When a 16-year-old’s mental health struggles clash with her father’s and stepmother’s denial of her past, she erupts in a screaming match to make her point.

Her demands for acknowledgment and understanding create a family drama that has everyone reeling.

Read on for the story.

AITA for screaming at my father and his wife and refusing to stop until I said what I needed to?

I (16f) live with my father, his wife, my two step siblings and half sibling. My parents divorced when I was 3 and I last saw my mom when I was 6.

She lost custody of me because she’s mentally ill and her whole family is. My father was awarded primary custody of me which became sole custody over time. I really only remember one visit with my mom and she was really sick.

We know her parents, her four siblings and her all suffered with their mental health and likely the same one. It’s also believed her great grandparents were mentally ill too but she never knew them. I never knew anyone in her family.

Sounds complicated.

My father and his wife met when I was 5 and we lived together when I was 6 and they got married when I was 7. She wanted to adopt me but I said no. My mother pays child support and has never missed a payment according to my grandpa.

My father and his wife like to ignore my mental health and the family history and genetic component to mental illness.

They like to pretend my father’s wife is my mother and they don’t want me talking about my mom. I still do. It pisses them off.

Yikes.

I bring up the mental health reasons and they tell me nurture is more important than nature. They tell me I’m disrespectful dismissing my father’s wife’s influence and place in my life and how I have two parents in my home. I shouldn’t wonder about someone who didn’t love me enough to get herself together.

I told them mental illness isn’t that straight forward and they told me to “focus on my real mom” meaning my father’s wife.

I don’t call her my stepmother because of how dismissive she is about my mental health. Same reason my father is my father and not my dad.

That’s deep.

My grandma never liked my mom so she’s with them. But grandpa is on my side. He also kept in touch with mom secretly and checks in on her.

I know I’m mentally ill. I already have some stuff going on. I told my father and he brushed it off as me imagining things, which I said yeah, and that’s my problem. But he doesn’t want to hear it.

His wife doesn’t want me to talk about it when her kids are in the house. So basically never.

Picture perfect little family.

They saw me searching my mom’s name online last week and they told me to drop it and stop disrespecting my real mom, the woman who raised me and is the reason I am who I am. They said I keep looking for ways to push her away. And I lost it.

I started screaming that she’s not my mom, she will never be my mom, she didn’t pass her DNA on to me and it’s not her medical history that’s relevant to mine.

I told them she can’t save me from mental illness. That they can’t ignore the problem and think it won’t happen. They tried to stop me but I kept going until I made it very clear how angry I was and how I would blame them if I got so bad it was harder to treat.

They were madder than I ever saw them. Especially because the other kids were in the house and heard everything.

AITA?

Looks like the family is left grappling with the fallout of ignoring the deep-rooted issues that have come to light.

What’s Reddit have to say? A lot.

This person says it’s so wrong what they’re doing.

This person is concerned about the mental health aspect.

And this person just hopes Father and Stepmother get their reality check dose soon.

Sometimes, the loudest screams are the only way to shatter a family’s denial.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.