DM refuses to accept I have a serious food allergy

[adulthumanwoman]

I have just spent 4 days in Whitby with DM and my DC, causing this issue to raise it's head again.
I have a serious seafood allergy - allergic to all shellfish and molluscs and intolerant of finned fish. I have not had any incident for 15 years and am careful. DM will not accept I have this allergy. The last time I had an allergic response was due to her contaminating my food on a similar self catering break 15yo.
This time my DC are older. Their response to DM's behaviour has made me think. DS got in an argument with her last night when she AGAIN said "It'd nice to all have fish and chips but you don't like it do you" and rolled her eyes. DS said "Gma, Mum is ALLERGIC to fish and she could die - she isn's fussy" (I eat pretty much anything else and am v laid back in most areas of life). She said 'What difference is it, she won't eat it in any case" eyeroll.
I have always treated it as one of her many quirks, but now actually feel incredibly hurt. Why doesn't she care? She ate fish or seafood EVERY meal except breakfast when we were away, I presume because we were at the Seaside and it is incredibly delicious - I have no problem whatsoever with anyone else eating fish and DS loves it.

DS had a milk allergy when he was born but I micro-dosed him under care of a Dietician and helped him overcome it - he is now only very mildly intolerant. She knows this and has never accused DS of being 'fussy' - why me?
AIBU to feel so hurt at her insistence to DC (and everyone else but I don't really care what they think) that I am 'fussy'?
Sorry for the rant, I suppose I really just don't understand why I am so upset today, she's always been like this :(

That is awful OP! It wasn’t my parents who dismisses my allergy but the wider family. I can’t imagine my mum insisting I ate eggs even though they make me ill.

My son had the allergy too, my sister asked “is he really allergic or is he just like you and doesn’t like eggs). I explained again that I am allergic and my sons face and lips swell up when he eats egg so he doesn’t “just not like them” ffs

about 5 years ago she was telling me about a book she'd read about Munchausen Syndrome by proxy and I laughed and said 'you're the opposite- you deny your kids are sick! She laughed uproariously and went for a swim 😂

How are you finding it funny by laughing emojis?? I mean
It's awful what she's doing.

@DishingOutDone
its clear the OP didn't want any advice. She asked AIBU to feel hurt, we all said no, in fact you should feel even more hurt! and then she's spent the rest of her posts telling us how wonderful, mysterious, amazing her mum is
It sounds like someone defending an abuser you know how sometimes you read "oh but he's a great dad" and you think no he's fucking not ... its the voice I hear in the OP's posts
Agree, and I thought that too, like doesn't want to listen

Write her a letter to be read out at breakfast by your DC not too serious but saying quite clearly you have a fish allergy and she as your mummy must make sure you don't eat fish because it makes their mummy very ill.

I'd like to see her come back from that.

Ahh,you are back now.

Do it on zoom!

I’d be very tempted to make a family in-joke about her obvious on-coming dementia. Pull it out every time she serves or suggests fish dinners. ‘Oh dear mum, you’ll be forgetting our names next. Should we go round the table to remind you?’. Bet she’d love that. Extra points if you make steam shoot out of her ears.

All this pretending not to remember about your serious allergy. Disgusting. The reason it hurts so much is that all humans want to be ‘known’, to be heard and understood and cared for by their family and friends. To be purposely neglected and your needs casually dismissed by your own mother (because she’s cross you don’t fit some random perfect film in her head) is the opposite of being ‘known’. It hurts whether you’re 5 or 65 years old.

Your mother is a prat. Why feel hurt? You’ve known she is a prat for a long time, your family all know she is a prat. Stay away from her.

My dm accused my sis of “affectation” for 30 years. Of making a fuss, attention seeking, of being Wednesday’s child, cold and unnatural. My sis is autistic but according to dm, autism is self indulgent rubbish.

Some people are just bigoted and not worth listening to.

OP, a number of things you've said about your mum are very similar to my mum.

Luckily I do not have any serious illnesses, but my sister does, and we were constantly invalidated as children both for feeling ill, or expressing any negative emotion. ("What do you mean, you feel sad? No you don't! Stop being silly!")

She was never overtly abusive, and given we suffered physical and sexual abuse from our dad, we automatically saw her as the "good" parent. But she wasn't.

I cut her out of my life about 6 years ago and my life, and my DC's, has been immeasurably calmer and less conflicted since.

Please have a look on the Relationships board for the current thread "Well we took you to stately homes" because I think a lot of the posts there will ring a bell with you.

And as an aside, the whole "Well we never had this in my day" crap is because PEOPLE JUST USED TO DIE AND NOBODY KNEW WHY.
Other things we never had back in the day:
Car seats
Seatbelts in cars
Bicycle helmets
Drink drive laws
The right to equal pay
The right to not be raped within marriage
etc...

I think it's really unfair to berate the OP for not realising how abusive this behaviour is. She's lived with it her whole life in a boiling frog sort of way. She's not going to suddenly change her world view over the course of a few hours

My DC is allergic to nuts. We had a bit of a fight with my PIL at first but it was only through lack of understanding.

