Is it healthy to not have a relationship with your mother?

Recently I have begun to question why I have a relationship with my mother. I never had the greatest of childhoods but who did really? My father was an alcoholic, he abused me physically and emotionally. He cheated on my mom with my best friends mother (I was 8 at the time) while we were staying at their place. When I was 13 his bestfriend (My uncle) passed away from a heroine overdose, this prompted him to leave my mother and I. He never paid childsupport or attempted to form a relationship with me, till this day we do not talk at all. The residual effect of him leaving was that my only family in the city and the surrounding area (all my mom/dad's side of the family lived on the opposite side of the country) was my mother. I was then put as the man of the house, now this might seem like a kinda faux role for a 13 year old to have but believe me it wasn't. My mother had cancer twice by the time I was 13, she had a stroke as well as several auto immune disorders such as lupus and shingles. Now this resulted me in skipping many days of school to take care of her. Throughout this time she was happy we were very financially secured and it looked like things were looking up. Fast forward till i'm 19, I had just finished my 1st semester of Sophmore year at a top school in my field of study (Kinesiology) and had just come home for winter break after exams. My mother picks me up from the airport to ask me how my exams were directly followed by explaining how she had a heart attack several days ago to my dismay. But there was another problem at this time that I wouldn't learn about till much later. During winter break nothing seemed out of the ordinary, I was doing my best to aide my mom with my recovery but one dreadful night everything changed. I had just come home from the 19th Birthday (New Years Eve) and my mother decides to drop a bombshell. She informs me that she had been scammed out of all of our money, that I had to drop out of school and work to provide for the both of us. Now this destroyed me mentally, I was so very very lost. I was angry I was sad I was confused all at the same time, I had gone from not worrying about money a day in my life to being in poverty. My moms brothers decided to come to support my mother during this time. One of which who had moved to the city I was living in around the time I was 16 but never had a relationship with up until this point. Now one of my uncle's in his infinite wisdom declared 'Don't go running your car off a cliff now, we're gonna help you the best we can'. Shocked and dismayed I accepted the fact I had to give up all my dogs (including the puppy i had just adopted while i was in University0 and gave up the house I lived in to move into a 1 bedroom apartment where I was going to sleep on the couch. Now this didn't bother me TOO TOO much, although I was frustrated I understood what had to be done. Now during this time my mother was a mess, you couldn't talk to her at all. She was being incredibly irrational shopping at Whole Foods while we're 100k in debt. She is not working at this time and has no source of income. She was buying all these expensive foods and going to movies with friends while i'm jobless just having to drop out of school with 0 money depressed as hell. She had started getting into something called 'Energy Work' and would say thing's like 'The Mercury Retrograde is effecting the electronics so don't worry about the internet speed'. Now this is extremely strange after she had just lost all of our money to one of these 'Energy Workers'. She wasn't getting any professional mental health like my uncles had promised her and was/am generally concerned about her mental health. Since moving to the apartment my mother just sits inside all day and doesn't do a thing. She doesn't work, she lives off the 1k my uncle gives her a month for food and living expenses. She pays 250$ on cable leaving me to pay for my own food and gas while having to work full time to support the family. During this time she is unbearable to live with. If i leave a glass of water on the counter she would literally nag me every 15 mins to put it in the dish washer then explain how i'm a horrible son for not doing so. She won't ever let me have any friends over to the apartment and does dishes at 5am in the same room i'm sleeping in waking me up every day. After confronting her about this all she says is 'too bad'. Now my mom and I because of this often get into arguements and I won't lie when I get in heated fights I sometimes say things that I don't mean such as 'Why aren't you doing anything with your life' or 'You aren't the mom that I used to love'. Now to me these are harsh words but it's true. Once i confronted my mom without any anger without any hostility and simply said 'Mom I just really miss the old kind you, I loved the way you were mom so positive and being able to brighten my darkest day.' she replied to this with 'I am who I am today and i'm not changing'. Now during these fights she would always talk to my uncle about them telling him about how disrespectful I was. I didn't develop a relationship with my uncle until i was 16, at this time he was a erotic photographer and we barely had any common interests so we didn't often spend time together. Although my mother and him spent loads of time together. I once voiced my concerns to my mom saying 'If you keep complaining to him about me he's going to hate me'. I said this because he was essentially being forced fed 1 side of the story while having no knowledge of the dynamic I was living in. Now as of recently my mother informs me that this same uncle has Pancreatic Cancer and has a year to live. This news saddened me to no end but the next day my mom tells me she's looking at real estate open houses... Fast forward to today my uncle, mom and I were at the insurance place to renew my car insurance because my uncle kindly offered to renew it for me. At this time as a gesture of goodwill wanting to support my uncle for all he did for my mom and I through this difficult time offered to grab him w/e food he wanted and come to his place to watch a football game. He said no and told me to