My Mother doesn't want to hear anything about me or my life.

[SnooMoo]

My mum who is in her late mid 60s and recently retired will call me several times a week to chat which is fine. However she has some health issues and will talk at length about them or about the health issues of her friends in great detail and repeatedly as well as about her life. If I start to talk about anything in my life and especially my health she just doesn't want to hear it. She will just shut me down, saying loudly over me as I am talking "well that's enough about that" even before I get a single sentence out or she will say, she needs to go or otherwise change the subject.

Even when I was a young teenager she hated if I tried to tell her about my period cramps, I was only young and just looking for a bit of comfort off my mum but she would put her hand up and tell me she just didn't want to know as it wore her down to hear about it and that I went on and on. Looking back I never did, I never got the chance to! It seem though that everyone else's health is fair game, the lady in the local shop has polyps in her bowel, her older sister needs a hip replacement or she is having this or that blood test.

I feel like anything I say to her about myself or my family has to be as brief and to the point as possible or else she will start sighing impatiently, talking over me and saying she must go if I'm going to be droning on even if I've only just opened my mouth after she has talked for an hour!

Most of the time I just let it wash over me but other times I find it so upsetting, like I am just not important to her, while everyone else gets her full attention. I just don't get it.

We live a few hours away but I do try to drive down to visit her and my Dad every few weeks with the kids but even then I sense I am not to say too much about myself as if any news of my life irritates her.

Sounds like a boring old fart updating you on random people's illnesses etc.
Ask her, say why are you never interested in your daughter, and why do you expect me to be interested I random people's health issues.
She's lucky you put up with it.

Why shouldn't you do what suits you as you have your own family now and there must have been a reason you left home at a young age. If she's disappointed in you as a daughter you've every right to be disappointed in her as a mum. Mocking a child with a stutter is just cruel.

when I was a teen I felt like she was saying because it was me, her daughter, she felt my pain so deeply that it upset her too much to hear about any suffering I was having and I didn't want to upset her so I never said much

This is all kinds of messed up. She couldn't see you as a separate person, she "felt" your pain. Not half as much as you'd have felt it though! You, her child, who was in pain and needed her support. Which she couldn't give. She made you responsible for her emotions, you kept quiet so as not to upset her. Healthy parenting would be not allowing her own pain and upset to show as you, her child, sought support from her.

If I try to shut her down she goes in a big huff with me, she is absolutely dying to tell me all her gossip.

Let her. You don't exist to appease her or to hear her gossip. It's understandable you're upset, she's doing something upsetting in dismissing you and your experiences.

I'd reduce the phone calls to 5min arranging to visit, if you visit several times a year. I can't see any benefit to you continuing to listen to her drone on every time she phones, other than keeping her happy. Is it really worth it, if she's phoning this frequently?

If you're primarily visiting to see your dad I'd make sure you get some time to chat to him too and she doesn't hijack every conversation. Her wanting to tell you gossip about people you don't know shouldn't take precedence over you spending time talking to your own father.

TBH she sounds toxic, she's only fine all the while you're doing what she wants, the minute you try to have an ordinary two-way conversation she turns on you.

She has said a few times that I just do what I want and suit myself, whereas she always felt she had to do the right thing or what was expected of her. I don't know if this is her criticizing me or some kind of admiration, its hard to tell

It's called projection. She's the one always doing what she wants, these phone calls are a case in point! Ditto you supposedly droning on about health issues. Nope, that's her again! Every time she accuses you of doing xyz, ask yourself what she's doing, I'll bet it's the x, y or z every time.

Even if she calls and I say, oh I was just mopping the hall floor, hanging out washing she will say, oh you should come here and do mine, you never were much use to me when you were at home and express surprise I can run a home at all.

At this point she'd be hearing the [click] as I hang up the phone after she's just insulted me. You don't have to tolerate, or listen to, nonsense like that from her.

Turn the tables on the narc.
The next time she starts droning on about her health and other people bowels just tell her "well that's enough about that for now" then change the subject back to you.
If she talks over you again just politely make a excuse to go.

Rinse and repeat.

Envy is not uncommon.

I had this. I live far away and it was only phone calls. Always shut down. Hardly ever got to speak to my dad.
It all came to a head last year. I had been in intensive care, they came to stay with me to „help“. They didn’t. I had some BF problems too.
absolutely no empathy from my mother. I finally exploded and threw them out.
What my father said when he left was the most hurtful thing ever - I never thought he could be as evil as her. Haven’t spoken since May last year now and I feel so much better for it.

Hi come over and have a read of the stately homes thread, a lot of us have experienced similar family issues 💐

Have you ever pointed it out to her?

This is very familiar. Don't underestimate the impact of having grown up with a mum like this. Have a look at the Stately Home thread.

My mum's the same. I phone her once in a blue moon (all I can cope with) and hardly get a word in edgeways. She never asks about me, doesn't have a clue who I am or what's going on in my life. Just bores me with stuff about a cousin's child I've never met, or a friend of her sister's or some random in the street.

It is upsetting. I grew up feeling like nobody cared about me and I don't matter. Unfortunately that feeling has carried on into adulthood.

I'm sorry OP. It's shit and you deserve better.

Here:

January 2024 - Well we took you to Stately Homes www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/4991681-january-2024-well-we-took-you-to-stately-homes

There is a good book called ‘Healing the daughters of narcissistic mothers’. She sounds very much like she has narcissistic personality disorder.

Is she like this with everybody else? One of those people who when you're talking to them turn the conversation back to themselves (or their interests/people they know etc) pretty much immediately? Or is it just you she does it to. I've known a couple of people like that and have wondered are they like that with their own families.

You don't to be treated like this.

I've gone no contact with mine ,it's bliss!
I'm free.

Thanks everyone who has replied and offered insights and advice. I am going to look at the stately homes thread and the book mentioned.

she will say, oh you should come here and do mine, you never were much use to me when you were at home

^^

When you were a child???

Whhhaaaatt