I have two stories.

I got in a fight with my mother once when I was around 13, and told her that my grandmother (who I’ve lived with all my life) was more of a parent to me than she ever would be. When she got back to my grandmother’s house she chugged a bottle of pills and tried to kill herself, and my grandmother had to claw the pills from her throat in order to save her life.

Also, when I was 12, my parents were going through a divorce. Previously, I used to live with my parents on the weekend, but after household dysfunction (mother drinking and cheating all the time, father emotionally abusing her non-stop) I started solely living with my grandparents. One weekend, when I decided to give my parents a chance and go over, my father told me that the reason they’re getting a divorce and are so unhappy is because I don’t live with them. He also said “when you do come over, I can’t fuck your mother, because you take up all of her attention”.

The only time my mother ever showed me attention was when she was showing me off to one of her boyfriends or uncomfortably groping me as a “joke”, so I never did understand what he meant by that.