Your DM shouldn't be eating seafood when you are around, full stop. I wouldn't be going on holiday with someone who put my life at risk.

If she knowingly/deliberately puts you at risk and you have a reaction, it's assault. If you die, she could end up on a charge of manslaughter, or even murder.

This is nuts, but the same applies to any allergens.
www.independent.co.uk/voices/nut-allergies-kill-and-thats-why-you-could-be-imprisoned-for-treating-me-like-a-fussy-eater-a7044716.html

She sounds emotionally abusive OP. I'm not sure I could motivate myself to holiday with her and such if she was so fixated on not showing me any respect or allow my medical condition acknowledgement.

Do you carry an EpiPen OP? Seafood traces are in an awful lot of foods and flavourings, I don't imagine simply cutting our fish will cut it. Lots of crisp flavourings and foods contain fish sauce. Particularly unlabeled takeaways.

It's interesting that you mention The Glass Castle. I have just read that and came out of it with two reactions.

One was that I could not believe how awful the parents were; despite the author wanting us to believe that they had some redeeming qualities, they were so abusive that they could have raised the dead and it wouldn't have changed my opinion on them.

The second is that the author hasn't really dealt with what happened to her at all. She had not acknowledged the extent to which her parents were abusive and unkind and selfish, and she was still very intertwined with them.

If you feel that the book reflects your life, I think it would really help you to get some counselling. You need someone to tell you, to your face, just how bad your mother has been.

@Aahhwoof

Is no one else still trying to think of a fish that isn’t a finned fish?

Up until this point I had been reading it as tinned fish 😂 I was wondering what it was about the tinning process that would trigger an allergy. It makes much more sense now!

It’s hard being told the person you love is abusive. And has been abusive to you since you were a child.

OP you have your own children now, how would you feel if your mother tried to kill them? Because that’s what she’s trying to do to you and leave your children without their mother.

I cannot believe the woman watched her 8 year old be so unwell that her uncle was terrified for her and yet she dismisses it and attempts to repeat that experience.

I can’t even bring myself to ask my DC to eat food they just don’t like. I have a DC who is fussy, we’ll tease her that she turns good down without trying it (she doesn’t so much now, she will have a taste), but I’d never make her eat something that makes her feel sick.

Don’t eat with your mother or holiday with her and if it comes up and she starts going on about not remembering your allergy do as a PP said start telling her and everyone your worried she has early onset dementia as she can’t even remember the most important fact about her own child.

It’s your norm, but I find it shockingly abusive and cannot imagine not hating myself forever if I accidentally fed my child something they were severely allergic to never mind doing it on purpose repeatedly.

She sounds deeply narcissistic, OP. There's no cure, it's lifelong and they see themselves as fine and needing no improvement.

The only control over this is how much time you choose to spend with her - how much access to you and your children you allow her to have.

In time she'll do this same (scapegoating behaviours) to one of your kids, if she isn't already.

Complete derail here really, but are you always OK with sea swimming and snorkelling? I’m thinking about all the (massively diluted) remains of fish and shellfish in the water and wondering how much it takes to trigger a skin reaction in the worst cases.

Guppy, can't answer for OP, but husband who also has a fish allergy is fine with swimming. I don't know if he has ever tried snorkelling. Having said that he's not really a beach holiday person, more of a sight seeing type. He says that he considers himself lucky, in that the allergen that causes his reaction isn't volatile so he can walk past cooking fish, for example, and be OK, unlike people with nut allergies.

@GuppytheCat. I have spent a lot of time underwater - swimming, snorkelling, diving, no reactions except when I was bitten by a fish and had a mild allergic reaction - I assume to saliva.
F used to say that I was a softy who wanted to be friends with the fish and so refused to eat them.

Thanks for all the comments. Yes, I have read the stately homes threads. Thanks for all your concerns.

I know things weren't right, I also know that the differences between growing up in a developing country with a teenage mother who did not have any control over her own reproductive system is vasty different to the life I enjoy now. I try not to be too harsh as I am not sure who or what end it will serve. DC are very well adjusted and defend their 'rights' in a way I find I cannot, but I have empowered them. We can all only do our best. Thanks everyone.

I know things weren't right, I also know that the differences between growing up in a developing country with a teenage mother who did not have any control over her own reproductive system is vasty different to the life I enjoy now. I try not to be too harsh as I am not sure who or what end it will serve. DC are very well adjusted and defend their 'rights' in a way I find I cannot, but I have empowered them. We can all only do our best. Thanks everyone.

I think you are doing really well, adulthumanwoman
As you say, we all try to do our best, and usually that is good enough.
And why do our parents push our buttons? Because they installed them.
I think being aware of that is the first step to a more grown up relationship and will allow to to cope better, be assertive when you need to be and have the relationship with your mother that you want to have (close or distant or whatever you chose)