Why has my mother stopped talking to me practically overnight?

[Confused125]

My mother can be a tricky and very sensitive woman, but she is also kind, supportive, and we usually get on extremely well. She is a fab loving grandmother and we talk/see each other a couple of times a week (not always for long, we don't live in each other's pockets)

For just over a week now she has not spoken to me. She called in to my house and I could tell right away she was in a funny mood. DD had a new dress on and my mum wanted to take a picture of her in it. DD is shy about getting her picture taken and said she didn't want to. Mum started pressurising her a bit, and I said that it was OK if she didn't want her photo taken and if I managed to catch a snap of her in the dress I'd send it to DM. DM started getting reaally cross and said "I just want a photo!" and I said well it's DD's choice. DM then shot me a look of pure rage and dislike and basically stormed out of my house. I'd never seen anything like it. The day before we had been out together and had a lovely day.
Since then she has not contacted or spoken to me, she has also missed an event of the DCs and will miss another one next week if this doesn't stop. My dad called in and I asked him what the problem with mum was, he said she was going to "have a chat" with me and apparently I can be "rude in the way I speak to her". I asked him for examples of this, but he just said DM would talk to me. He also went on about how sensitive DM is and how hard her childhood was?

I'm baffled. This has never happened before. DM can be tricky and has had depressive episodes in the past, but she's never been like this with me and I'm shocked she's taking it out on the DC, they were asking why she hadn't come to the event. It's honestly like she woke up one morning and decided she hated me. If she told me what it is I've done wrong I'd apologise but I haven't spoken to her since she stormed out.

What do I do? Contact her and pretend nothing has happened? Wait for her to contact me? The DC event next week is a big one and if she misses that or causes a scene around it, I don't think we'd be able to come back from it. I feel sick and can't sleep.

Yes, DM has always found it impossible to say sorry, and cannot stand being wrong or being criticised in any way. She made a massive fuck up years ago, which really affected my dad, and has never once apologised for it. I've actually seen her almost panic when she's been backed into a corner and the only options are to say sorry or to basically melt down. This was years ago mind you. What's all that about though?

And she's also very weird about being wrong. Even over the pettiest things. For example if I said "I saw Jane Brown the other day, turns out she lives in Dullsville" she'll say "she doesn't live in Dullsville she lives in Arse upon Sea" and I'll say "no, she was telling me all about her house in Dullsville" and she'll be all "I am telling you NOW, she does not live there, she lives in Arse upon Sea" and she could keep this going for hours if you keep engaging, I've actually brought up people's Facebook profiles to show her before. It's like even when the person themself has confirmed that she had the wrong information she'll still not believe it.

And thank you all for sharing your experiences, I'm sorry so many of you have had similar things happen. I know this probably sounds very dramatic, but I honestly feel like something about my life/perception of events/feeling of security has just completely shifted.

If you want some advice you could look at the Stately Homes thread. It’s all there. X

but I honestly feel like something about my life/perception of events/feeling of security has just completely shifted.

I've read the whole thread and I don't think you are being in the least bit dramatic. Something has shifted. Your mother's lifetime behaviour towards you (and your father's) is now being looked at anew and it's confusing and unnerving. It happened to me and it's not easy to navigate so I would echo Herocomplex's advice. Please go and have a look at the Stately Homes thread. There are lots of posters on there with mothers like yours and it might help you to work out how best to go forward. Good luck. 💐

“she had an extremely bad temper. This version of her as sensitive and fragile is not one I recognise”

It’s just a different iteration of her attention seeking.

On a lighter note, your place names had made me laugh through a belting headache, so thank you.

The loneliest I've ever felt was when I started to suspect that my mother doesn't actually like me. She makes a lot of noise about her great love for me but, deep down, I'm frightened that it's her own image of herself as the perfect mother that she loves, and that she doesn't particularly know me or like what she does know of me. She does a lot for me but it's invariably stuff that I've politely declined and don't actually want or need, like grandparent childcare. However, she'll fly into a rage and call me a bad parent or bad daughter or whatever and sulk with me until I give in. Then she'll beat me round the head with everything that she's sacrificed for me. I've heard the "everything I've done for you" speech so many times, I have it by heart.

I could have written this. I haven't seen my mother in 5 years, and I'm glad not to have to deal with her now, but, yes it's lonely. My father was an absent alcoholic so I feel a bit of an orphan.

she had an extremely bad temper. This version of her as sensitive and fragile is not one I recognise it's the ego that is fragile. Her sense of self and self esteem is fragile so she lashes out at anything perceived to be a threat.

I know people talk about narcissists a lot on here, but the idea of narcissistic traits really helped me to work out why she behaved in some of the ways she did (and helped me see it wasn't me and there wasn't much I could do except reduce interaction with her to superficial levels). www.daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/mothers-with-narcissistic-personality-disorder/

It is shocking when you start to see it. I called it the scales falling from my eyes, like the world shifts under your feet. I had a long thread in relationships years ago, where a small argument exploded into a massive one and I began to see what had been there all those years and I'd excused as her "having a hard life" or a bad childhood.

Last year I had therapy - started off about something else, but ended up about my parents of course, lol. It was incredibly helpful, wish I'd done it many years ago. I would really recommend it.

