not to tgo out with my mum

[LEMmingaround]

Its half term. Dd wants to do beach walk with our dogs. My mother called wanting me to go with her to pet shop. Its a long walk but dd doesn't want to traipse around shops while my mother whines about her bad back. Sinuses etc. I want the time with dd. I have offereg for my dp to collect the dog food. She was fine when she called eralier but because dd didnt want to do that all of a sudden she is breathless and telling me how she has to go to bank shops etc and take her dog out because id left it too late. I normally take her dog out at lunch time so its not late. I feel like shit but just cant face it.

Well if she's not to all she can to help herself & drives people away with her attitude, then she only has herself to blame tbh.

perplexedpirate AWWW ((((HUG))) of course I will hold your hand lovey.

She was nasty to you before, now she is nice. this is the crazymaking shit they pull to keep you so 'on your toes' that you are unable to function in your own life.

She has conditioned you to be solely focussed on HER mood as YOUR indicator for your own. It doesn't matter how you feel, only how she does. If you wake up full of the joys of spring and she wakes up in a fug, YOU need to be in that fug, or else.

You need to take further control of your life and see that your feelings are valid, your decisions and choices too. You have your boundaries respected by those that love you and want the best for you.

she doesn't respect you, or your boundaries because, to her, you are not important. Only for what you do for her. It's not even about YOU doing this stuff, it's the fact that she needs attention to feel alive, and she will demand it from wherever she can get it, and whoever is daft enough to provide it.

You can't see a way out of this on your own, because this mess is all you have ever known.

your DP knows different, we (although may have experienced similar) are NOT conditioned by her so her poison doesn't work on us...

She is in pain, losing her independence, lonely and frightened

Lem, you have said she has always been like this, so unless she's been old and infirm all her life, she is playing you for a fool. The psych says she is perfectly capable and she really is.

I think in her mind, she thinks you won't bother with her if there is no reason to and so she makes the reasons up. Yes, she might well be depressed but that does not give someone a free pass to treat others like crap.

Also the nasty one minute and nice the next is classic abusive behaviour.

I think its funny that this week she has "played up" more because DD has been home and ihaven't been able to do as much. I do wonder if i am being unfair, but what you all say is what my DP says - i find it hard to accpt that she doesn't care for me though. She would give me her last penny, but i don't want the money, i just want to be able to live my life. I woke up this morning in an anxious state - DP asked if i felt "well" :( i was just scared of what the day would bring so was of course relieved when it seems to be (so far) drama free - i think i may just turn my phone off :)

Good idea.

Of course you're not being unfair-you have your own family to think of.

How old is your daughter?

I've been assuming that she's quite young & that therefore your mum isn't old.

rabbitlady - i didn't see your message i can only assume it was an unkind comment, well you are entitled to your opinion i guess.

diddl, my mum is 76 and up until recently has been amazingly fit, despite a long-term medical condition. Because she is losing her indepedance it is making her even more cantankerous than normal. but lets just say, everyone's scared of my mum and i could probalby still set up on someone if they upset me My eldest DD (who is 23) calls her "nana" because she is like catherine tate's nana - except worse! She is not five foot tall and has always been like a little rotweiller.

I know that i probably make her out to be an utter cunt on these threads and i don't mean to do that really, but it helps me to have an outlet to maon about it because poor DP can't put up with it all the time. She was awful to my dad all his life, he only really stayed with her because of me - but you know what, she bloody adored him and when he got sick with alzheimers once he was really poorly and had to go in a carehome, that rotweiller streak in her meant that when he was getting poor care it was sorted out and she was utterly devoted to him - at the end, he only recognised her and she slept by his bed in the hospice for a week when he died. She isn't a bad person, just a difficult one - the trouble is, my mental health isn't up to dealing with it.

didl my youngest is 8

Is your 23yr old able to help at all?

Oh dear, poor OP. She has all my sympathies. My own late mother was an arch manipulator. She was in a series of very nice nursing homes and they got so hacked off with her attitude, trouble-making etc. etc., that they kept moving her on to another home run by the same people. She even tried to get me to lie in order that she could get staff fired! It got to the stage where I was pretty well bribing the matron of one of the homes (with crates of booze, nights out in London, presents) not to throw her out.

Eventually I went no contact for just over a year, though I continued to provide pocket money and anything mother wanted, such as new bed, TV, Video recorder, clothes etc. I did visit her again a year or so before she died and she even apologised

I think that going no contact can be a wake-up call to people such as OP's mother - maybe worth trying? She sounds an absolute bloody nightmare and I feel so sorry for OP and her family.

