Is your mum supportive and emotionally available?

[Shangrilala]

I don’t feel I’ve ever had that special close bond/relationship with my own mother. She’s critical, judgey, defensive and very much close minded/emotionally unavailable.
I’m a mother too now and in my early forties. I’ve had issues my whole life with intimacy, self acceptance and body image. Depression featured heavily in my teenage years. Alcohol came later. Now chronic anxiety.
It’s dawning in me (albeit too late) that my unfulfilling relationship with my mother has basically screwed all this for me

More casual ableism and spreading uninformed untrue ideas about autism @Lellikelly26?

Many autistic people have overwhelming empathy and are demonstrable and loving people and parents. Just like many NT people

Some are dicks, just like NT people.

My Mum’s not emotionally available at all, she never has been. I try not to mention anything emotional in my life because she has always shut me down in the past, makes me feel small. She’s very much a ‘stiff upper lip’ type, doesn’t believe people should expose emotions.

I don’t recall her ever telling me she loved me or cuddling me very much as a child.

Yep that was me MrsNotNice so try not to be hard on yourself. I was a fully paid up member of my mother's club. Protector, carer, saviour and at the same time 'feeling' it wasn't normal or good for me. I think it's part of the dysfunctional family system that keeps it going. It's a type of brainwashing. I didn't notice how abusive my husband was either. That took me a while to process. Long after I had divorced him. Now I see things very clearly. You will get there. Just keep going. Keep reading, researching, taking care of yourself.

I can phone my Mum at any time of the day or night. I recently went to pieces at 3am one day and phoned her, ended up going to hers where she was waiting with tea and toast and a bed for the night

My mum wouldn't even hear the phone. She drinks heavily every night until she falls asleep in her chair. This goes as far back as I can remember.

So sorry to hear that Etty

How do you manage to get emotional support? How did you cope in your early years and teenage hood?

Must have been hard. :( . I wish our mums realised

My Mum has never been emotionally available. She was too busy casting herself as a martyr. I spent my teenage years listening to her complaints about my father - it took me YEARS to realise how unappropriate it was.

Like you, OP, I have huge self-esteem and body image issues, and I believe my toxic upbringing is one of the reasons why I am staying in an abusive marriage.

One of my siblings believes she has an undiagnosed personality disorder.

She is dying now and I think I will mourn her, but also what might have been.

OP asks, "Is your mother supportive and emotionally available?" Someone replies, "Yes, I couldn't ask for better" and gets a sarcastic "Good for you" with an eye roll emoticon. Do we only want negative stories

Yeah, that was me. Because that particular poster came across as gloating. No acknowledgement for the OP. At least others who have said they had wonderful mothers at least acknowledged that the OP didn't.

It's the equivalent of someone posting how tough they are finding things financially and someone replying 'not me! I'm super rich. I get to buy all the luxuries I want'.

How is that helpful to the OP?

How do you manage to get emotional support? How did you cope in your early years and teenage hood?

I don't really have any emotional support, but this is only a recent realisation. I can chat to friends but it's not the same and it shouldn't be. I have no partner. And I've realised there is no gain from trying to see it from my parents.

I've recently been looking back on my childhood. I read my childhood diaries where at the age of 12/13 I wrote I was abnormal and my life wasn't worth living. This would have been early 90s. I wrote about how my parents always blamed me for everything and I very much remember that if I spoke how I felt I always got 'told off'. I was a child so it's quite possible I was being unreasonable but why was I always told off for feeling the way I did? Why didn't they listen and just explain and support? I learned I just get in trouble for talking about how I feel. And it's very much the same today, I get a bad reaction and it ultimately ends up becoming about my mother.

I don't blame just my mother, this thread is about mothers. It's my mother with the issue but my dad very much enables it and always backs my mother in every situation.

I learned I just get in trouble for talking about how I feel.

Oh wow, light bulb moment. That’s why I get anxious and switch off when I have feelings that aren’t in accordance to my people pleasing habits. That’s why I feel selfish talking about them. Thats why I get scared and at times angry.

Of course it’s learnt behaviour! To feel like there will be serious drama as a result of you saying “I’m uncomfortable”, “I’m upset with this”... you start thinking your feelings cause conflict and so you need to suppress them in order to not burden the household with the lack of peace.. you quickly learn that your feelings and needs are a burden and that it’s selfish to just be yourself.

I hope we recover from this.. you sound self aware Etty. I think we will learn to support ourselves emotionally very soon, and will no longer need anyone

Yes I've definitely learnt to suppress my feelings.

