Showing my mum photos and suddenly realised why I'm so low in confidence

[Luzylou]

My mum came yesterday and I started showing her holiday pics of our trip to New York. One particular photo was a selfie I took in Central Park, laying on the grass with the bright sun on my face. Now I know I'm no oil painting and due to my lack of confidence I don't take many selfies and if I do, I tend not to show anyone them. Anyway this particular pic I was quite proud of as I thought I looked pretty fresh faced for a change and it showed the tranquility of the park so I included it in the holiday pics. Anyway her immediate reaction was to squeal "oh yikes! That's awful! Haha was that after a night out by any chance?? You look half asleep! Hehe no sorry Lou, I don't like that one!". I awkwardly laughed it off but I was hurt actually as I thought it was a decent picture. Other people that have seen it liked it so the reaction shocked me and put me on a downer.

This isn't the first example of this though, she did it recently when I showed her a photo of me at work in uniform. I thought it was a decent picture yet her first reaction was "oh Lou! What an awful picture! You look really old!! Were you stressed that day by any chance?? Haha"

She's done it loads and used to do it when I was a kid as well. I once experimented with a new hairstyle as a teen and when I went to show her she burst out laughing and said "what on earth have you done to your hair! Looks like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards!".
My confidence has always been shit (no surprises there eh!) so examples like this just mortify me and make me not bother incase I get laughed at or in case people don't like it.

Aibu to be hurt about the holiday pic? She didn't need to say it was amazing but if she didn't like it, why say anything?? I'd never dream of ripping someone's pic to bits like that, even if I did think they looked rough!

Apologies for hijacking this post but to those posters who no longer have any contact with their mothers, can you tell me how you handled the first birthday/Christmas etc with no contact with your mother? I stopped contact with mine earlier this year for many reasons (too many to go into) the lowest point was being told I looked awful and spotty after an emergency c section and being told my newborn baby had meningitis and might at worse die or at best be deaf. The 'spots' as she referred to were pigmentation changes on my face due to pregnancy hormones etc... Bitch.
Anyway, I just wondered how people handled things like cards/no pressies etc. as she hasn't accepted that I don't want to see her anymore and my dad and siblings are caught in the middle so I imagine she'll just pretend everything is fine and justify to herself that the reason I haven't seen her for a year is because I've been busy.

You just have to realise it's not you, it's her. I've slowly trained myself over the years but my DM still gets me on occasion. She always talks really negatively about "our figure" and how awful it is, as if me, DSises and her are one person. She raves on about my size six SIL but thinks my size 8-10 is unacceptable. Recently I tried on this new cropped white lace shirt with some jeans and for some silly reason asked DM and DSis if I could get away with it on hols. They both said no you look bloody awful so I didn't take it. I took a picture of myself which my brutally honest DP spotted on my phone when we were away, he said the outfit looked great and I realised that it looked fine.

Well Choc. I never spend holidays of any sort with my family. I am 1000% happier as a result. Thinking back to being a kid not one family event ever got to be about me or was ever free of manufactured drama. I now love birthdays, Christmases, Easters and all the rest as a result. We do them either just me and DH, friends or his family who are superstars. I am having a baby at the minute and I live in another country. The fuss they are making about coming to see me is comedic. I don't actually want any of them here as they will make it all about them. Am in the doghouse once again as I have let them know I will have help for the first four weeks after my daughters arrival. I expect nothing whatsoever from them and as a result am no longer saddened or disappointed by them.

Chiquita if I looked as fab as you do, I'd think all my troubles were over.

OP, next time your mother runs you down, tell her you're tired of being undermined by her nasty comments and if she has nothing nice to say she should shut the fuck up. Use the word 'fuck'. I find if it's used on special occasions, it's very, very effective.

My dh's mum does this. She either shows no interest at all or she says something spiteful. She always has. and he has zero confidence now. Even when its pics of her only grandchildren. We've stopped showing her anything. It's her issue. Some people are just nasty. I'm sure you look lovely in your photo.

My mum is ezactly the same, nothing i do is ever right even though i learned and trained like a nurse just to be able to bring my own kid home, yet if my house is cluttered (with medical machines etc) then she doesn't stop going on about how messy my house is... Pisses me right off but i need her to look after pur eldest while at appointments so i have to suck it up, no talking to her about as she will either cry try to attack me or scream in my face. I'm scared to push it too far incase she calls social or something.

