Can You Explain The Ending Of 'Self Care For Adult Children Of Emotionally Immature Parents'?

Rhea Ravelle, heiress of a powerful and influential family, goes against her family's wishes and cuts ties with them. She chooses to marry Carter Jamison, a man with a failing career and two children born out of wedlock. For six years, she raises his children as if they were her own and helps Carter rebuild his crumbling business. Under her care, the kids grow into kind, well-mannered little stars, and Carter's company finally makes it big and goes public. But right at the celebration marking his entry into high society, the biological mother of his two children suddenly shows up. And Carter, who is usually so calm, completely loses it. He begs the woman to stay, making Rhea the laughingstock of the entire city. That night, he doesn't come home. Instead, he takes the children and runs straight back to his old flame, playing house as a happy family. Soon after, Carter files for divorce. "Thanks for everything, Rhea. But the kids need their birth mother." The children's mother also says, "Thank you for taking care of them all these years. But a stepmother will never compare to a birth mother." So blood beats love? If that's how it is, then she's done playing stepmother. However, the children reject their birth mother flat-out, and they don't want Carter either. They declare, "Rhea is our only mom! If you're getting divorced, then we're going wherever she goes!"

My mother was my father’s sugar baby. Every year, he would hold her in his arms and promise, “Wait for me. Next year, I’ll marry you.” He said it for five years. In the end, he married a woman from his own social circle instead. My mother never got the wedding she dreamed of. After that, she became unstable and cruel. She used me as a way to get my father’s attention. “Go. Call your father and tell him you’re sick. Tell him to come see you.” But my father only frowned and yelled at me. “You’re already learning to lie from your mother at such a young age? Always haunting me like this. Disgusting.” They blamed all the anger they had for each other on me. Later, my father’s wife gave birth to a son. He became the perfect husband and father in everyone’s eyes. My mother only grew worse. She hit me harder and harder, all just to make my father come look at her once. When I was seven, I fell down the stairs and broke my leg. I begged my mother to take me to the hospital. She slapped me hard across the face. “What are you pretending for? You fall once and suddenly your leg is broken? You’re just like your irresponsible father. You were born to make me suffer.” My father rushed over, but he only shoved my mother to the floor in irritation. “If you use this little bastard to fake being sick and trick me again, don’t expect another cent from me.” Their screams and sobs tangled together. I lay on the cold floor, slowly losing consciousness. This time, could they finally stop fighting?

My mother hated me, to the point that she wished I were dead. I knew I deserved to die. Sixteen years ago, if I hadn’t insisted on going out, my brother wouldn’t have died while trying to save me. Eventually, both of us got what we wished for. I got brain cancer. She had become a stranger to me as I forgot everything and went to die in blissful ignorance. Then, she went mad.

When I picked up the final course of my antidepressants and was about to leave, I ran into my biological parents, who were at the hospital to give a lecture. Five years had passed since we'd last seen each other, yet my father recognized me at a glance. Disbelief flickered across his face. "Your illness... still isn't better?" I said nothing and continued walking toward my room. "How did your life end up like this?" My father looked at me with obvious anguish, his eyes reddening. "Julian, your mother and brother miss you. Come home with me." I stopped in my tracks and slowly rolled up the sleeves I wore year-round, no matter the season. "That's your home," I said quietly. "It stopped being mine a long time ago." Hundreds of scars crisscrossed both of my arms. Countless emergency rescues. Countless nights spent fighting through unbearable pain. Long ago, all of it had worn away every trace of love and resentment I once felt toward my parents. Now, I was finally leaving the illness behind, and I had a new family. For the rest of my life, all I wanted was to live well.

When I was discharged from the psychiatric hospital, my brother and sister-in-law dropped everything to personally pick me up. Even my nephew, who had just finished his college entrance exams, arrived with a box of carrot cake he had waited in line all day to buy. His warm smile was the picture of innocence. “Auntie, congratulations on your discharge. With me here, you’ll never feel lonely again.” To outsiders, we were the perfect family—envied by all and even awarded the title of a local model family. But behind the facade of family bliss lay a very different story. On the very day my brother transferred the last of the family properties to me, I went live on social media. In front of an audience that idolized my so-called perfect family, I boasted about my "accomplishments." I conned my nephew into paying for a spot at an elite school, duped my sister-in-law into stepping into a scandalous club, and tricked my brother into losing everything he had worked for. “My brother has treated me with nothing but kindness. And I can only repay his kindness with betrayal.”

At ten years old, my parents divorce, each remarry, and abandon me to be raised by Grandma. When we see each other again, it's the summer after the College Entrance Exam. Mom and Dad both walk into the restaurant to book private dining rooms, and it just so happens to be my turn to seat the guests. Mom links arms with her stepdaughter, Alesha Callen, and smiles proudly as she instructs, "My daughter scored a 625 in the College Entrance Exam. We'll take your biggest room." Dad, holding his son Robby's hand, claims the room right next door. "It's my son's seventh birthday. We'll need a large room, too." They lock eyes for a brief moment before quickly looking away. Mom chuckles. "Throwing such a big birthday party for someone so young? You certainly spoil him." "Your daughter's the impressive one," Dad replies politely. "She's got a bright future ahead of her." And yet, neither of them recognizes me—their biological daughter and Jethroville's top scorer in this year's College Entrance Exam. I wipe the grease from my hands and carefully note down their requests. Mom orders a table full of seafood, saying that it's Alesha's favorite. Dad hands over a birthday cake he baked himself, instructing me to place it in the fridge. Just before they walk off, Mom asks offhandedly, "What about the other one? I haven't heard anything from her at all. Did she fail the exam?" Dad blinks. "I have no idea. She hasn't contacted me." I don't bother looking up. I just continue replying to a message from the real estate agent. Once I sell the old apartment Grandma left me, I'll finally be able to go somewhere far, far away with absolutely nothing holding me back.