My mother has returned to her prior feral self and I am back to hating her.

[user1465822474]

DM demanded that I dropped everything last month on an evening where I had to hit a deadline or lose a 3K contract. I'm a freelancer and so is my husband. We have had to take a huge hit with Covid just to make ends meet. DM (who has no financial worries) had previously excluded me anyway but putting herself in a support bubble with my cousin who lives over 100 miles away and also has no financial worries (I am 12 miles away)But despite the contract, when this decision was made I couldn't' have DM or anyone else to stay because I had to self shield so I could have some cancer diagnostic scans that were being treated as urgent.
As a result of this, and the work I had to to, do my mother who had mellowed in her later years has reverted back to form and become the spiteful aggressive woman who I had as a mother and I hated.. She sanctioned physical and emotional abuse from my father when not also delivering that herself, and has allowed this to continue into my adulthood, manifested by my cousins involvement. Based upon whit DM told her (none it true) I have received hate mail and threats from the cousin. I have explained the circumstances that I faced at the time but these have been rubbished by both of them and they've then gone behind my back and tried to get my own daughter on side against me,. I want DM to leave me alone and I want to feel I can ask this without being unreasonable. She's 84 and alone but has all her marbles and still able to dish out the hurt she always did. She doesn't have dementia.What would you do?

You cant change her. Just ignore it. Feel for you. My mother can b a bully if doesnt get her way. I ignore it. Terrible. I envy easy families

I'm NC with my not so DM. You grieve for the relationship that it should have been and then you're relieved you no longer have to feel the way she made you. You are free to be happy.

I'm the kind of person who always endeavours to forgive and forget. I think you need to block all her numbers and never look back.

thank you, i'm feeling like a horrible person hence the thread xxx

You are not a horrible person. She is a mother in blood only. Not emotionally. No decent mother would act like her. Please don't feel guilty.

Message your cousin to say that if they send any more abusive or threatening messages you will be contacting the police. Block and ignore your mother.

I just want to say a huge thanks to everyone who has responded to this post, every one has been so constructive and helpful and I have been a lost space of guilt and indecision for weeks. Trying to think about how I'd feel if my mother died soon and I still couldn't find it in myself to feel remotely sorry has been a burden o guilt that I have had to shoulder alone because none else knows what she was like as a mother and my only other relative doesn't believe me ( or rather doesn't want to) .
Thank you for the messages, these have really really helped and I feel a lot less like a bad person as a result. xxx

Stand in front of a mirror and tell yourself

Your are no longer a child
You are no longer a victim
You call all the shots now
You hold all of the power now

Then go NC with your mum and cousin. If you feel you cant manage it then it's just NC for this month, then next month, until you want to change the dynamics.

You can love your mum but not like her at the same time. You can have a relationship with her but never forgive her. Anything and every thing is up to you and in your hands. With a abusive mum, the book is ripped up. You decide how it goes back together or if its binned completely.

If your mum died tomorrow ( God forbid) the real tragedy would be that she binned off a total 100% pure love that no one but you had in the power to gift her. Her choice. Her loss.

My mum was and is abusive btw. I'm not NC because I feel guilt and quite frankly I cant tolerate any more pain even the pain of guilt. I just remind myself I can ( and have ) just walked out of her life when ever I need too. It's the the most horrible abuse as your mums only job is to love you unconditionally.

For me, NC was the only option that allowed me to be true to myself and not feel guilty/ashamed/inadequate.

By maintaining contact, you maintain your position as a victim. You are expected to fulfill the role you always have had to take.

Your mum has no intention of changing or becoming the mum you properly deserved. Nothing you do or sacrifice, will make her that person.

I watched my sister die at 50 begging for the love she had always wanted/deserved from my parents. Something died in me with her, the hope that there would/could ever be the type of love I needed, love for who I actually was, not the role I was forced to play.

