I am going through my mom’s things. I was surprised and hurt to find a printed email to her best friend from November 2025 saying that I didn’t show affection. She needed to be seen as the victim. In the email, she said Margit was Lisa-like. She wrote: “she can be nasty and mean and also helpful and thoughtful.” I finally met  Margit, who had quiet tears she kept wiping as we talked about my mom. Margit helped me when I was overwhelmed packing up my mom’s things. Took the books and returned them, gave some away. Took items to Grey Bears. She was a dear. So this was the ogre. 

My mom had characterized her husband Bob’s kids as not being involved or caring about their dad. This seemed a bald-faced lie. They constantly visited him, included him in their lives and invited him to visit.  When  I was packing up her things at Domincan Oaks, a resident said that Bob’s kids were not nice to my mom. They had included her, invited her, were kind to her for the entire relationship with their dad. What more could she have wanted?  

She would demonize me to her friends, my step brother, the people who treated her with kid gloves. Most of my life, so did I. But at some points in my life, I had the gall to share my pain.  In the recent past, since Covid, I was very careful not to express anything other than complete appreciation.  Fearful that my feelings would cause her to jump. Literally. 

While cleaning out my mom’s things, I ran into Sandy, whom I’d met on other occasions. She cleaned my mom’s apartment weekly, and related how cheeky my mom was. Your mom swore like a sailor, saying “that bitch will get everything”. About me. Ouch. I certainly didn’t want her money, or her stuff. I spent my life being okay without that.

I was her go to when she was severely depressed. She would sob and say how she wanted to jump out of her skin. Then I would hear how she characterized me, as not showing I cared, as being harsh like her older sisters. No acknowledgment of the weekly visits, the hours of work on the things she told me needed fixing, not asked. It was assumed that I would help. What would have happened if I’d stopped. I at least would have had more peace, less anxiety. 

Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to be anything other than effusive and unconditional in my love for her. I wrote the most beautiful sentiments in the cards I made her. Over and over, saying how wonderful she was. I was not allowed to say anything critical. I knew that. So when I finally started seeing a counselor in my late 20’s, I was blamed for causing her depression. Sorting her papers, I find the following history of depression that she had written. My responses are in italics:

August/September 1990: Severe depression. Suicidal. Hospitalized twice. Triggered by problems with daughter who came (she invited me – I wanted to stay in SC living in my friend’s garage, which I enjoyed very much) to live at home. (Note, she needs to be the victim. Can’t say she strongly invited me to live with her because I was working for her at EMCON Associates). Mom continues: She was openly hostile and doing “rage” therapy (I was doing co-counseling. I don’t know what rage therapy is). Lashed out at me for the pain of her childhood (I was seeing a counselor who said you should not be having to counsel your mother, to listen to her about her relationships, her depression, her hatred of work, etc. I did not want to say anything like that to my mom for fear of her anger and pushing me away, abandonment and rage on her part. This is what she did when she didn’t like that I opened up about my feelings and the pain I experienced. That was not okay with her). My mom continues: I let her walk all over me (an incident I remember clearly during this time. My boyfriend had broken up with me. I was shattered. I was crying in my room. My mom asked what I was feeling. I said I feel all alone. She said that’s bullshit. And walked out. In her mind that qualifies as me walking all over her.)  My mom continues: Eventually I pressured her to leave (while I was crying, broken hearted, about being left, she told me to get out of the house. Said hearing me cry made her feel horrible and remember her father coming home crying. I drove away and almost had an accident, I was so upset. A week later she told me I had to leave, and that she would change the locks. It was near my birthday. I was so hurt. I said, I’m so sad you can’t trust me. I worked day and night to learn how to speak my feelings so she would hear me. Instead, she characterized me as abusive when I was owning my feelings.)

I moved her in. After her death, I moved her out. She always wanted to prove she could do everything on her own. Didn’t want help. Yet regularly asked me to help. Couldn’t figure out computer. I have been helping her since 1998 with the computer and printer and email and phone and messages and…

While moving her in, I say I think she should get a queen size bed, not a full. I measured the room and said there’s enough room. She starts sobbing, walks out, shouting. Shawn comes over and gives her a big hug, glares at me, and walks out. Spends the next few hours sitting outside not helping with any part of the move. I am exhausted. I finally ask why. He says I made my mom cry, I imposed my will upon her. This is how all my mom’s allies see me. She carefully constructs an image of the mean sister who is judgmental and critical, and herself as the innocent victim. It seems m step brother also has this image of me. Has no idea I have spent what would amount to solid months of my life, listening to and supporting my mom. Emotionally talking her down off the ledge. Every time. Kind, thoughtful, compassionate. Something you wouldn’t think possible reading her view of me. No idea of the hours spent fixing her passwords, getting her computer fixed, her printer, all the things she continually asked me to do. Running her Airbnb, buying supplies, responding to guests, trapping rats, cleaning, weeding. The list goes on. Yet there is no acknowledgement, no credit given. 

I had dinner with a family friend who had been close to my parents. During our meal, the subject of parenting styles came up, and I said that I was often on my own and a latch key kid. She said that my parents would leave me asleep in our VW bus when they would go to jazz clubs in SF. This confirmed a lot of what I felt. I asked my mom about the incident (s), not in an accusatory way, and she said he was livid and called Rene, telling her she was no longer her friend and castigating her with words. Rene was very hurt. My mom told me she was proud of her anger. Better than being depressed. 

I had told her several times I didn’t want to go on the tour of Morocco.  She had booked the trip without telling me. She tried to book a trip alone but they wouldn’t let her go. So she signed me up as the primary traveler and then told me about the trip. Up until the day of the tour, I had misgivings. The night before, I couldn’t sleep, feeling haunted by fears about the trip. I told her that morning. She said she was going anyway. If I had put my foot down, she would have held it against me for months, maybe years. Probably till she died. I was terrified of being abandoned by her again, the fear of never getting the love I intermittently received. Like the rat who sometimes gets rewarded, I kept pressing the bar. Hoping that this time, there would be a sweet.