I’m just now getting this off my chest. I have just recently turned 17, and I’ve never been struggling more with my mental health. I am a male. The situation I need help with is that I feel like my mom has betrayed me. I just want to clarify, I love my mom so much. She is a single mom and she’s done a lot for me. The issue that I’ve been having is that she is a conventionally attractive woman (not the issue) and she is VERY flirty. To the point where she has started to flirt with the seniors at my school when we go to football games. Boys that are literally one year older than me. I mentioned to her that I thought it was weird and it bothered me, but she just laughed it off and assured me it was just playful. Well now it’s gotten even worse to where I saw her talking and laughing with a kid who used to bully me back in middle school after a football game. We’ll call him James. James is one year older than me and he made my life HELL in all of middle school and most of my freshman year of Highschool. He hasn’t really bullied me my Sophomore or Junior year which I am thankful for. But it was BAD in middle school. I don’t want to go into details, but he’s done things to me that have caused serious trauma. My mom is completely aware of how James has negatively affected my mental health and was there for me and stood up for me when he basically beat me up everyday at school. He kind of just stopped towards the end of my freshman year, with no talks between me and him, or apologies. Which I don’t mind cutting communication off completely since I hate him. Back to the football game, I saw her laughing and talking with him when the game was over, and placing her hand on his arm for a couple of seconds and then saying bye and walking away. I was shocked to see this given how we are NOT friends by any stretch of the imagination and the s*** he’s done to me. I immediately asked her why she was talking to him, and she said she thought we were “good” now. I am pissed at this point but I calm down internally and tell her that we will never be “good”. She nodded understandably and said she was sorry, which I appreciated and chalked it up to a misunderstanding. That was in October. Fast forward to a week ago, my mom and James have started following each other on nearly every social media app. And liking each others posts. I am furious and quite frankly feel betrayed by my mom. I don’t know if I’m overreacting, but let’s just say James wasn’t just some kid who was “mean” to me and outgrew it. James has done very cruel things to me physically and mentally. He is a very disturbed person in my opinion and I know his home life is awful. And my mom basically forgetting all of that happened and talking to him at his games, plus following him on social media makes me feel like complete s***. I’m extremely depressed and feel like I have no one to go to. I’ve been having panic attacks all week due to this. And I’m scared to bring it up to my mom just for her to say I’m overreacting. Please help me.