I'm an only child but seem to have sisters here as we share the same mum! When my mum is sharing anecdotes she can be lovely, but everyone and everything is judged - she can't accept people for what they are.
Examples of her lovely comments:

• wearing black and red clothes at 15, calling my nan over "have a look at this, she can't go out like that. Who's died?"
• after giving birth to DD2 and looking at my figure - " oh, have you got another one in there?"
• 4 months pregnant with DD1 I couldn't wait to buy an item of maternity clothing (PFB I know) and bought a maternity skirt, "why did you buy that, you know I didn't show until 7 months gone you're just sticking it out"
• wanting support with my kids as I said I was frustrated with the behaviour of the youngest (older one is having issues at school as well), "well, I don't know what you are breeding"
• proudly showing GCSE results (even mix of A, B and C), "oh, only 3 As?"
• a level results (Bs and Cs), "oh that's a shame no A)

If it wasn't for the fact that she is widowed and has no car I would up sticks and move further away tomorrow

Thanks Helena and best wishes with your pregnancy.
God there are some bloody horrible mothers out there. I was beginning to think I was in the minority but this post shows not so.

Oh LuzyLou I feel for you. I'm sorry but your mum sounds so jealous. And Chiquita, you are gorgeous.

My mum wants me to be a younger version of her. She used to be a model and now she's on the booze she is all bloated and bitter. She doesn't like it when I am slim ("you look ill") as she wants me to be like her.

She is blond, and when I dyed my hair blond for a few years she was so happy. Back to red now, well actually its more of a rose gold, and I feel much better in my own skin. Her comment - 'Mmm. I don't like it, I do prefer you blond'. She'd rather I was in my unhappy marriage to my STBXH, as she is embarrassed to have to tell her friends both her kids are divorced. And don't get me started on my lack of kids and non-conventional career!

Sorry. Feel better now!

Your mother is toxic and jealous. It has taken my sister and l over 50 years of mental ill health to finally say enough is enough. Don't let it take that long with you. You deserve to be happy- listen to your friends and the people who make you feel good! No one has the right to make you feel insecure, least of all the woman who is supposed to love you the most. X

My mum, God bless her, never said anything complimentary to me as a child but she had a mother with severe depression so probably never heard anything positive herself. She had a desperately hard life as an adult. I guess I sort of knew that she loved me although she never said it to me. I think that these building blocks of self confidence that we can pass on to our children (or not) can play a major part in how we perceive ourselves as adults. As a mother of three I feel (or should I say, I KNOW) I have failed desperately to instil confidence in them. I simply was not able to give them what I had never had myself and, to be honest, I never knew even existed,

Oh, and.

I'm so proud of all the things I've done, especially sports-wise (think climbing Everest but a different sport. don't want to out myself). And all she says is "I don't know why you do this. What do you feel you have to prove?"

Just because I'm a girl, and the things I do are male-centric.

I dunno. She doesn't feel like my mum anymore.

Disgusting. My mother is exactly the same. She's no longer in my life (for much worse crimes than putting me down). It's so hard, the love you have for your mum is innate but I know she doesn't deserve my time.

That's mean. Often when people are nasty like that, it's actually about themselves and not anything about you. In the sense that perhaps she too has low self esteem and in order to make herself feel better about herself, she makes you feel worse iyswim. It's sad that it's your own mum that treats you like that. She obviously has issues herself. Ignore her if you can.
Either way, there is no upside to showing her photos of you anymore. Ever. So don't bother.

My mother didn't really appreciate the extent to which her mother had done this to her until my sister and I were teenagers. And fitted clothes from when she was 20, in our early teens when we were still slender / hadn't reached our full heights. My very slim 13 year old wore one of those dresses recently too. My mother remembers always being told she was "fat", "heavy legged" etc. She has described a particular pursed lips "eeee" that accompanied any attempt of hers to practice violin at home, assuming and mocking a poor sound when she had anything but. Oh and she also remembers being absolutely ridiculed for expressing an interest in singing in a choir when, still fairly small, she was taken to a cathedral service.

