In an ideal world, parents are there to raise their kids and give them a good childhood, but not every child is lucky enough to have a parent who actually takes care of them.

In today’s story, one young lady shares that she moved out at 16 because of her mom’s mental illness. Now, five years later, she’s wondering if she should reconnect with her mother or not.

Let’s see why this is such a big dilemma for her.

WIBTA for not contacting my mom while she’s in the hospital?

I (21) have been getting texts from my aunt, asking me to contact my mother.

I cut contact with my close family (mother, grandma, aunt and uncle) about 3 years ago because of severe psychological and emotional abuse.

A bit of back story: I lived with my mom until i was about 16, when I decided to move out and into a group for teens who cant live with family.

She had good reasons for wanting to move out.

My mom is severely mentally ill and had many months-long hospital stays while I was still a small child up untill I moved out.

When she was home, her medication and some of her symptoms made her “spacey” and absent.

I spent most of my birthdays, holidays and school events without her or alone, and I mostly took care of her and the household early on.

She had to prioritize her own mental health.

My family wasn’t much better, having a cycle of bullying and then guilting people to forgive them.

At 16, I had enough and moved out.

After a mental health hospital stay of my own, I decided to cut them out of my life for good, because everytime we talked/met my mental health would take a sharp decline.

She’s not sure if she should reconnect with her mother or not.

Now, after almost 3 years of them texting me sparsely and me ignoring them, my aunt has been getting increasingly insistent in her texts.

Today, she told me that my mother has been doing terrible for the last one and a half years and that I should write her to “give her back the will to live”.

I feel torn because I do still hold love for my mom, but getting pulled back into all of this will undo years of therapy.

I dont want to fall back into being responsible for keeping her emotionally stable, but I feel like it will be my fault if I dont write her and she does something drastic.

Reddit, would I be the jerk for not contacting my mom?

That’s a tough situation. She needs to prioritize her own mental health, but I understand wanting to reach out to her mother as well. Her aunt is totally guilt tripping her though.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person can relate to OP’s situation.

This person suggests blocking the aunt.

Here’s a very forceful vote for not contacting her mother.

It might be best to ignore the aunt.

She doesn’t need this family drama.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.