Did your DMs hinder your independence growing up?

[Herewegoagain11]

NC for this but wondered if anyones DM hindered their “growing up” especially in early teens? I was born late 80s and she is late 40s born. Single mom living with her DM also with myself.

Examples:

Not teaching me how to wash or dry my very frizzy long hair until I was about 16 (prob very much older than I should have been to do so) and I remember her saying “well she won’t need me for anything anymore”

Slept in her bed until about 14 and then I wasn’t trusted in my own room so she slept in my little single bed and I slept in her double bed in her room! What sense that makes I don’t know. No tv in her room maybe?

Not being able to eat proper food, so for example roast beef, steak, fish unless it was fish fingers, well anything unless it was in breaded shapes as it seemed to be too grown up for me to eat? Even now if I order a steak or eat cabbage???? she’s like ooooo get you grown up. I’m 36.

TMI and I’ve NEVER admitted this to anyone IRL but I also had to call her into the toilet after a bowel movement as I couldn’t be trusted to wipe until I was about 10.

I really feel like it hindered me with independence and indeed confidence, I’m sure it was a way of controlling me and we do have an ok relationship now but looking back it just seems so bloody weird. Is any of this resonating with anyone out there?

My mum was born in the 20s so she was a bit strict, but nothing like that, that’s just incredibly abusive. I wasn’t allowed a bike as the roads were too busy, I had to wear big cotton pants and vests until I was about 12. I remember sneaking off with my wilder mate to buy some black Lacy thrush traps and hiding them. Turns out she was right!

My mum was still showering me at age 12. It was only when she told her cousin about it as if it was perfectly normal, and her cousin was horrified, that she reluctantly stopped. She also refused to knock on my door and would walk in unannounced after I would tell her that I'm getting changed. I was not allowed to leave the house without her or dad. I was not allowed to buy clothes without her approval and the first time I did (age 21) she went ballistic. She laid out my clothes for me every day until I moved out. There's lots more.

I wasn’t allowed to have a different opinion, my own needs and wants or to choose my own clothes. I’m now a people please, too timid to stand up for myself, terrible at confrontation, low self esteem and a bad dress sense.

my DM never bought me razors either, I used to steal my dad’s spare razor head and sellotaped it to a pencil.
She also wouldn’t buy san pro that she didn’t use, she had I had to use my own pocket money. Except I didn’t get pocket money. I had to use her jumbo towels (very elegant during ballet), or steal tampons from the school nurse’s cupboard.
There are a million other things that were all calculated to have kept me under the thumb, but those are things I really vividly remember.

@CurlyhairedAssassin thank you so much for your post, it really is so similar in ways! Regarding hair removal, I had an operation when I was 17 and had to be helped into baths for a while and she just casually said “back in my day we used immac down there you know” and it made me so conscious of it! I wasn’t sexually active at all and being overweight never wore a bikini so I didn’t care, and certainly didn’t know I was meant to care. The uni thing, yes I think in her head a switch was meant to go off in my head that now I am out of the house I can be an adult and take care of myself even though she hadn’t given me the tools to enable myself. I’ve always felt so out of place and just not good enough even when doing the dishes! I said upthread about my only cbt sessions ending terribly!

I'd see your Mum through a lens of extreme anxiety or grief/loss. I wonder if she had significant losses, even ones you don't know about. Sounds like she loved you very much, but definitely needed support to have far healthier boundaries. I'm sorry you went through this @Herewegoagain11

OP, that’s exactly it about the uni thing and the switch, I think! They must have thought “oh she is now uni age so will now be able to do everything”. I did go back to a different local uni a year later and gradually spread my wings that way and became a normal functioning adult! But yes, it was that sudden expected change from smothered dependent child to fully functioning adult that was a bit unfair of them. I don’t think they were aware they were doing it. But I do remember a teacher at school asking our class (small A-level one) what our uni plans was. And when she got to me she actually said “I worry about you” when I said I was going away from home. If SHE could spot that I wasn’t properly prepared for it, why couldn’t my parents?!😆

With my mum, I’m pretty sure it was because she hadnt felt “mothered” by her own mum, who was a bit of an odd character. So she went the other way with her own children, and did everything for us. Too much.

and oh I’ve just remembered a childhood memory of just not getting the teenage thing right. I’d asked her if I could have some fancier underwear for Christmas, matching bra and knicker sets, lacy shiny cheap looking stuff 😆. None appeared on Christmas Day. But the next day when we visited my auntie and uncle’s house, for a party, with extended family there, my sister and I were given more presents from relatives and everyone was watching us open them. And guess what we opened - yes, these teeny tiny Lacy bra and knicker sets! I mean, how inappropriate! Two shy self-conscious 15/16 year old girls holding up Silky little bras in front of various uncles etc. whispering a quick “Thankyou” and shoving them quickly back into the wrapping. I remember my face burning with embarrassment. I don’t know what possessed my mother, when asked by her sisters what we might like for Christmas, to tell them they could buy us some bras and knickers. Such personal things. Really not what a teenage girl wants to happen!

like I say, I just think she didn’t think about what she was doing and what it was like to be a teenager. And in those days there was often still a bit of an emotional distance between parents and their children. They certainly wouldn’t have talked to you about how you were feeling or had long discussions about life hopes and dreams with you. I think many of us 80s teenagers just didn’t feel terribly understood by their parents who had been brought up in such different times.

Wow, I'm so sorry, that should have never happened to you. Completely inappropriate.

Have you ever read about emotional incest? Describes a lot of what your mum did to you.

I'm sorry cbt didn't help, if you wanted to try again I would look into a talk therapist who specialises in narcissism and dysfunctional family systems :(

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/covert-incest#examples

@CurlyhairedAssassin that totally makes sense, the unpreparedness and not entirely understanding how to raise teenagers themselves I guess I can see. I can’t really understand it though, how you expect to let them run wild and free after being caged for so long. It’s such a blinkered thing to do. Did you ever confront them about it? Did you become more domesticated later on? I still struggle with this

@Keroppi I’ve never heard of this until today and so much of that page resonates with me, in particular:

difficulty identifying and fulfilling personal needs because the person is so used to caring for others

feeling inadequate and unworthy

i am completely a martyr and always have been, I never put myself first and have always felt worthless like when I wrote about the cbt session. This is so helpful thank u