Am I selfish for thinking this was neglect?

[Mado]

Okay, I just wandered on here (this will be my first post) but it looks like a safe place to talk. So, here goes.

 

I'm starting to think that as a kid I was neglected. It's not as bad as others who were neglected, I had clothes and food and a home, but my mom had really bad untreated depression and didn't do much at home. We were homeschooled and she bought our school books but didn't help us teach ourselves. We did once a month trips to Sam's Club to buy cereal, pasta and sauce, cheese, tuna, mayo and bread and that's what we ate all the time. (We kids, aged 6-9 at the start, were in charge of our own cooking.)

 

She didn't buy us clothes, we got them free from relatives and Girl Scouts and stuff. That doesn't sound that bad I know, but the things is, my dad was making 80k+ per year. Mom drove a Buick. She was given a very large stipend to take care of stuff around the house, but she poured it all into day-long trips to do genealogy.

 

Again, she had depression and while I don't entirely blame her (I was a rowdy kid and by all accounts I wore her down pretty badly), I do think that someone needed to step in and shame her into taking better care of us. My dad has since told me that the reason he took jobs with long hours and an hour plus commute was so that he could stay away from my mom.

 

So I don't know. My life hasn't been nearly as hard as many people's lives, I've never been raped or thrown down a flight of stairs or starved or anything. But I was made to feel like I wasn't worth having enough clothes to get through a week (even underwear; when I was 16 I was still wearing the bra I'd had since I was 12 because I didn't think we could afford new ones.) I feel so selfish for thinking this way, but it's gotten so bad I've been doing a hell of a lot of suicidal ideating lately (I'm talking to someone about that, no worries).

 

I'm so confused!

[Never Lost]

Okay, I just wandered on here (this will be my first post) but it looks like a safe place to talk. So, here goes.

 

I'm starting to think that as a kid I was neglected. It's not as bad as others who were neglected, I had clothes and food and a home, but my mom had really bad untreated depression and didn't do much at home. We were homeschooled and she bought our school books but didn't help us teach ourselves. We did once a month trips to Sam's Club to buy cereal, pasta and sauce, cheese, tuna, mayo and bread and that's what we ate all the time. (We kids, aged 6-9 at the start, were in charge of our own cooking.)

 

She didn't buy us clothes, we got them free from relatives and Girl Scouts and stuff. That doesn't sound that bad I know, but the things is, my dad was making 80k+ per year. Mom drove a Buick. She was given a very large stipend to take care of stuff around the house, but she poured it all into day-long trips to do genealogy.

 

Again, she had depression and while I don't entirely blame her (I was a rowdy kid and by all accounts I wore her down pretty badly), I do think that someone needed to step in and shame her into taking better care of us. My dad has since told me that the reason he took jobs with long hours and an hour plus commute was so that he could stay away from my mom.

 

So I don't know. My life hasn't been nearly as hard as many people's lives, I've never been raped or thrown down a flight of stairs or starved or anything. But I was made to feel like I wasn't worth having enough clothes to get through a week (even underwear; when I was 16 I was still wearing the bra I'd had since I was 12 because I didn't think we could afford new ones.) I feel so selfish for thinking this way, but it's gotten so bad I've been doing a hell of a lot of suicidal ideating lately (I'm talking to someone about that, no worries).

 

I'm so confused!

 

No, dont be confused, you are right, someone should have stepped in... no youre life wasnt that bad, thats fortunate though, but still, somehow she should have payed more attention to you, she should have been more of a parent to you. Dont feel selfish, you have some rights too ya know...