I've only recently had some of these lightbulb moments (the past month or so). Funnily enough it's because I'd been chatting to a guy and I realised how 'fearful avoidant' I was (literally terrified at times to open up because I feared rejection). Researched that attachment type after coming across it on MN and then made the link with childhood. It was eye opening the impact it's had on me as an adult without realising. I just blamed myself.

I'm hoping to have some counselling soon as I need to understand what I need to do to move forwards and be a good mother to my son. Just a shame it's so expensive.

I hope we can recover too @MrsNotNice

@MrsNotNice sorry for the delayed response, I have been told I'm compassionate and thank you for such a lovely compliment, but honestly I think it was driven by loneliness, she and I never had an equal footing until I too became a Mother and I never really got a replacement mother figure.

Her Mum, my Grandmother is a narcissistic, alcoholic cold and manipulative woman, she and my Grandfather raised me and my full brother and sister from babyhood but I moved out as soon as I turned 16 as I was always the scapegoat child with my Grandmother, my Grandfather had not long since passed away and I was the "fall-guy" for all of her psychological issues.

Whilst my own Mother exposed me to a very dark side of herself it was never directed at me really, I saw violence because she allowed herself to be abused at the hands of her various boyfriends. I saw her own alcoholism and as a child it scared me, but as an adult I think I sort of understand that she was perpetuating all of the negativity from her own young life.

I was an after thought to her when I was young, it wasn't until she met her current partner and settled down that she broke her own cycle of mistreatment, then when I saw how hard she tried (from a distance) to be a good Mum to my half brother and sister I felt resentment to begin with, a sort of jealousy that they got the attention from her that I never could. But again, I grew up, I admit and she acknowledges that she let me down in many ways. But I could either choose to remain NC or give her a last attempt at a relationship. I have thought since I lost my Grandfather (not exactly a saint of a man but the only Father I ever had and he tried his best) that life is too short to focus on negativity, doesn't mean it doesn't affect me of course, but if I can choose a path that lessens some of that childhood pain, then why not try? But this is something that took over a decade to contemplate and only when I fell pregnant and thought (at a particularly vulnerable moment after I'd discovered I was having twins) that "I want my Mummy" - so I thought give it one more shot, but this time, on my terms :)

My mum wouldn't even hear the phone. She drinks heavily every night until she falls asleep in her chair. This goes as far back as I can remember.

Yes, mine too. My parents have always been big drinkers, I remember when I was a teen, aged about 14 or 15 going to the cinema with my friends and getting seperated from them. I was supposed to be going home with their parents, but obviously couldn't. I rang them to come and get my and got a big rant about how they'd both had a drink and couldn't come. In the end my Dad came and he'd two pints I think so not much, but all I got from my DM was that it would have been my fault if he'd been arrested for drink driving! I was 15 for Christ's sake!

With hindsight I realise this is utterly appalling and very shit parenting. I don't have kids, but if I did I wouldn't dream of drinking if they were out just in case I needed to get them ASAP! One of them should have remained sober, in fact DF was sober and able to drive but still...

Actually thinking about it, even now it would be my DF who would come and get me in a crisis. Im very lucky to have a great Dad!

Actually thinking about it, even now it would be my DF who would come and get me in a crisis. Im very lucky to have a great Dad!

This is what I used to think. Because my dad seemed to be there for me when my mother wasn't. Mum would always send him to do pick ups, visit me in hospital etc. But I've very recently realised he enables her. And actually that is quite shit parenting too. Because he always puts her feelings before any of us and defends her to the hilt if any of us have tried to discuss it in the past.

Has anyone ever had one or both their parents apologise to them ? Did that change them ?

My mother has never apologised for anything. She has slammed the phone down on me several times but never said sorry. If I try to talk to her about how upset I am about various things, she dodges blame.
My father did apologise when I was a child, but he's dead now and I can't remember an apology for anything once I became an adult.

I am learning about Non Violent Communication at the moment which I am hoping will help me communicate better generally.

Of course it’s learnt behaviour! To feel like there will be serious drama as a result of you saying “I’m uncomfortable”, “I’m upset with this”... you start thinking your feelings cause conflict and so you need to suppress them in order to not burden the household with the lack of peace.. you quickly learn that your feelings and needs are a burden and that it’s selfish to just be yourself.