The ultimate on that last is that both my children have been able to pursue their shared interest in choral music in "proper" choirs.

LucyL,
Welcome to the Club, the club for daughters who get insulted my their mothers.In my case its on a regular basis as i moved her in with me when she fell and broke her hip and that was 5 years ago and she is still here.
You can't let her remarks get to you, life is too short and she may just be jealous of you .
Keep smiling .

Chiquita I've only read the first page, and your post caught my eye. You're a lovely looking woman, and my guess is, your mum is jealous of your youth....!
Tell her, the next time she criticises you, that if she can't be nicer, then you won't be contacting her any time soon!

I need to reread this thread slowly because I have read it just gobbling it up! This is how life as a child/teenager was with my mother.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, I have done was good enough. I was mocked for being pleased with my (not ashamed to say it) excellent exam results at university and it was definitely felt that I needed to "be brought down a peg or two."

Since I was at primary school, I've been told that I have a big bum and thighs. I cannot imagine saying that to my children. I too have always been dressed in clothes that were too big because I was "on the large side". I look at photos now and think how much time and mental energy (and a diagnosed eating disorder) in my teenage years/twenties thinking I was fat, and see photos of this incredibly slim, healthy looking young woman.

I brought my DC by telling them how wonderful they were, and that they could achieve what they wanted from life.....provided they wanted enough, and were prepare to work hard enough! They both now have their own successful businesses!

Call her out on it. Maybe she hasn't realised she does it.

Next time, just turn and say "have you noticed how you do that? Always commenting negatively on someone's appearance?" See what she says.

She might not even realise she does it. Maybe that's how she was talked to growing up. Maybe it's a learned response that she can learn to change or moderate.

Blame the media and society if you have to soften it "why is it that women are taught to look at themselves so negatively? I for one am going to try and be more positive about women of all shapes and sizes".

She might get the message and by saying that you're going to look for the positives might make her want to join in and look for the positives too.

my mums mum does this to her all the time and from the outside watching all i see is my gran being bitter becasue my mum has grown into someone so beautiful. my grans wants control to belittle to keep her hers.keep her under her.as mean as that sounds that how I witness these occurances. when mum started finding herself my gran hated it! is it because certain aged woman didn't used to be able to go out and have lives.were they always the server of the man in those days or something.
has the new confident or independence of woman made grans bitter towards daughters finally able to see themselves as something ok,something more.
oh I don't know. all I do know is don't you dare take it to heart.listen to what YOU thought.and that was how lovely you looked.that came from inside you and that is where beauty shines from.not from others.if you listen to her it will then grow in you and make you sad therefore diminishing all the pretty you saw shining from the fun and fab photos.
keep going.keep taking selfies.you sound beautiful!!:)

When I was about 14 my mum said, in these exact words, 'if you lost some weight you might get yourself a boyfriend'
I was a size ten.

YANBU. You've everything right to be pissed off but at the same time you cannot allow this to become your reality either.

Rise above it. Find a way to feel proud of yourself and beautiful and happy and live the life you deserve.

I'll bet the people you look up to most and respect are not people who are beautiful (or at least that's not why you respect them) so remember beauty is fleeting and skin deep. It's a cliche but real beauty does come from within. It's happiness and the mark that you make on the world that matters.

Your mother either has issues herself (maybe she was parented that way?) or she's a cow, but either way, let it go and move on.

This is not about how nasty in my case my mother can be telling me how fat, flabby, old I am looking when I'm trying to cope and failing with my husband cheating. I have a mirror, I know I am chubby and short, and many other things, and beauty is subjective for some I maybe cute for others not and I am ok with that. However, I should be beautiful to her because she is supposed to love me, just like we all see people we love more beautiful than they really are or at least not make it like I should never get out of the house since I am so ugly. The thing that hurt me the most is that she said that I looked so bad I deserved to be cheated on. Nobody deserves that. I am her daughter, she should feel bad for what is happening to me but I know she actually enjoys it when things go wrong for me. She always compares me to her and she always 'wins'. She is always more intelligent, prettier, stronger, and a better person. She always says what a good person she is.

That is a horrible thing to say !

I think she envies you your stength. That you were cheated on, and you got through it.