I went pretty much NC after that. Everyone told me I would regret it when she died, but I didn't really. Because there was nothing there for me.

I'm not blaming her, or him, I know that they had their own issues and did what they felt was right. But now that I am an adult, and have raised my own children differently, I can say with 100% certainty that they were wrong.

It is a very personal decision, but whatever you decide, decide it with your feet planted firmly on the ground. She will not give you the acknowledgement you crave or deserve. If she had that insight, she would seek you out and apologise.

Did you meet your deadline in the end?

I feel for u OP. It’s really hard when your mum is like this.

My mum is extremely toxic, we have been NC for many years. I know she will never change. I don’t wish her any harm, but I don’t want the stress of her in my life either.

It wasn’t until I became a mum myself that I really thought to myself, would I treat my child like this? Never. Why am I putting up with it etc.

The really strange thing was a couple of years ago I saw a medium. One of the first things she said to me, you don’t speak to your mum? I said no, she said I can see a definite break, your mum is jealous & has an acid tongue. But don’t ever think I wish I had done things differently, because nothing I could have done would have changed anything, and that the situation was not my fault. I said I know that is true. But my nan wanted me to know that she knows it too.

Wishing you all the very best for the future OP, I know it’s hard when your mum isn’t the person you would like them to be, the person you could turn to, love & support you. But unfortunately some mums just aren’t like that, you can’t change her, but you can change your life. People like our mums are all about power & control. Take the power back. Good luck.

Just ignore her completely. Don't take telephone calls or answer letters from her. I'm disgusted with your cousin but she probably stands to gain from supporting your mother.

I do feel sorry you have this situation, it must be quite heartbreaking at times. You'll get through it.

I’ve had a lot of therapy. I mean a lot. My mother made me parent her - emotionally. As a child, from as young as I can remember I was trying to make her feel good, to be as good as I could be, to smile, to please her. It took me years to get to a good place and put boundaries up. And I only achieved this in my 40s.

When I was a very normal teen and tried to pull away, she acted as if I was abusing her. Ironically she let her precious son abuse me all my life. She brought up the normal teenage things I did well into my 40s as though they were the most awful thing in the world. She tried to denigrate me in my dead father’s eyes. She only really stopped after i put really really good boundaries up. And there were 2 occasions, which really made a difference.

The first was when she accused my dd, who was then 7 of being abusive (not in those words) to her golden child son - my elder brother and how she would react if my dd did this to her (greatly exaggerated and really just silly, excited 7 yo stuff). I chose a period of nc until I was ready to accept her back after eliciting a “sorry if” apology. The second was when she tried to denigrate me in her second husband’s eyes. That time, I went ballistic and she knew she had met her match.

I don’t think my mother was consciously vile to me. She is a narcissist. Since then funnily enough she couldn’t be nicer to me. It’s as if she finally accepted she can no longer control me. The birthday and Christmas presents I give her, instead of being crap are suddenly amazing and she’s in awe of me. What a lot of wasted years when she could have just been lovely to me instead.

We can never have the mother / daughter relationship both of us crave. I know she considers this to be my fault. But now the parent of an almost teen, I know, as I have known since my dd was born, that it is the always the parent in control of how they react to their child. Not the other way around.

Oh I understand completely. My mother was a horrible, spiteful, evil woman who also favoured my cousin over me. (Basically a clone of herself, btw...) My cousin made sure to visit a couple of months before my mother died (while I was living on the other side of the planet.) She drover her husband’s uncomfortable work truck the 1200km to visit, rather than their luxury 4wd, complete with empty, weatherproof storage boxes. They all went back full. So did her bank account. She cleared out my grandmother’s unit - despite not being related to this grandmother. She was also an executor of the will. I called the police, but couldn’t prove what she had taken and can’t get it back. Bitch.