talk to him outside, I exit the leasing agency and meet him on a crowded street. Once I'm on the street he says 'Look I don't respect who you are as a person and I don't want you in my life. I heard about Mothers day from your mother and want nothing to do with you. You have anger issues and mental health, if you ever disrespect your mother again you have to deal with me'. He then walked away, this was the first time I had seen my uncle since May.Previously I may have seen him 2-3 times since September. My mother during that conversation didn't say anything, didn't say anything while he's yelling at me on a busy street. I simply caught up to his while he walked away and just said 'Thanks for everything that you do for me and my mother' and stuck out my hand he shook my hand and walked away. I then receive a text from my mom meant for her friend essentially saying that my uncle chewed me out and that if i ever say anything that bothers her that I have to deal with him. This is the main focus of this piece I don't know what to do. My mother has medical conditions this is a certainty but my mother is being extremely abusive to me. Some of my friends that Iv known 10+ years can't stand to be around how she is now, my girlfriend feels uncomfortable with the way she treats me. Everyone is telling me to move out (although real estate is very expensive in my city) and get away from her. But at the same time she's my mom i'm supposed to love her right? That's where i'm confused, the person she is right now isn't my mom. Today I didn't go home and she never texted me where I am or what. Her attitude towards me is like i'm just a problem to her. Now in my youth I had a dad who would tell me weekly he hated me and wished I was never born, now I have a mother who acts like i'm nobody. I really don't understand what to do anymore I feel that distancing myself from my Uncle and my Mom is best for me mentally. I feel way happier when i'm away from them, i'm less stressed as well. The reality is I have to make a decision for myself coming up if I want to have family or not. Honestly i'm leaning towards having nothing to do with my family, none of my uncles who said they were gonna 'help me' ever email me back or comment when I send them flowers for Christmas. I essentially must decide to give up on the old things i'm familiar with for a new future that's scary. I was wondering if anybody had any advice they'd be willing to share, i'm open to w/e at this point! I just really want my life to improve and i'm feeling that I might have to give up on family to improve it. Thanks for dealing with my wall of text and hope everybody has a great week :)

1. Get you mother to a psychiatrist. You talk to the psy. first, and asked if you can have her declared mentally incompetent. 2. Maybe see a lawyer about getting her declared mentally incompetent. 3. Get yourself to a good psychologist and ask if it's OK if you leave all of that and strike out on your own, which you may not be able to do with little ed. and funds. But at least it can be a goal. My mother was wacko, she was sexually abused, and was wacko, out to destroy her kids like she was destroyed. 4. So, you need to get away from your mother. You need to stay positive, and just slide out the door and let them hold it. Can you get a job and self-support? Get a job, get some money, and get the hell out of there and declare victory. 5. You've done very well to survive to this point. If you've made it to this point, maybe you can get the hell out of there.

Question: Is it healthy to not have a relationship with your mother? Answer: It depends entirely on the mother and the quality of the relationship (or, your case, lack of). We don't get to choose our family, we're dumped into it and have to make the best of it until the day we can strike out on our own/escape. If there's no 'best' to be found, through the fact that the individual(s) are at a point in their lives where they're not one iota concerned with what's best for anyone, least of all themselves, then - take my word for it: you will *definitely* be *markedly* happier if you leave. No question about it. Because having "a" mother in your life cannot compete in terms of 'weight' with having a life in your life. In other words, some people don't even have parents yet manage to live perfectly happily, WHEREAS, the same cannot be said for those that have nightmare parents doing all they can to ensure their days are taken up with AND THEIR COURAGE AND RESPONSIBILITIES constantly shoved to the back of the queue using constant self-created drama. Stay with your girlfriend, stay with friends, find whatever way you can to get out of that toxicity. Where there's a will there's a way. For the first few days or weeks you'll experience a surge of immense relief and liberation. After anywhere between about 3 days to 2 weeks, a period of emotionally detaching/grieving will take hold. (This might well be surprisingly brief in your case, considering you sound very much like you've been grieving whilst still *in* the relationship and, indeed, are still in the midst of it as we speak). Then follows a new found sense of mental weightlessness and serenity (those brief little windows you've been getting a taster of) plus a new attitude of seeing her as rather pitiable, finding you can understand WHY you do and thereby ceasing to take personally her misery made manifest towards those closest and most conveniently to-hand, including whomever is foolish enough to put themselves firmly into her cross-hairs. Basically your mother's chronic confusion, frustration, bitterness and misery has finally caught up with her, whereby she's 'kicking the cat'. When people hit that first, critical level of frustration/misery thus lose their normal degree of self-containment/control, they look for the most loyal of cats, those least likely to reject or give them a wide berth (you). The cat's love for them is taken for granted as unconditional thus poses as insurance against loss of that individual no matter what. Hence the saying, 'You always hurt the one you love'. Once the nearest and dearest start to avoid contact for mental welfare-preservation reasons is when the wider circle and then anyone