Trying not to cry

[upsetinlockdwn]

NC as don't want this linked to my other posts. This may be long.

I'm stuck in lockdown with my 'D'M and it's becoming unbearable. We both live alone so we decided I stay for a few days because I was struggling with not going out or seeing anyone for months, I assume she was too, although she goes out to work so has more social contact than me. It was supposed to be a few days, then she decided to go on a last minute holiday (I know ) so I looked after her cats for two weeks, and sorted shit out (food deliveries etc) while she was in quarantine afterwards, and then within a few days we'd gone into Lockdown 2.0.

She's bossy and controlling, but generally I can 'manage' her for an easy life. Mostly this means waiting on her hand and foot which is a double edged sword. If I don't, she huffs and strops about doing anything and calls me lazy and causes a row, and if I do, I make a rod for my own back and she expects it. She sits in her room all day like a queen, all meals cooked, drinks made, I've even ordered and paid for all the food and she's just told me what she wanted.

Anyway I work long hours from home, and have a tight deadline to meet tomorrow. She's gone out to work and said can you do 'x y and z' today, which are not small jobs - think hoovering and dusting the whole house rather than washing up iyswim (she's having a bit of work/DIY done so there's a lot of mess/dust/displaced clutter that needs sorting). I said I'd see what I could get to, but reminded her of my deadline which had to be priority. She started to lose her temper, shout over me, belittle me and call me names. I'm so used to this I clam up and now when I recall the exchange, I've blocked out a lot of details but she wanted me to spend most of the day doing what she wanted rather than working. I reminded her that if I had to go out to work then it would just have to wait (it's already waited weeks and weeks, what is one more day!), and she has this habit of just shouting over me with insults or even just 'lalala' when I reply with anything other than 'yes' to her demands

I have my own place, but she lives rural and I don't drive. I don't even know if buses are running (they're sporadic even pre covid) and I don't want to get on a bus anyway.

I'm just sitting here trying not to cry because she's made me feel as small and insignificant as she did every day of my childhood. I hate that feeling of being stuck and forced to bend to her whims rather than my needs.

She's also spiteful in that she needed an expensive item, so I offered to put it on my 0% credit card and her pay me back, and even researched and ordered a fantastic black friday deal for her. It's arrived and she's ignored it for days. I suspected she felt she was somehow relinquishing control by 'having' to be grateful to me for sorting it, so I've ignored it. But now she's said, 'make sure you send that back, I don't want it'. I know she's cutting her nose off to spite her face just to be nasty and make me feel not good enough but it still really hurt. To be clear, it's exactly the item she wants and I got it far cheaper than she can get elsewhere.

Even when lockdown is over we're likely to be tier 3 so when I do go home I'll be back lonely and isolated again. I just hate that I'm in my late 20s and that I can still be reduced to tears by her tantrums and demands. I feel so trapped and frustrated.

I'd rather be lonely than suffer abuse. I'm sure in the rules you are allowed to help someone move if they are fleeing a bad home situation. I'd get out there and seriously consider going no contact.

Sensible plan OP. Just bide your time until tomorrow, but make sure you actually do leave.

She's trying to be 'nice' to confuse you and make you think you're over reacting. You're not.

You haven't been 'rubbing along' well at all. You have been waiting on her, hand and foot, and bending to her every whim, to stop her kicking off.

That's not how it should be. Research counselling and therapy options as soon as you get home. You really don't have to put up with her awful behaviour. You can still love her, but you don't have to dance to her tune or put up with her manipulative actions.

I get what you're going through! It was same with me in the first lockdown! I was basically manipulated into staying with toxic family by saying it was better for my DS and he would have outside space because I don't have it at home.

Then it was a total nightmare once we got there, much like you described, and like you I felt unable to go home due to pressure and guilt tripping (saying I was being selfish and would deprive DS/expose him to virus if we went home).

Eventually I just looked up a train timetable and we went home. Immediately it was like a cloud had been lifted. When you have that type of parent you can be SO consumed with guilt and self doubt - but do it. At this point you're only trapped by a dynamic in your head (which I totally understand because I've been there too) - you're not a child anymore and you can just go. You won't regret it. x

Honestly, you sound more lonely and isolated where you are than if you were at home.

You are worth more than this.

Pack up your things and leave, be strong for the little girl that she abused and for the woman you are now.

You can do this.

Get your work sorted out and meet your deadline, smile when she comes home, smug in the knowledge that you will be gone when she comes home from work tomorrow.

