We always want to help our family as best we can.
However, doing so can be difficult if they resist or refuse our help.
Or worse, if they do accept our help, only to fall back into their old ways and habits.
Sometimes resulting in our needing to take matters into our own hands, possibly damaging our relationships by doing so.
The mother of Redditor InHaMood_ wasn’t always a particularly present mother.
Even so, whenever the original poster (OP)’s mother reached out to her for help, she always did so.
However, when the OP’s mother recently asked her to help get her out of her latest bind, the OP felt that alternative measures were necessary.
Possibly damaging the OP’s relationship with her mother permanently.
Worried she had crossed a line, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**hole” (AITA), where she asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for winning my mom’s storage unit at auction instead of giving her the money to save it herself?”
The OP explained why she felt the need to go behind her mother’s back:
“I (24 F[emale]) was in and out of the foster care system.”
“My mom would lose custody of me and my three siblings, only to do the bare minimum to get us back, just for the cycle to repeat.”
“I eventually aged out of foster care, went to college, and moved to another state.”
“I still check in with my mom every week.”
“She was diagnosed with heart failure.”
“Which came on from other terrible decisions.”
“I offer support when she reaches out, whether it’s with money, food etc.”
“Most of the time I don’t hear back.”
“And when I do, it’s usually because she wants something.”
“She has a long history of lying to and stealing from all of us.”
“She’s currently homeless.”
“We have offered her a place to stay if she gets clean and she won’t.”
“After we turned 18, we reconnected with our extended family, grandparents, and cousins, and those relationships have become important to us.”
“A couple of months ago, she called me in a panic at 2:00 in the morning.”
“She said her storage units were about to be auctioned off, that she wasn’t even behind on payments, and that the owners were trying to scam her.”
“She needed $1,000 immediately because there were only 15 hours left before the auction.”
“I told her l’d check in the morning once I got to work and see what I could do.”
“The next day, I did some digging and looked at the contents of the storage units.”
“What was listed broke my heart: family photos, vases from great-grandparents, personal documents (birth certificates, Social Security cards, my mom’s clothing and tools, and everything from my grandmother’s house (she passed away just last year).”
“I decided to bid on the unit myself and ended up spending nearly $1,200 for it.”
“Afterward, I spoke to the owners, who told me they’d been trying to help my mom for months: discounts, payment extensions etc.”
“But eventually, she just stopped answering them.”
“They said they had no other option but to auction it.”
“I was devastated.”
“My siblings said that if I hadn’t stepped in, all of those memories and important documents would’ve ended up in a stranger’s hands.”
“My siblings were relieved and grateful… but my mom?”
“She accused me of violating her trust, told me l ’emotionally robbed her’, that I stole from her, and said I was a mistake.”
“She even claimed our grandparents would be ashamed of me.”
“I ended up taking a few days off work, drove out of state to the unit, and went through everything.”
“I only kept what belonged to me and my siblings-photos, documents, anything tied to our family history.”
“I didn’t throw away a single item of hers.”
“Instead, I rented a new storage unit just down the road, moved all her belongings there, and paid three months in advance.”
“I gave her all the info.”
“Now I’m stuck with this heavy feeling.”
“I can’t shake the guilt, like l crossed a line or sank to her level somehow.”
“But at the same time, I couldn’t bear to see everything important to us vanish, especially knowing it would probably happen again in six months.”
“AITA for buying the storage unit out from under her?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The Reddit community firmly stood behind the OP, and agreed that she was not the a**hole for buying out her mother’s storage unit:
Everyone agreed that the OP was ultimately thinking in her mother’s best interest, and ultimately, she had a right and claim to all the items in the storage unit as well:
“First off – you are NTA, not by a long shot.”
“Next – from this internet stranger to you, I am so sorry for this painful situation.”
“I know this is a difficult time for you and your family.”
“Most importantly, though – please take the time to be very gentle with yourself in this time.”
“It sounds like you’re carrying a big burden of things with you – other people’s words and pain, memories that perhaps aren’t yet healed, and many other things.”
“The ‘heavy feeling’ you said you feel stuck with, the guilt and concern you feel are very real feelings, and I hope that you truly do give yourself space and grace to feel your feelings here, to cry, to vent, and even to laugh when needed.”
“I wonder if the feelings you describe might also be a sort of grief: grief over the situation, grief at your Mother’s health, grief at the evident pain your Mother is experiencing in life that led things to get this bad, and even grief over an innocence (or just a time in your life) that you may realize isn’t there anymore.”
“Consider also being deliberate in the language you use to describe what just happened.”
“‘Buying it out from under her’ sounds different than a reframe of ‘saving important family treasures, and helping the family’.”
“Are there ways that you can describe this differently in the words you use?”
“Are things Mom might be saying to you actually spoken from her place of pain and fear, not from her truest sense of love?”
“Lastly, again – I am sorry for your situation here, and sincerely hope that things get better.”- Used_Wafer6049
“Op, you can’t save her by helping her the way she wants to be helped.”
“Furthermore, she’s proving to be an emotional hazard for you.”
“You know in emergency response, they teach you you can’t save someone unless it’s safe for you to do so?”
“They do that because if you make a mistake, now there’s two people who need saving.”
“You have to put on your air mask first.”
“NTA.”- TheGoldDragonHylan
“NTA.”
“I think that’s a great solution.”
“If you gave her cash, what are the chances she wouldn’t have used it to save the unit anyway?”
“And even if she had, what about the following months when she defaults again?”
“It doesn’t sound likely that she would have given you the items, so this way you legally could retrieve what belonged to you or others, and even gave her the opportunity to keep her own things.”
“I’m sorry to say, your mother is probably never going to change.”
“This is who she is.”
“I don’t think you need to go no contact if you don’t want to, but I think you need to lower your expectations.”
“This will always be how she treats you, so protect yourself and what is important to you.”- Rare_Sugar_7927
“NTA.”
“Even though it was real, there’s no guarantee that she would have gotten the storage unit back or spent the money like she was supposed to.”
“It sounds like she’s really upset that she’s not the ‘keeper’ of the family valuables anymore.”
“Maybe she’s afraid no one will care about her without it, maybe she’s afraid was going to hold it for emotional blackmail money down the line, maybe it was the only thing she felt like she was doing right.”
“Whatever the reason, it’s not actually about what you did.”
“You did the right thing, and she just can’t handle her emotions.”- Otherwise-Leek7926
“I don’t know how much therapy you have done to try to overcome your chaotic childhood but I think you need to do some more.”
“You’ve emerged a strong, stable, intelligent person but it seems to me that you are making choices about your mother that are not in your own best interests.”
“You are NTA.”
“If anything, you have done too much for her.”- EmceeSuzy
In many ways, the OP did exactly what her mother wanted: to save the storage unit and all the meaningful possessions in it.
Based on her history, the OP’s mother was in no position to say anything she said to the OP.
In fact, it sadly seemed that the OP’s mother was in no position to be a mother at all.