Forgot to add, my mother had been a pretty horrible person to me all my life, it wasn't something that came on in old age.

She doesn't live locally diddl, to be fair, when she did live here she was really good to my mum but she basically did to her what she is doing to me and had her at her beck and call so she stopped going there after a while. I wish she could see that the way she goes on leads to her isolating herself. She has a sister that she has fallen out with (although she is in australia) because she is so jealous of her (long long story) a SIL who doesn't bother with her anymore because of the way she is (so they know if they call her it will be the same gripes over and over and over and you just can't reason with her). Her niece often asks her up for dinner but she doesn't go, again, i don't think she calls her anymore as she is the same and her niece has too much of her own shite to deal with. So its just me really.

I am hoping that they can sort her sinuses and other medical things out so that she can at least get out and do her garden this year, if they can't do that then i think she will fall further into a depression.

Just after christmas i took a big step back and she was actually doing better - then she had a crisis and i was back to square one. So i think i need to step back again to a degree as that seems to be better for her.

I think that you need boundaries.

Decide what you will do for her & stick to it.

Don't put up with her being nasty-walk away from that/go home.

A step back might do you both good.

hissy, why not be less aggressive in your posts?

rabbitlady - are you reading a different thread? because i cannot see where hissy has been anything other than supportive actually.

LEM, it could be that your DM perceived the 'step back' and for this reason escalated.

You do need to step back again, and again and again. Yes she will try all manner of shite to pull you back in, but that should serve as proof that you must keep going.

Decide on your boundaries and never, ever compromise on them.

If you adopt broken record, and ensure between you and dh that there is no chink in the armour, it won't be as hard to battle through it.

Remember Stately Homes is always there is you need support, or post back on this thread no matter when and we'll see you.

Goes without saying lem, PM me if ever you need to?

www.daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com

Apologies if this has been posted before but it is a very useful website.

Eek! My apologies- looks as if their useful forum has shut down. Pity. But do google "Narcissistic mother" if you can. It may be helpful.

I think its funny that this week she has "played up" more because DD has been home and i haven't been able to do as much

Actually, it's more about competing for attention. :(

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1997591--to-ask-you-not-to-say-But-shes-your-MUM-when-someone-tells-you-that-they-have-a-tricky-relationship-with-their-mother?

This thread might be useful for some here to appreciate that when we are 'blessed' with mothers that demand so much, but give back so little, or are in some cases out and out cruel, that we have an utter right to want to distance ourselves. We have that right and actually a real need to do so. For our own health, and that of our children and partners (as applicable)

Our feelings are our feelings and we are entitled to them, no matter how inconvenient these feelings are to others.

if we are hurt by the actions/words of others, we are hurt and that's real. Whether it was the intention of that person to hurt us, and what they do about it when they are made aware of that hurt is what separates a Good Parent and a Dysfunctional one.

Remember this:

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
? Eleanor Roosevelt

We *DON'T have to consent to being made to feel we're not good enough. Not for anyone, nor for any reason.

Well, that was an interesting day - i went out with my friend and her children. My mum phoned and was obviously pissed off, then at lunch time a phone call, i needed to go and sort the dog out as he had shit stuck to his backside I told her to put him in the garden and i'd go round later. Had a lovely lunch with friend, she could see i was agitated so she dropped me at my mums and waited out side while i sorted the dogs shitty backside out - en route my mum rang, saying she needed to take the dog to the vet because he was in such a bad way - well by this time i was outside her house. Yeah he was in a mess and there was plenty of poo - think 60k dog with hair like an afghan hound Cleaned him up and went up to friends house, was there a few hours and the phone rang again - she was in a right state saying she couldnt get through to the doctors - i just told her to walk straight down there, luckily they got her an appointment with the practice nurse, my friend dropped me off and my mum was in a real state, crying and shaking etc and rubbing at her ears - I told the nurse she couldnt be left like this over the weekend and thankfully her doctor came and prescribed some diazepam (and jokingly told me not to "borrow" them) She has at least taken them and hopefully is feeling less upset - she was in full on panic attack mode. Fortunately she was being nice (for a change).

So will wait to see what the weekend brings - because i was at my friends all day i felt relaxed and dealt with it better, but i said to my friend this morning when my mum rang and i said i was out with a friend that there would be drama, i wasn't wrong!

Heres hoping the diazepam knocks her out for a bit!