This is something I’ve had to learn to manage in myself. I’d agree, for example to do something I knew would cause extreme fatigue, then end up angry with my husband for “pushing me into it”. He doesn’t, I was just afraid at a deep level to say no, because that was a word with horrible consequences when I was a child.
There were a lot of rows caused by my inability to say what I felt, the poor man was bewildered! I literally don’t know how I feel till afterwards. Nowadays, if we’re discussing something, I say let me ponder it, because I need a couple of days for the idea to settle in. It works for us both, but it took distance from the source (my family) to see it clearly.

I’m going to sound unpopular saying this...

But today I realised that since many of our apathetic mothers project their issues unto us and don’t see us as separate but instead try create drama so we can react and validate their negative feelings with our negative response.. anger and frustration..

Then maybe we can utilise our position to help them learn some empathy.. I do think sometimes they’re suffering mentally and psychologically.. because of what they’ve been through and aren’t aware of their behaviour because it’s all subconscious need for validation. X

I decided maybe I can use my position to teach my mother some empathy.,, by trying to be empathetic.

It was very hard for me because of course she made me feel rejected for very long and I had to rely on external sources to get the courage...

Gradually..

I just validated her feelings and told her she isn’t to blame Ans then I went on to ask her to consider mine too...

And to my surprise that went down well and she was able to tap into her emotions and bring out some positive.

As I said though my mum isn’t cruel, but she does do cruel things when she is desperate for attention

Nope, she is mostly drunk and abusive so we are very low contact.

@MrsNotNice
That took a lot for you to do.. well done!
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head actually. I’m reading about NVC but putting it into practice is so hard.
My mother is doing her usual now. Getting the Flying Monkeys in line. Whenever she falls out with me she starts bombarding my children with phone calls and sickly loving messages. It makes me so so angry. She’s just such a fake.

So I have a weird question.

My mother seems to have absolutely no interest in me as a person and when I’m around her she seems to almost not see me as if I’m invisible..

Yet around DH she gives him so much attention and engaged in conversations and actively empathizes with him.

The contrast is astonishing like I went to visit her today and she literally sat with her back to me and just chatting to DH the whole visit.

I just want to know whether that’s typical and anyone experienced that as I have been having this issue for a long time. And this is after me not seeing my mum for a long time and actually being heavily pregnant and speaking to her directly about how I feel unsupported by her.

I got slightly annoyed that DH didn’t do something about it, and didn’t try to engage me in the conversation.. I was trying to speak and jump in the conversation but was spoken over and n my mum was just not interested.

This isn’t just now, it has always been the case.

I would feel better if mum had no interest in anyone but to have an interest just in DH and not me is a bit puzzling...

Any insight?

I understand DH might be more charismatic, more approachable or just out of politeness.. but it’s not DH this happens around everyone. I’m almost always treated as invisible and while I’m able to accept mum has no social skills but it’s rubbed in my face when I see her having perfect ability to have interesting conversations with other people and just pretends to not hear me when I talk.

@MrsNotNice she wants to make you feel jealous? Make you feel lesser? She sounds awful

My mum is great in a lot of ways, great grandma very hands on with my kids when we visit
She is thoughtful and considerate when it comes to birthdays, will ring to check on me if I am ill or have had a stressful week. She came to both my births and helped me shower after a section when I could barely stand.

However, she does like to bitch about people and I find this mentally draining. I am happy in my own life and just want to get on with it. I find the level of negative gossiping she does to be a really negative trait.

She is also weight obsessed and has been overweight most of her adult life. As a result she talks about my weight more often than I like and more recently I have told her to back off as I am losing weight at a good rate for me. When I put focus on losing weight she is very encouraging but the constant focus does my head in.

All in all she is a wonderful mum but like any person has negative traits as well as positive!

MrsNotNice My Mum prefers men over women and is desperate for aproval from them. She doesn't really have any close female friends other than her sister and sister in law and when I think back all of the close female friends she had in the past were always a lot older than her. In fact, come to think of it most of them are now dead. Women of a similar age or younger are competition in her eyes I think and that includes me. I know that she is jealous of me and competes with me. Its really weird, she has always been jealous of my closeness to my Dad for example. She can be very unkind and bitchy about other women.

I think that ties in with what Sceptre86 says, she uses me as a sounding board for her bitchiness. Often really nasty stuff as well. I don't want to hear it really, but when I tell her she gets sulky and/or defensive. She doesn't understand female friendships and certainly not mother and daughter relationships. She came from a toxic family herself and has admitted in the past that she felt responsible for her own DM. I think she expects me to be responsible for her in a similar way. Well she can fuck right off with that.