Hi all,
I am a frequent lurker on mn because all throughout my teens I was never sure whether the way my mom treated me was normal/justified, or if 'normal' moms don't treat their daughters this way. I will warn that this post will have a good dollop of melodrama but try and bear with me.
Essentially, I am to move out in September for uni and I finally have control over my relationship with my mom. I am asking everyone here: a) whether her behaviour is justified at all, like would you treat a daughter this way? and b) for anyone who had similar circumstances and is now an adult how they managed it?
Right, so I will start from the start of my secondary school days, as I would say this was when her behaviour verged on abuse. She would always be angry at me for not being a happy child, and tbh I found secondary school hard because I was quite introverted. Anyways, that coupled with frequent screaming matches at home where my mom and siblings would go at each other over small things really took a toll on me. My mental health was so awful, I was constantly getting scolded at school for not having equipment, uniform, etc, (felt scared to ask my mum for this stuff, too busy), and at home it was constant anger and hatred. This culminated in an attempt to take my life when I was 12 (sorry, tw, but this is relevant). Did not work essentially, mom called me a 'miserable bitch' and when I tried to talk to her about how I was feeling she says 'Do you think I don't feel the same way?' Anyways complete hell I felt there. Another incident at that same time was when my mom saw a notification on ,my phone and thought it was a boy. It was not- embarrassingly it was my fan page for a male YouTuber. Anyways, she smashes my phone and screams at me. I genuinely felt so traumatised. That was a year when I couldn't talk to my friends except at school and so very lonely.
What gets me is that there is never any apologies, in fact she would always say, 'Have you stopped putting your face up?' or 'Silly bitch deserved it.' And it's not as if she was always cruel, in fact with other daughters of family friends it was constant praise to them- 'Wow, isn't she gorgeous,' etc, etc. But my mom has never really asked me if I was okay, how I'm finding things, never got any positive validation even though I am a decent person school wise and I think I am quite nice.
I will say, things have gotten better over the years as I have completely knuckled down with my schoolwork. I know her pressure points so I never ask for money, or do anything rebellious, and I managed to perform well in school. What makes me think my mom has some good in her is how she has been in the uni application process. She really came through in terms of coming to open days, and (I really don't mean this as a brag), when I applied to Cambridge she got me practice interviews and paid for train tickets to visit. I did end up getting my place there and I feel like if I cut her off it's a massive betrayal for how hard she worked to get me there. And I am definitely not a perfect daughter- I would say my main faults are using her makeup when I was younger, cleaning up after myself, and when my mom shouts at me I just completely keep to myself and don't really speak to her. She has called me abusive for that before.
But again, I am torn because there was a recent event where I went to see Bristol on an open day and asked her to come with me. She really didn't want to and I did have to beg. It got to the day, I was so tired and I looked at her without smiling. She starts screaming at me for 'having my afce up' and banging the iron on the ironing board. I felt the exact same horrible feeling as when I was 11 again and I just get the sense that I am going to be subject to this anger all throughout my adult life if I do something that displeases her.
Sorry for how long this is, I am going a bit crazy when I reflect on all of it. Any thoughts would be appreciated, thank you for reading