My Mum claims I’m ungrateful, and that she has done more for me than she should have, even though my little sister died from anorexia. I’m struggling to overcome this emotional manipulation and gaslighting. I feel shame and guilt. Am I ungrateful?

I just recently found this sub, and I feel like i might have found my sort of people. I find it hard to justify bringing children into this world where suffering is inevitable. If you are to bring them into this world, then at the very least you must take responsibility and acknowledge you are never going to be able to do enough for them, they are always going to be worthy of more than you can give them or do for them, and apologise and treat them in accordance with that. My mum however completely let me down, yet claims I am ungrateful to her. I'm trying to overcome this manipulation from her. If anyone would care to read the TL;DR and give me their opinions on it, I would be forever grateful! Thank you so much!

TL;DR:

My little sister had anorexia for 10 years then died. I spent those 10 years trying to sort the situation because my parents weren’t doing it. I tried to fix it by trying to make life changing money through entrepreneurial means. My mum has Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and tried to force me to be the way that pleased her, she wanted me to move to a city and do a corporate 9-5, which conflicted with my attempts to try and help my little sister, so I wouldn’t do it. This lead to her claiming I was ungrateful, that they had done more for me than they ever should have, that I was living the life of Riley, and that I was chasing my dreams. This became the new narrative inside the family, and they bullied me for it, when really, everything I was doing was trying to sort the whole situation of my little sister struggling, as well as trying to just cope with the situation, because they weren’t fixing it. Now my sister is dead, I’m ill from it all, and when I get healthy, I want to do an entrepreneurial career instead of a traditional 9-5. No matter what I do, my mum will say that I’ve been ungrateful this whole time, and they’ve done more for me than they ever should have, and the only reason I’m able to do the career I’m doing is because of them. I’m struggling to overcome this emotional manipulation and gaslighting. I feel shame and guilt. Please help!

FULL VERSION:

My little sister started suffering from anorexia when she was 14 years old. She got bullied in school, had to move school, and started using anorexia as a way of coping. After 10 years of suffering, she had a heart attack due to being so underweight, and died. From the start my parents didn’t deal with the whole situation very well. The whole thing was very traumatic.

I (33M) was 18 years old when my little sister started struggling, and I had just moved away from home to University.

After two years of my sisters struggling and the situation getting worse, my parents asked me to drive home from Uni on the weekends, which I agreed. This was a two hour drive each way. I was working a full time 9-5 due to it being my placement year.

As well as driving home on weekends to help, I believed that if I made life changing money, I could fix the situation, so after work each night, I went to the library until 2am and work on a business idea. I would get just 4hrs sleep each night, do my 9-5 during the day, and then work another 8hrs in the library on my business idea, then drove home each weekend to be with my sister. I did this for two years until I graduated then moved home.

Once moved home, I spent the next 4 years working on online businesses.

After 4 years of doing this, my little sister had only been getting worse, and at this stage she was skin and bones. I realised what needed to be done, was for me to stop doing my business work all together, and just focus on studying anorexia. Up to this point I had been speaking with a mindfulness coach about the whole situation twice a week, trying to understand it, and understand my sisters struggling, but now I was going to focus on it full time. This was 1 year before she died.

A result of doing this, 6 months before she died, I knew I was going to be able to recover her, because I had a breakthrough in understanding. It was the only time I’d even been close to feeling I was going to be able to recover her. However it was too little too late and eventually she died.

The whole thing made me very ill. I dissociated from the trauma of it all. I’ve spent the last 5 year not working, and instead recovering from the trauma of it all, whilst trying to understand what happened, and overcome all the issues I have as a result of it all.

The key part of all this which I’m yet to explain is, my mum has Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), she’s a narcissist. My current understanding is that NPD is basically a dysfunctional personality, which is the result of the person not having the skills to be able to cope with life functionally, so instead they use defence mechanism and force, as their way of getting their needs met. It’s a very immature way of behaving. Essentially the person with NPD has not properly grown up, and is still using the same dysfunctional strategies to get their needs met, that they used when they were 5 years old.

She couldn’t deal with the whole situation of her daughter struggling, and couldn’t deal with how it made her look or feel, so she basically twisted the whole narrative to make herself look better, by putting all the blame onto my little sister, which was one of the worst things she could have done, as it only made things harder for my little sister, and she also tried to control my little sister to be the way that made her (my mum) more comfortable.

She also needed me to be the way that made her more comfortable, so would try to force me into being that way. So despite her being the one who asked me to drive home from Uni every weekend, to help them sort the situation, which is what led me to then starting my entrepreneurial career, and then moving home after Uni, after just 4 months of me having moved home after Uni, she now suddenly no longer wanted me at home, and instead wanted me to go to a city and work a corporate 9-5.

I refused to go, and instead continued working on my online business from home. This led to me receiving a lot of abuse from her. The whole narrative became one where they thought I was just ungrateful, living the life of Riley, and that I was chasing my dreams whilst she and my dad just supported me.

My parents are financially well off, so it wasn’t a case of them not have enough money to support me, they own race horses for fuck sake, it was more a case of how me being at home, made my mum look to her peers, and how it made her feel, therefore she wasn’t comfortable with it.

By the time my sister died, I knew more about anorexia, and how to recover my sister, than both my parents did put together, and now 5 years after her death, I’m an expert in it, and they hardly know anything.

So now here I am, 5 years after my little sisters death, still living at home, I’m still ill, and I’m struggling mentally with all the abuse I’ve received from my parents.

When I finally become healthy and start working again, I want to just do my online entrepreneurial career again, whilst still living at home, until I get enough money to then move out into my own place. My dad is fine with me doing this, and has said I can live in this house as long as I want.

Even if I did work a 9-5 job, and work on my online business after work, which I could do, I would still be battling the claims in my head, that “I’m ungrateful to my parents”, “My parents have done more for me than they ever should have”, “I’m living the life of Riley”, and “I’m just chasing my dreams whilst my parents support me”.

No matter what I do, those claims will always haunt me, and I will always feel shame and guilt, until I can see clearly that I’ve not been those things.

Can you please help me see why I am not ungrateful, and that my parents have not done more for me than they should have.

Please help!

Thank you.