So this is kind of long, because I’m looking for advice but also looking to get a lot of this off my chest because it’s weighing so heavily.

Since I was a teenager I’ve always had a somewhat difficult relationship with my mom and family. They’re all very outgoing, loud, dramatic, kind of over the top. They used to try out to have a reality show. Meanwhile, I’m more reserved and focused on doing my own thing. I’m not huge on attention from random people (not to say that I don’t love being silly and outgoing as well, I just feel like there is a time and a place and you don’t need to be shocking just for the sake of it). Because of this, I’ve been called stuck up, no fun, think I’m too good for everyone, etc. I’m not, I just honestly have always focused on doing me and achieving my goals rather than the drama.

As the sort of the typical eldest child outcast, I’ve grown up with a lot of guilt. My mom met my biological dad when she was 20. He was a heroin addict, and she loves to remind me how she sacrificed her entire life for me and my sister. The story of my birth I’ve heard since grammar school is how she was in an abortion clinical and changed her mind, walking out screaming “No one is taking my baby!” I used to love this, but as I got older it was just another way she could show I am a burden. My dad now (they met when I was like 4, my bio dad died of an overdose year before) loved to say how I owe her everything, how it’s my fault she had to steal when I was an infant to feed me and my sister, etc. This just sort of sets the scene of a lifetime of being made to feel guilty for being alive. For needing a ride to school. For wanting a birthday party. For wanting to look at colleges while my mom was busy with my other younger siblings. Just little things adding up.

I made it my mission to be as independent as possible so I could take off some of the burden from my parents, and to relieve some of my own guilt for being a “burden” and for being different from everyone. But again, this was seen as not being family oriented, thinking I’m too good, etc. I’ve been able to put most of it aside. But now I’m 31 weeks pregnant and it’s coming to a head.

My mom is in a bad place. My dad hasn’t had a job in YEARS, finally tried to get one the past year and randomly quit again. He and my mom have a lot of excuses for why he won’t find another one. She’s resentful because she’s raising my niece. She’s resentful because they don’t have money (but also spent the last paycheck my dad was getting from work on a vacation). She’s resentful that I got to have a wedding and my pregnancy without having to worry about other kids, like she did since she had my sister and I first. And I really was sympathetic, but now she’s been taking it out on me.

She says she has no time or money, so I offered to plan and pay for most of my shower so she wouldn’t have to. I did, and she has complained that I’m taking everything over and at the same time she doesn’t have time to do the things she insisted on doing. She says she’s upset she can’t go on vacation for my dad’s birthday because she has to wait for the baby to come (they don’t have money anyway, this isn’t the case). Was mad I said I wouldn’t watch my younger sibilings and niece a week after giving birth because of said vacation. Just again making this whole pregnancy a burden, when I’ve asked her for nothing.

The final straw was this week. I have PCOS, so I’m overweight. Nothing crazy, but def pretty heavy. She’s been saying since day one how big I am, how my stomach is huge how the baby is likely too big etc. I’ve worked so hard to not gain too much weight, stay healthy, etc. I was feeling really good bc I was only up 15 lbs and the weight was mostly in my stomach. But she’s destroyed that. I used to have an eating disorder (she briefly knew about this toward the end, after two years. Yelled at me in the middle of my brother’s football game in front of all these random people, never mentioned it again, and has the nerve to complain now how she “got me through my eating disorder” when she didn’t know the half of it, only had to address it once). So I don’t get why she’d say these things to me. My husband is furious, my self esteem is shattered.

I sent her a text asking her to stop, telling her out it hurt, etc. she only wrote back “Sorry you feel this way.” She’s now icing me out. Talking about me to my family telling her version again of how I’m a stuck up and sensitive bitch. I just don’t know what to do anymore. Has anyone else dealt with a mom like this? It’s just getting so hard to keep dealing with the guilt and anger. And I’m upset that even my pregnancy could be used against me like this. There’s more this is just already so long. I just don’t know what to do anymore.