Same thing happened to my brother. Had therapy about relationship issues, therapist was like "let's talk a bit more about your mother....." Ha ha! I had about 13 sessions during the NC phase and am back now with the same therapist doing some more work on all the shit it throws up. It's been really really helpful.

My mum never, ever apologises either.

When I was growing up she would say "if you make a mistake, hold your hands up and admit it. It's always easier to forgive someone who is honest about their mistakes."

Which is a moral I've always stuck by and teach my kids.

Yet ironically when she fucks up (with us kids at least) she never, ever EVER said sorry.
I go the opposite way (possibly too much) and always apologise to my kids if I've got something wrong or flown off the handle about something.

Parents are weird.

You have to consider that maybe you so speak to her horribly? There are always a million mother haters ready to weigh in on these threads. The law of averages suggests that sometimes the op must be in the wrong.

Urgh, the mother who is never wrong and never apologises. I had one of those. As a result I apologise FAR too often in my relationships.

fatandshattered1 the tragedy is a lot of those ‘mother haters* love them deeply and have tried for years to work out what’s wrong. They get told constantly that they need to patch things up and family comes first.
It might be the OP, she might be a deluded harpy whose mother is a lovely. But if you read what she’s written I’d say that’s probably not true.

@Confused125… I have C-PTSD. (This is what they call childhood PTSD.) I don’t use it as an excuse for bad behaviour. I don’t use it to control other people. I don’t use it to manipulate kids into doing things they don’t want to do. (That is the very definition of child abuse, right?) Your father is making you the fall guy because HE has to live with her. He is being an absolute coward. He knows she’s being irrational, but is never going to admit this. He is also being manipulative by saying that thing about not letting them see the grandkids. If she has CPTSD, then she needs to do something about it. It’s not your fault, and it’s not your responsibility. It’s hers. She needs counselling. You need to organise other childcare and throw the responsibility for her feelings and behaviour straight back to her. She is not safe for your kid to be alone with until she is accountable for her feelings and actions.

I feel so sad for those posters saying how devastating it is to realise that your own mother doesn't like you. Children abused by their parents don't grow up hating their parents, the tragedy is that they grow up hating themselves. Just from reading what you say, I can guarantee that it isn't you, real standalone you, the real person out in the real world, that she doesn't like. This is all fucked up and all about her. She doesn't see you as an autonomous separate person, you are just an extension of her. IT ISN'T YOUR FAULT.

Zombie.

Such an old thread. Now I’m wondering if things are better for the OP @Confused125 I hope they are.

@AWESOMEGUY

Right now my mom stop talking to me and stay out of my room.

Need to make your own thread. Not resurrect a zombie.

I feel for you OP, my mum is like this, constantly walking on eggshells not to upset her, not talking etc. Also lots of other reason, that I won’t list on a public forum. Always highly critical of me. She was also a useless grandmother so we have been no contact for many years now, that position won’t ever change, as she is the sort of person to cut off her nose to spit her face and I know through having my lovely children, how a loving parent should behave with their grown up children. Good luck going forward, do what’s right for you and don’t be fooled into feeling her behaviour is because of you.

I am a bit surprised that the vast majority of advice here is to let her stew. I disagree—it seems to me that while none of this is your fault and she is being selfish and petty, you can be the bigger person and initiate a face to face chat. As to what to say, something like “you seem upset with me. I’d like to know exactly what I’ve done to offend you so that we can try to sort it out.” It is not about who is right but who can be most humble. Clearly she is not managing to make the first move so you need to do it so that you can all move on.

For her behaviour to be so extreme I suspect something else is in the background. You don't say what age she is.
She sounds a difficult person.
I find that if people go off the rails about something they normally aren't bothered by and it is some other event which has shaken their confidence, made them feel bad about themselves or similar.
Did you say something inadvertently on your day out which she has stewed about?
Does she have siblings, how is her relationship with them.
Perhaps she was sexually abused as a child. That's something she will possibly never tell anyone about but is in the background for her.

[quote Confused125]@kettkeison - I'm reading about transactional analysis now- what sort of things did you do differently after this?

Honestly I'm not even sure if her behaviour is awful or if it's genuinely my fault, but how can I tell when she hasn't talked to me? It seems totally out of the blue. I thought we were getting on well, we haven't argued in years[/quote]
The way she's behaving is not acceptable, however poor her childhood. She should learn what triggers her and how to deal with that. I suspect it's a bit of jealousy. She may have felt that no one listened to her or defended her when she was a child and is triggered by seeing you defend your daughter and make sure she's empowered enough to make her own choices.

With transactional analysis the aim is to stay in your adult, even when another person is in their child or critical parent. Your adult state is the one where you have the most flexibility in how you behave, the other states are more reactive.

Your dad is not helping by just enabling her. He could be sympathetic to her feelings without agreeing with her behaviour, e.g. I can understand why you're upset, x, but it doesn't help to just storm off or stonewall. You need to have a proper conversation and explain to @Confused125confused how you feel.

You are absolutely right to teach your daughter to respect her own boundaries. It's totally acceptable to not want her photo taken. She's not being naughty. Your children have to come first and your mum may need therapy to get over her childhood, you cannot resolve it for her.