outside of the family circle starts to become fair game. (However, as for this type of clash: "If i leave a glass of water on the counter she would literally nag me every 15 mins to put it in the dish washer then explain how i'm a horrible son for not doing so." Aside from her over-reaction, this type of clash is fairly standard even in healthy households so has nothing to do with those aspects of your story that count as bona-fide emotional abuse/manipulation. Suggest you start being more mindfully tidy for a (somewhat) quieter life, given that you already know what pushes her extra buttons.) However, people go through phases and then often, however much later, come out of them, back to their old or intrinsic selves (it depends on the person's deeper down strength of character and resilience), replete with befitting remorse on their part. So you don't have to see it that you're rejecting her from your life Forever Amen. You can view it simply as you taking a well-earned holiday, for the non-complex and very sensible reason that having regular contact with her doesn't enhance your life or sense of self any; in fact, the opposite. [1] You can't help her. [2] She refuses to help herself (instead deliberately creating battles with people in a bid to avoid facing reality, responsibility and all-round acting her age). [3] Her family effectively refuse to help her in any way that's actually USEFUL, by pretending to prefer to swallow surface explanations whilst doing nothing but lazily throwing cash at the problem, than taking the time and mental trouble to get involved via proper investigation (meaning, her brother has *earned* the fact she'll start targeting him once you're away). [4] You being around her achieves nothing but giving her a target, thereby 'feeding' her problem. And [5] she does the distinct opposite of enhancing your sense of wellbeing and quality of life. All in all, then, it looks as if the question should be, 'Would I be a self-disregarding masochist to continue involving her in my life and vice versa?', the answer patently being, YES. Staying is achieving worse than nothing. In actual fact, that you're even seriously having to ASK the question in the first place is all the answer in the affirmative you need (think about it!). (You should also give this uncle a wide berth because, him offering to pay for things on your behalf is his irresponsible, sneaky way of bribing you to stick around and remain her first-choice kicking cat.) Here's the good news: If you can quietly and calmly ostracise your own mother (and all who sail in her) - irrespective that it's your only healthy, sensible, self-respecting option - thereafter you'll find yourself capable of standing up for yourself or making a stand for your principles against ABSOLUTELY ANYONE OR ANYTHING with just the tiniest flick of your hand, so to speak. Again - think about it! That you've all this time never dared to do so (albeit were an abused child, therefore incapacitated - meaning, never got the chance to learn how...until now) is precisely why - in the context of life's phases and events serving to highlight ones lack of mental skills - you've finally found yourself with a whole curriculum-ful of lessons in one go...lessons called 'how to put on your own oxygen mask in order to be capable of helping others on with theirs' - as normally would have got tackled in spaced-apart morsels. In other words, your hands were unacceptably too full as well as too tied, back at the time. It not's your fault. However, that doesn't stop the fact of life lessons and exams still demanding to be taken and passed. Anyway, there's no better or worse between baby-steps and an all-in-one leap because, like anything in life, each has an equal amount of pros and cons - comme ci, comme ca, as the saying goes. It's just what it is... although usually 'what it is' happens to "magically" suit some later, obviously currently unforeseeable and un-envisageable life demand or challenge. What I'm saying is that ONE day you will look back on this point where you gathered up the courage to run this particular gauntlet and be supremely grateful for the opportunity it gave you to gain an HIGHLY 'life-saving' skill. I repeat: if you can refuse to take any more nonsense from your very own mother by creating space between you both then no-one else will ever be capable of getting the better of you in that way! You won't get a *paper* certificate from having passed that University Of Life degree with Distinction, but you'll definitely FEEL it - in the form of a FAR greater sense of self-confidence, interpersonal power and capabilities - whereupon you'll appreciate the truth in all I've just said. My advice on the practical side of things agrees with Susiedqqq's: Find whatever way you can to take off and be independent on your own (which - on your own - YOU ALREADY ARE, in case you hadn't noticed?) AND MEANWHILE make an appointment to confide about her steady deterioration in behaviour to her doctor (or yours). Since her family sound like lazy-minded or emotionally thick, brush-it-under-the-rug, chocolate teapots, this course of two-pronged action would be you doing your mother the greatest favour she could ever (or in her case, couldn't/wouldn't ever) ask for. Ever. Once you adapt to living on your own or just not with her, I guarantee you'll LOVE IT with a capital L and probably curse the past fact that you were too young and mentally busy to do have done it before today. Your alternative is to get everything ready and in place with regards to leaving, and then announce that if she refuses to have a proper, sit-down discussion about all the whys and wherefores of how she's been for so long behaving towards you, you are out of there - faster than she can say, 'Bathroom's free!'. That way, you'll MEAN it and she'll be able to pick up on that and, hopefully, respond sensibly and cooperatively. If she doesn't - there's your answer with zero room for any uncertainty. Win/Win. PS: I don't believe she had a heart-attack. Some professional - either hospital or police - would have got in urgent contact with you if she had. PPS: Do you, by any chance, these days resemble more your father or your father's side?