So my mum posted on reddit a few times, I don't remember if she used this specific sub or not, she def used A I T A. I wouldn't of thought of posting to reddit but she showed me her post and I really liked a lot of the responses so I thought maybe it could help. I don't think I'm allowed to post the link but her post got quite a bit of attention so some of you probably saw it. Sorry in advance for the rant, I'm still quite pissed off, and sorry that it's long.
Basically, my mum has an issue with my cousin (R - 14M) and she's managed to completely mess up his trust in me (17F) and my brother (K - 15M). R is my auntie's foster son so we're not technically related but I absolutely consider him my cousin. R, K and I are really close. R has experienced a lot of abuse and trauma in his life and he has some mental health issues but he copes incredibly well and tbh he never wants to talk about it anyway (any time I asked him he basically just laughs and says 'hell no' and I leave it alone). His health isn't great (he has anorexia and he's very underweight, I know he SHs so badly he sometimes needs stitches) he tries really hard to hide that stuff from us even though I would be really happy to support him. He has panic attacks which I'm quite good at helping him with because a couple of my other friends struggle with that too. When we hang out we just do normal stuff and talk about normal stuff, we have a lot of the same interests and the same sense of humour. Even though he's younger I seriously consider him one of my best friends.
My mum has always been massively awkward and weird around R. When she posted on reddit some of the comments were basically calling her a psychopath lol, she isn't but I can see why people would assume that from her post. Tbh she's quite socially awkward in general and I've genuinely been wondering for a while if she's autistic because she really doesn't handle social situations easily. Basically she is freaked out that R was abused and apparently she can't just treat him like a normal kid who had some really sh**ty things happen to him. She avoids him and when she talks to him it's like he's a 5 year old or doesn't speak English or something, she's so condescending. She's constantly watching him like he's a criminal or something. Every time we see him and she's not there shes grilling us about what we talked about. She's convinced herself he's going to be a 'bad influence' even though the things that happened to him weren't even his fault and he literally just wants a normal life. My dad is weird with him too but at least he just leaves him alone. My uncle (my mum's brother) is an absolute p***k, R thinks he's a creep and honestly I agree. R is triggered by older men and my uncle gets offended and won't just leave him alone.
Anyway the current issue is that R sometimes makes jokes about what happened to him. Its a really normal coping mechanism. Tbh he's really deadpan and funny and I never had any problem with dark humour, I just feel guilty because it's stuff that actually happened to him so I don't know if it's fine to laugh or I should be asking him if he's OK or whatever. Basically my mum overheard me saying this to my brother and instead of talking to me or my auntie, she went to R and basically told him he shouldn't talk about it because it 'upsets' us which is so stupid. We're older than him and what he said wasn't even bad, I've heard people our age make jokes that are a million times worse, the only difference is that he's actually been through it.
I am FURIOUS because now he thinks he was upsetting us and we told our mum instead of him. He apologised and feels really guilty and even though I explained what happened he's still really closed off and it's not the same. He didnt even do anything wrong and I'm so annoyed because I want him to be able to talk to us if he wants to. I don't know what to do to make things OK with us again. Right now he's not wanting to hang out and isn't saying much. I'm thinking of talking to my auntie but I dunno, it's basically like going to his mum. I don't know what to do about my mum either, I don't think she meant harm but I'm so angry and embarrassed about her. I've spoken to her and she's trying but she still doesn't get it and I don't know if she ever will.
How do I make things better with R? Does anyone have advice on how to be a good friend/cousin to someone with a lot of trauma? Is there anything i can do about my mum and how she treats him? It's really uncomfortable for everyone.
Tl,Dr - my mum has a problem with my cousin and did something that ruined our friendship, how can I fix it? Any questions let me know, I wasn't sure how much I needed to include.
Submitted October 02, 2021 at 12:53AM by Candykittens-04 https://ift.tt/3l2xkqP
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