I’ve been NC with my toxic, emotionally abusive mother for 6 years. She’s currently unconscious dying in a hospice. I have been to see her in the hospice though she was unaware I was there. I’ve no regrets about having being NC. I obviously wish she had been a better mother and I have regrets over the fact I never had a mother/daughter relationship like others have but keeping in touch with her wouldn’t have changed that. The last six years have been much happier and peaceful due to not being in touch.

You need to go no contact, at the moment you’re feeding the beast!

From right now, block both of them on your phone, email and social media, have absolutely no contact with either ever again, or with your dad, don't open any letters from them. Just cut them out of your life.Don't explain. Don't discuss them with anyone except your husband so nothing gets back to them. They just don't exist as of now.
They are a pair of shits.
If anyone official ever contacts you as your DM's next of kin saying she us ill or whatever, refuse any responsibility. Don't waste another second of your life on this pair- in thought or time.

I agree with the others, ignore her. She is used to being able to summons you.

You have work.

You are not responsible for her martyred rage. This is what I'm telling myself by the way.

My own mother isn't speaking to me.

She is 10 years younger, married to an enabler and I'm single so standing up to her is very hard.

You have your husband in your corner I HOPE.

Another vote to ignore her.

@Mummyoflittledragon wow. I am in awe of how you turned it around.
I keep finding my 'mother' again and again, in the workplace, in social circles, in relationships. The one scapegoating narcissist will smell me and decide to dump all of their crap on to me. I feel like I'm working through this now. I get it now. But it is not a quick process.

I don't think I have ever got an apology out of my mother. I'm listening to a book on audible ''why won't you apologise?''. It's good but there are examples of mothers who get it RIGHT and that's a bit upsetting. Although it is a good listen.

The pattern is losing its grip on me but my original Mother is still here, still the world's biggest martyr who sees any small boundary as an abuse of her. My hurt is an act of aggression against her. So she is more hurt.

Have nothing more to do with her. You are not a horrible person. You have just had enough. If your cousin wants to be at her back and call let them. My DM was awful and when she died she didn't have one single friend, the friends she supposedly had loads of, at her funeral.

MuserOwl
Thanks 😊. I had a great therapist. When I decided on a period of Nc, I called my mother whilst with her and she helped me navigate the conversation. I’m in no way “cured”. And I get totally what you’re saying about meeting narcissists all around you. I’m married to man, who can be very immature. And I can also be immature myself.

Also want to reiterate the friend thing. My mother anticipated that her funeral would be a gala event. There were less than 30 people in attendance. It was awful. I put myself in therapy early. When I was very young. I had extended periods of NC. I cared for her while she was dying. I performed intimate tasks while she told me what a burden I was, how she had hated me all my life, compared me negatively to everyone in the universe, especially the Golden child (my brother who sat stuffing his fat face in another room, using her credit card to buy himself ridiculous things, and complaining about how miserable his existence was - it was financed by her of course.). Her filter came down, so other people heard her abuse of me. It affected what was said about her at her funeral. I thought her death would be a relief, but I have PTSD. I’d go NC now and stay that way. There is no resolution to be had with these people. They don’t mellow or improve. Mostly they get worse.

One word of warning about her death- it can hit you harder than you expect. My mother isn't dead, but recently it looked like she would die. I found myself getting very upset, even though I thoroughly dislike her and both of my parents have been controlling, abusive and manipulative for as long as I can remember.

Actually, I'm not sure she is alive, now I think of it. My father phoned me because he wanted to dump some work on me (telling a family member who is know for hysterics at the slightest excuse that my mother had been rushed into hospital for the second time and was gravely ill) and then a few days later (after I had done the running around, sent flowers, phoned for updates etc), he just said there was no need to phone any more, he'd let me know when there was anything I needed to know. That was nearly 2 months ago, so I assume she didn't die. Now I just have to rebuild all the good work I'd done in the year and a half of NC I had. I feel so angry with myself for instantly reverting to the little girl who just wants her parents to like her.

As has been pointed out by previous posters, there really is no happy ending here.