her feet.

Thank you, womenofGod. This seemed to be an important topic to address. I wrote the article a few years back after hearing so many heart-wrenching stories about adult children in this situation and their personal agony. The people who've commented have underscored the need for a discussion like this and a safe place for people to share their stories.

Take care of yourselves - all of you.
Blessings,
Carol

I want to give a heartfelt thank you for this subject. I am caring for my mom who I do not trust. I don't believe that she ever protected me. My father was sexually abused with me as a child. I always believed that my mom knew what he was doing. After my father died my mom remarried and her new husband was verbally abusive to me and my mom never said a word. I have had a lot of counseling and I am a believer in Jesus Christ. I am here because I do believe God wants me to be here. I love my mom but don't really like her. I gave up my life to take care of her. I will protect her and take care of her as long as I can. I have been a caregiver for the last 7 years in Private home health care and assisted living. I am currently one of the only people that my mom's husband did not manage to push away. I am learning a great deal about forgiveness, it's the forgetting part I am having problems with....

Children of abusive parents have to decide for themselves how best to handle end-of-life issues. I'm glad for you that you were with your mother at the end - for your sake. That's the only point of forgiveness (not forgetting), as well. It's for the adult child's sake. This can take a lifetime and often never happens. That, too, is okay.

Forgiveness is simply meant to release the abused person from the grip of the abusive parent and certainly doesn't mean forgetting. That would be impossible for most people.
You are courageous.
Take care of yourself,
Carol

My mother was violent and more, she left completely when I was twelve. I did
go to her when she was dying, and I am glad I did. But simply "forgiving" is false, and I assume most of us understand intellectually our horrid parents had a tough time of it as children too. I found that I did not want to delve into the past with a dying woman, and so I chose to express love to her as if she were "any woman." I did not discuss the past with her, this prevented her from minimizing the harm she did. It also kept me from having to have a painful discussion, having to hurt a dying woman. Now I was not living with her, so that made it easier. To summarize, it was very painful, it would have been worse in my situation not to go. However, to live with her would have killed me. I am the one who did a bad job of describing my current situation to the group, caring for, only partly, my mother-in-law. Life is not fair, is it? My mother in law is in a lovely residential place, each person has their own apartment, while her own house is being renovated. Her two sons, as I said, live closest, my husband about an hour and 1/2 away, her other son about 1/2 hour away. Both sons are doing so much, and I am too. Both sons are professional men re-building their lives, and this is very hard on them. She does have the four daughters, one calls to give lists of what we should do, and the others are completely uninvolved. My husband has a hero thing going, and he will impoverish our family before asking for help. This frightens me, it is a pattern. When my own mother died, his family did not say a word to me, no condolences at all. So it is rather difficult for me to not say something to the sisters. It effects me directly, this selfishness. They had a mother growing up, not a perfect mother, not a bad mother either. As others have mentioned, finances do come into play. Only so many hours in the day.

It is a mirrir of my life. Only, I am caring for both parents and can't work so my future is in the toilet as I am 47 with a disability.

I'm so sorry for all you've been through, Allison. Don't be too hard on yourself. You've done more than most could do in such a situation. Continued counseling and prayer plus the love and help of your amazing husband are all positive things in your life. Eventually forgiveness may come, but you'll never forget.
Blessings,
Carol

The toughest part for me is knowing, from the moment i was born, that my mom didn't want me, made it clear to me that she didn't want a girl, and did every thing she could to make my life hell - abusive mentally, emotionally, physically, and covertly sexually. I had no idea what reality was. Female friends would say their mom was their best friend....it was beyond my comprehension...fast forward to 7 years ago... she fell and needed help so i had to come to her rescue. My golden child brother has done nothing except to tell me i am doing every thing wrong, or rather, not to his standards. Unbelievable. He can rot. My amazing, loving husband, helped me for 2-1/2 years, to clean out her unbelievably hoarded house, refurbish it to rent, and continues to help me in all ways - we have done everything while mom sits all happy as a giant clam without a worry in the world over in her asst'd living place. Her money is beginning to run out due to her having spent hundreds of thousands of $$ over the last 80 years on complete junk. i have gone to a great therapist for years now. it does help. every day i pray for peace of mind and sanity. i try to rise above it all, but i have the worst time trying to do so. that "honor thy father and mother" statement doesn't sit well with me. my dad died in 1999 and i do miss him. i did ask him before he died why he didn't get mom some mental illness help. he told me that he hadn't known what to do. i understand, because back in the 1960's and 1970's most people didn't know how to handle that sort of situation. but....that doesn't make me feel any better. that goodness i have my husband, grown son, and a group of loving and supportive friends. i wish i could impart some advice, but i feel incredibly resentful, and that 7+ years of my husband's, son's and especially my own life, have been robbed. i really do feel sad for adult children who are forced to take care of parents who have been nothing but abusive towards them. i understand the situation logically but feel it may take years before i can accept it emotionally. i am doing my best to understand and try to forgive. love to all who read this.

The people who commented here should look at what they expected of themselves as parents compared to what they got from their own parents. I know my borderline/narcissistic mother did. She said "I am surprised at how much you care for your children, but you had them when you were older and they were so beautifull. I was young and expected to have other children." I am the only child who failed. to my sorrow and cost, to measure up to her fantasy of what my unborn siblings could have been. In weak moments, I wonder if my life would have been different if I'd been a better looking and talented boy instead of an unattractive little girl -- but I wonder that ONLY in weak moments. I am so much better off than many of the people who posted because my mother emigrated when I was 25 and has lived out of the country for over 40 years. She is being cared for by her last life partner who treats her as the love his life even though they were almost 80 when they met! So unattractive and female as I am, I have been at least lucky. I just wanted to say to the people who commented that the guilt and anguish over the fate of negligent, cruel or abusive parents seems so sad, as though by sacrificing one's own present, the past could somehow, like a piece of clay, be remolded into something less ugly than it was. The kind of parents so many describe left you to the social safety net (which I doubt they contributed much to), and no one should blame you for leaving them to the social safety net as well. As for siblings: if they were golden children while you were the scapegoat of the family, then they should be the one to pull the mother or father out of the social safety net and into their homes. Try to save yourself. Do not explain or apologize. Just be quiet and let others step up. Don't volunteer. You're not going to heal yourself by sacrificing your middle age and old age on the altar of your unhappy childhood. You'll almost certainly feel worse.

I too have to care for my abusive mother and she favors my younger sister. I do it all, and she gives me no respect or appreciation but just grief. She sends sis money any
time she asks- I am slightly miffed and resentful to say the least...I am tired of her abuse...sandiw50