I (25M) recently did something that I think most people would probably consider monstrous. A week ago, I went to the clinic where my mother receives chemotherapy for cancer and canceled everything. I stopped paying for her treatment, blocked her number, packed up, moved out and disappeared. Just like that. And yeah, I know how that sounds. But there’s more to it. I need to get this off my chest, because I feel like I’m losing my mind.

To give some context, I made a lot of money in my early 20s. I was in a good financial position, and when my mother was diagnosed with cancer, I stepped up and paid for everything. I supported her treatments without question, thinking, she’s my mom, of course I’m going to help her.

But something happened a week ago. A memory surfaced. Something I had completely buried, suppressed so deep I didn’t even know it was there. And when it came back, it hit me like a truck. When I was about 6 or 7, my mother used to beat me badly. She’d scream at me, drag me around the house, throw me down and hit me until I had bruises and possibly fractures all over my body. I remember lying on the floor, terrified, not knowing what I did wrong. I remember her yelling things like “Stop talking like a baby! Grow up!” I didn’t even know what she meant, I was just a kid.

It wasn’t a one-time thing. It went on for months. Random, violent outbursts. I’d forgotten it. Or maybe I forced myself to forget, just to survive. But when that memory resurfaced, I couldn’t unsee it. I couldn’t unfeel it.

And then, something else came up. When I was a kid, I saw my paternal grandparents a couple of times. I remember the last time I saw them, they told me that my dad was heartbroken because my mom wouldn’t let him see me. I didn’t understand what that meant back then, so I told my mom, and she immediately shut it down, called them liars, and cut them off from my life too. I never saw them again. They passed away a few years ago.

But it finally clicked. My father killed himself. And now, I truly believe it’s because my mom kept me from him and completely erased him from my life. She erased his entire family from my life.

You know what’s worst? I realized I don’t have a single good memory of my mother, not one. But with my dad, before she cut him out, I remember feeling loved. He played with me, bought me toys, took me to his work and explained what he was doing, even took me to the zoo. My mother was not present in any of these moments. Sometimes I’d replay those moments in my head before falling asleep, sometimes I’d even dream about them. He tried. He cared. And she took that from both of us. Realizing that broke my heart.

It feels like I’ve been living in a lie for 23 years. My chest physically hurts, like someone had driven a nail through it. That night, I couldn’t sleep. The next morning, first thing, I went to the hospital and canceled everything. Packed my stuff, moved into a small rental, and blocked her. Blocked my stepsister too when she tried calling. I still get calls from unknown numbers that I just keep blocking. I just... shut it all down. I'm done.

And now I’m sitting here, feeling like an awful human being. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t even enjoy music or TV. I feel like a monster. I know she’s going to die without that money. But I can’t bring myself to help her. Not after everything. Not when I know what she did.

She destroyed my childhood, lied to me about my dad, destroyed his life too, and now I’m supposed to save hers? I know how it looks. I know society would call me evil. But nobody else knows what happened behind closed doors. AITAH?