Was my mum emotionally incestious?

I showed my wife a family photo from when I was 17 (before I'd left home). We were all sat around the table in our usual order (it never changed);

4yr OLD ME
MUM
8 yr OLD
DAD
16 yr OLD 12 YR OLD

My wife (intuitive as she is) pointed the following out; Why is it that you are sat next to the two youngest in the family? It's normal for the parents (both of them) to have the youngest sat down next to them to ensure they are ok. Normally it would be babe, mum, next youngest, dad. Whereas in this picture I'm playing the role of dad. And it's as if mum is looking after dad, who is then sat next to the next oldest 16yr old sister.

Further, my wife pointed out that in many families, if dad was useless, it would have fallen to the next oldest girl (certainly if they were 16) to look after smaller sisters. Not so in my family.

It was almost as if I was a dad to the family. Where my dad was liable to fly into a temper, I was more likely to play with my sisters. Where my dad was unavailable, I was available. My mum couldn't rely on my dad, but she could (and did) rely on me. I was stable, calm, positive.

Before now I wondered whether we were allies. Allies against the raging monster that could be my dad. We were the buffer between dad and everyone else (including our family?).

The trouble is however, that there was a sicky yucky thing too from my mum (and I don't know if it was just with me - or with all of us. I suspect the latter). So as a result my mum had this knack of getting me to do anything she wanted through coercion, control, manipulation and guilt. When I did whatever it was the worst was the sickly feeling I felt afterwards - when she would communicate that I had done it out of an undying love for her. gf jasdg jasdg j even now that makes me feel sick. It's why I can't send her mother's day cards. Struggle sending her any card. Struggle saying love at the bottom of emails. Because it's like looking into a bottomless pit. I throw her some love, and she simply latches onto it and demands more until there is nothing left.

It's no wonder I have issues! It's no wonder I'm not emotional available to my family - because to be so would result in losing everything to this wraith like creature.

It's also no wonder that when I left home it was like a schism opened up between me and everyone else in the family - and all for different reasons! My mum had lost the stable man in the household. She'd lost her ally. The one who could depend on to do anything she wanted him to. My sisters had lost the stable man too. My dad - what had he lost? The ability to control his son.

It's no wonder it's been so bloody difficult. When I left home it was like hell itself sprung open. I had to contend with a raging dad (you are not doing it my way son), a mum who couldn't understand why I'd left her (please come and see me, write to me, speak to me), and sisters who both had to live through the middle of that whilst also being cut off from the one stable man they'd known.

g hassssssssssssssssssssssssssssghhhhh

Poor me!