.... to think my mother is weird?

[FrauMoose]

She rang last night. I was very tired, because a friend -of my own age - had died suddenly in the week, and the delayed shock of it had got to me that afternoon. My husband explained that it wasn't a good time for me to talk, but that I would call her the next day. (Today)

I didn't realise he'd also explained to her about the death, but rang her as promised. As usual my mother wanted to talk about her own problems which included a broken washing machine that has to be replaced, but the replacement wouldn't come for a while. At one point I suggested that she ask one of her many good neighbours in the sheltered flats where she lives, if they'd wouldn't mind washing the odd towel for her. She said, 'Well the thing is I used to have friends but now they're dead.'

Although one neighbour she liked had died over a year ago, this just didn't make any kind of sense - she has a good social life - so I changed the subject.

I told my husband that I'd rung my mother, and he said, 'Did she say how sorry she was to hear about your friend dying? I said no, she didn't say anything. At which point he told me that he had told her about the bereavement.

So then my mother's statement that she had no friends to help her through the laundry crisis started making sense. Yes, I might be grieving for a friend who had suddnly dropped dead - but it was she who really needed the sympathy.........

YANBU

And she is very self centred. Is she always like that?

Yep she was being very self centred!!!

That is very self centred and a bit cruel.....

YANBU! I could have my own whole full thread about my DMs selfishness/oddness, but I do not want to focus my own mind on her that much!

And I'm sorry to hear about your friend.

Narc

I've noticed the tendency to be self-centred more in the last few years. Not sure if it's related to ageing. It might also be that when my father was alive, I was aware that he wasn't very responsive, and could be rather difficult - so then I was more inclined to accept her wanting/needing to talk rather a lot about herself.

Somehow his death, about five years ago, seems to have changed the way I perceive her. She does have very regular contact with neighbours, my brothers, staff in the sheltered accommodation, a local church, goes out each day etc etc - so does not, I think, have the excuse of being very isolated.

I'm sorry for your loss. :( How does your mum usually deal with death?

My mum doesn't deal with death very well. She doesn't mention it. Ever. Her step dad died 2 years ago. She helped my gran with the funeral and legalities but never mentioned him again to any of us. She moaned plenty about the stress of planning and clearing stuff out (like he had way too much junk etc!) but never actually said sorry or acted sad.
It was weird.
My friend died when i was 15. She was run over getting off the school bus. The school rang my mum to come pick me up, she came, never mentioned it, never mentioned why she was here, or the fact I was crying, never hugged me, drove home in silence - next day a teacher told me my mum had called the school to see how I was doing. So bizarre.

could it be that in some strange way she was trying to give you the opportunity to talk about your loss? I can imagine my mum doing something similar rather than just saying "so sorry to hear about...."

I think my mother did talk about my father's death, - partly about the practicalities, and about the difficult of looking after him in the final stages of the illness. She talked about those aspects of his character which she missed, and - while getting counselling from somebody at the hospice - also went through a period of saying some quite angry and acid things. (However if I then agreed that yes, I had felt angry with some of things he said and did, she would instantly start getting annoyed with me and begin to insist on what a very good person he was.)

What she never at any point did was to ask me about any emotions I might be feeling. At the time I certainly felt that she was the one who was suffering the major loss, so her ability to think of others would naturally be diminished.

However I was the one who stayed in my father's room at the hospice on the last night of his life. I was the (only) one who was there when he died. And it does strike me as odd that she never once asked me how that affected me. She did ask me for information - for her own benefit - as to the way in which he took his final breaths etc. But she did not ask whether this was upsetting or shocking for me. (I felt maybe she was angry with me for having been there, though she was too tired and frail to have kept a non-stop vigil at his bedside, and she had opted to go home to sleep that night, and also on that last afternoon.)

But her behaviour then did not seem 'motherly' in any conventional sense of the word.

So perhaps the unexpected death of my friend - as well as being distressing in itself - has stirred up one or two family ghosts right now.

Thanks to people for their condolences too.

Her turn of phrase sets alarms bells ringing for me. It sounds very similar to the kind of thing someone suffering from memory loss might say.

I agree narc . I have one too. No matter how bad your problem hers will be worse . I am so sorry about your friend .

OP, sorry for your loss.

TBH I'm posting only to say that my own mother's reaction to the news that my fiance had died (many years ago now) was to call me to cry down the phone about how upset she was about it.... I did quietly drop contact for a while after that.

Like the poster ^ mentioned, if this is out of character, is her health ok? My own DM turned out to have been having small bleeds for years leading up to the big strokes which killed her, and looking back her behaviour had been changing for years, with a disinhibiting effect which seemed to remove her already frankly minimal capacity for empathy and tact.

Oh Frau, how I relate to you, my father passed away 5 years ago and my mother won't even allow me to mention him without telling me that she has lost her husband! how dare I even get upset. My mother is the definition of negative and is overly needy, literally screaming at me because she thinks. I don't visit her enough, even though I go out with her every single weekend. She surrounds herself with crisis and is nasty and verbally abusive with me, which she justifies because she has lost her husband.

I wish I had advice because I don't want to be in this situations either, but all I can give you is my sympathies and empathy. It sounds like you did a lot for your father (mine died very very suddenly-thankfully for him as he didn't suffer) and you must miss him so much.

My mothers un-motherly attitude is starting to affect my marriage as she devastates me and makes me feel like the lowest of the low and my DH can't take it anymore. Be kind to yourself, you've lost a friend and your father in recent years. Your mother might not recognise that but everyone else will and you should allow yourself to grieve. My sympathies are with you x