OP, I had a mother just like yours. The fear, obligation and guilt I felt about her was debilitating and as time went on I had a breakdown in my 50's.....really wish it'd happened years before. She emotionally battered and belittled me and ridiculously I believed what she said to me.
Being lonely is better than what you have now, I promise you, and part of your loneliness possibly stems from how she makes you see yourself.
I'm glad to hear you're going home tomorrow......the chatty text she sent you earlier was just to pull you in again......use your free time in the next week to research your feelings and relationship with her. Make a plan for dealing with things in the future, be that low contact, no contact, escape routes when she's being abusive to you etc etc. I had it briefly written down in bullet points and read it every time just before I saw her. Eventually I went no contact for 2 years and returned to see her because I partly owned her house, I was in control and had made a plan to walk out if she tried her nastiness again. But she didn't, she could see I was now happy and confident and that she'd lost control of her favourite pastime which was making me feel over sensitive, unhappy, ugly and a fool. I treated our relationship as a business from then on, nursed her when she was ill because I felt compassion for an elderly woman in need of care, not because she was my mother, and she died some years later.
Don't let her ruin any more of your life.

You need to go home. Get a lift, a taxi or bus. Surely you'd rather one bus ride than stay there and let her walk all over you?!

Also, don't engage with her; you're not going to get anywhere. She's far better at this crap than you are. She'll twist your words and make you think you're in the wrong. Look up the grey rock technique to get you through the next day or so.

Go home.

Why is it this even an issue?
She doesn't want you there, you don't want to be there.

Move on.

A timely post for me, I have just done some shopping for an older lady ( in a volunteering capacity). She used my name when we spoke, thanked me, asked about my family, told me twice I am a clever girl (lighthearted)

My own mother would never do any of these things. Its not about old age. Its basic human behaviour.

Good to hear you are going home. She sounds very difficult.
I do wish people here would stop diagnosing strangers with serious personality disorders off the back of very limited information. If you are any kind of therapist, you would not do it. If you aren't, you are in no position to. People can be horrible and spiteful and manipulative and unkind without having some kind of PD.

Get your work done, ignore her ridiculous, disordered behaviour and make sure that whatever you bought for her is packed up (as ordered) in your bags to be returned at your leisure when you get home. Leave. Don't go back there ever again. You're not fucking Cinderella.

@midsomermurderess,exactly this. Not everybody has a syndrome. Not everybody can diagnose or should diagnose. That's why we have medics and therapists.

The lastest seems to be 'OCD"......everybody who wants to straighten a few tins has it apparently, just like everybody who can't spell there/their is dylexic and every 3 year old who can't read Shakespeare is on the spectrum.

@midsomermurderess

Good to hear you are going home. She sounds very difficult. I do wish people here would stop diagnosing strangers with serious personality disorders off the back of very limited information. If you are any kind of therapist, you would not do it. If you aren't, you are in no position to. People can be horrible and spiteful and manipulative and unkind without having some kind of PD.

I agree. Tbh I've suspected NPD from 'Dr Google' before, but it's pointless really, what difference does it make putting a label on it? It doesn't. She won't change whether she has some kind of disorder or she's just mean. So I don't bother now. I think I was trying to find some kind of 'reason' for her behaviour when I started Googling, but really that was just a way of excusing it.

Thank you for all the replies. I do feel really guilty leaving. She has tried every trick before when I've gone low or no contact. She's even broken into my flat twice (talked her way into the building that used a credit card on the lock!). As a PP said I found it easier to keep contact on a superficial level with regular phonecalls about nothing in particular, because if I cut her off she always escalates with absolutely no boundaries.

Well done for making that choice and devising a plan OP.
And as others have said, if you only get along well when you are waiting on her hand and food then actually you aren’t getting along well. You deserve more and I’m sorry she’s put you through this.

Once you've met your deadline today, I would suggest you take yourself to your room with a dreadful headache/period pain/toothache/bad stomach, etc so you don't have to interact with her this evening.

Send the thing back, go home and be glad that you don't have to stay with her for any reason.

Just go hime. She doesn’t deserve you.

Don't feel guilty. You are protecting yourself.
You don't have to be her punchbag. You can say no. If she gets angry, she's already treating you badly anyway, so what have you got to lose?

Its reasonable to ask for a bit of housework help if you are sharing, its not reasonable to insist that you work as a full time cleaner, ignoring deadlines for your paid work, which could cause you to lose your job.

She's given you an excellent demonstration of exactly how badly she will behave and so in future you can make plans/strategies to avoid putting yourself a position where she can try to do this to you again. EG, breaking into your flat - Give instructions to reception and get a better lock that cannot be accessed with a credit card.
This lockdown wont last forever, the vaccine is on the way. You will be out of this situation soon and better prepared to improve things if you are not being mentally beaten down with this unacceptable behaviour.

Good luck with your deadline!

She's even broken into my flat twice

OMG! That's on another level. Get out, get help, be strong. I do hate the overuse of the word but I'm going to say it: she's toxic.

Once you go home get locks that she can’t break. A mortise would be a good investment. If she can break in them so can others.

Send the thing you bought back, pack up your things and get a taxi to either where you live, or to the nearest public transport

Then don’t ever stay with her again

Go home. Don't look back. Forgot she's related to you. She is abusive. She is a bully

" She's even broken into my flat twice"

wow. that one injured my jaw.

you need to go NC, ideally you need to get the law on her for having done this. and of course you need to change to a better lock.

will Women's Aid help with this sort of thing?