Mine is super trivial, I'm embarrassed to share it-- but the camel's back would have been broken by whatever happened next, because, just a week earlier I had, for the first time, spent time with my two siblings where we were all adults and none of us were living at home/ dependent on nMom.

We spent a weekend crying on each other, because we each had remembered the abuse she had heaped on the others, but not on ourselves. So we told each other these stories and cried. It was super awkward, because it was a family reunion and I think us wandering around with hollow eyes must have freaked some of the relatives out.

In fact, I know it did-- my (n?ish)Gma actually confronted me as I walked in the door one morning, asking if she had done something to upset me. I was so surprised I blurted out the truth, "No, I've just been dealing with a lot of old memories. My mom beat me so hard when I was 5 I had an out of body experience."

I saw her face go slack, I wondered if I had killed her. Then she said, "Well you know, she was going through a hard time."

My heart broke then. I understood that they would always make excuses for her. They hadn't bailed her out of one terrible mistake after another because they loved me, they were only interested in rescuing her.

So a week later, when my mom called me to ask for a favor (we had housed her when she was homeless, given her cash, given her our car for crissakes) I said No. I think she was shocked, I never denied her needs (see above, cash and car)... but she wanted the mailing address of some very sweet (and remarkably sane) people she had made friends with. I had kept them on our Christmas card list because they were really cool people, and she hadn't bothered to keep it. And I wanted to protect them from her a little, too. So I said, No, and I said I needed some space and I would call her when I was ready to speak with her again, please don't contact me.

That was it, on the surface. A mailing address.

But underneath was so much more. :/