To give context, because it’s important to the post, my stepfather used to sexually abuse me as a child from the ages of 3-11ish. I had blocked out most of my childhood memories for this time. He left when I was 11. He was physically abusive towards my mam and my pet dogs (I witnessed this) and verbally and emotionally abusive to me and my two older sisters (5 years separates us all) and he terrorised our family for years. My dad passed away two years ago (June 12th 2020) and that’s when things started coming back to me about the abuse. My mam is a very difficult person to be around, it seems as though her love is conditional on what you can do for her and she always makes everyone feel guilty. Anyway, I told her about the abuse and although she initially believed me and said she didn’t know, afterwards she started using the phrase “if it happened”. I know it happened. I told her this. She has paid for therapy sessions for me and I had my first one last week. My therapist says that I need to put boundaries in place when it comes to my mam and said that I have severe depression and anxiety disorder. My mam is aware of this. So yesterday I picked her up to go to one of our forced Sunday family dinners that she makes everyone go to and I’m miserable. I’m miserable because I woke up depressed and knew I couldn’t face a big family thing and that I couldn’t spend my boyfriend’s one day off work with him. So she says “what’s wrong with you, you look miserable” I told her that’s how I felt. She said “well take it til you make it”. I told her I wasn’t going to do that anymore. I drove a bit more and she said “all I want is one happy day where everyone is happy and you don’t look like you want to be here”. I was really angry with her at this point and shut down. I’ve felt terrible and depressed ever since. Why doesn’t she get it? I can’t fake it I don’t have the energy so now I feel like I can’t be around her.