Mum turned nasty to me as a teen. Struggling to look after her now. AIBU?

[Bluecrocodile]

I have fond memories of my mother during my childhood, baking, beach days etc. until I turned 12/13. It coincided with my older sister 18/19 having a baby but in my mind that can’t be the reason. She turned absolutely vile overnight. Didn’t speak to me or look at me. Screamed at almost anything. Stopped buying any nice food or clothes for me. Tried to humiliate me in front of anyone, reading diary- spilling my secrets.. I was behaving. School was my lifeline so I was glad to be there. Passed GCSEs and A levels. Went to uni. I’m older now and I find it very difficult to forgive her behaviour. She was also vile to sister but treated baby very well. Dad was there, financially comfortable. I don’t understand why but wondered if anyone else had experienced this.

I'm so sorry she treated you so poorly, that must have been horrendous. Is she still the same way now with you? I think the best thing you can do is work through this in therapy.

Sounds like she forfeited the right to any care from you now.

I have and they basically said there are two choices… accept it if I want a mother in my life or cut contact. She got better over the years and made an effort with me once my sisters baby had grown up and left home.

Do you think she had some kind of mistaken belief that teenagers are awful, irrespective of the actual evidence? Did she get better once you were an adult?

I'm not excusing her behaviour, but do you think the menopause affected her badly?

That's very sad.
I don't think you should feel guilty if you don't want to look after her at all.

Best Wishes to you.

I was going to suggest this too. My mum hit menopause when I was in my mid-teens and I go the brunt of it.

Could it have been extremely stressful for her when your sister had a baby young? Was she expected to help with the baby a lot? That doesn’t excuse her behaviour at all especially towards you, but if she was completely stressed out all the time it could offer some explanation.

Some people struggle when children develop their own personalities and opinions.

Really struggle. They like the compliant baby bit, enjoy the idea of a ‘mini me’. Very threatened by a whole actual person.

Your therapist isn’t wrong. My decision for what it’s worth, has been to do what I feel is the right thing, not what I’m guilted into etc.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I’ve got teens now who I love dearly. We have a lovely relationship. I could never, ever treat them that way, even if I was stressed/menopausal.

My mother did some appalling things to me from childhood, I even posted about it-under a different name- on the Elderly Parents Board and the things I described were so bad, some posters thought I was a troll.

She was better when I was an adult but could still be truly nasty. My brother and sister have nothing to do with her and they didn't have it as bad as me,

She is now in a home. I pay for her-at some cost-but I don't want to go and see her any more, especially as she doesn't really know me.

I had some great advice and posts which, in their kindness, moved me to tears.
That board is a great place to post for things like this, as many of the posters have had to make tough decisions about their parents.

I'm sending you good wishes and the hope that you will come to a decision that feel comfortable with and which won't make you feel guilty (always a risk) down the line.

Works both ways - fuck-all inheritance also in this case, fair is fair?

My mum was menopausal when I was a teenager - she wasn't vile but her moods were very unpredictable and you never knew what was going to set her off! Maybe the stress of your sister falling pregnant at a young age and other stresses in her life effected her mental health? None of that is an excuse for her being so horrible to you though. Only you can decide how much time you're willing to invest in the relationship now. Have you ever tried to broach the subject with her?

I will be interested to know what you decide, OP. I am going to have some very difficult decisions to make about my mother and now much care she has actually earnt. Like your mother she was vile and incredibly personal. Worse in my older teens, I would say. A very angry and unhappy woman who used her children as an emotional (and occasionally physical) punching bag.
I can’t see myself investing huge amounts of my time and energy in her care as she declines. I would throw money at the problem, except I don’t have any! So that option is out of the window.

This was my first thought too. Was it during the period when they thought HRT caused breast cancer? My mum didn't take HRT for that reason (not that it would have necessarily been a miracle cure-all), and she turned into a completely different person around age 47. Members of the wider family still talk about how sudden and awful it was. She is slightly better now in her 70s, but still has very poor mental health and you never know what's going to trigger an angry outburst or tears.
Now that I'm approaching menopause myself - and also have a very dramatic, sensitive daughter, who can be as trying as I imagine I myself was - I have more sympathy for her. I would never abandon her or even go LC in her old age, but I wouldn't e.g. have her come and live with us because I wouldn't want my DC subjected to her mood swings.
I think you need to think about what specific boundaries you need in place to protect your own emotional wellbeing and that of your family, and then stick to them.

My mother was vile to me as well. Both verbally and physically abusive from the age of about 7 years old. My younger sister was treated like a princess, but I was screamed at and hit most days. I was a quiet, well behaved and scared child.
As a young child I was often locked in the house on my own when she took my sister for days out. I was regularly forced to eat food I didn’t like, and if I didn’t finish a meal it was given to me cold the following days until it was gone. I used to hold food in my mouth and spit it down the toilet or outside drain to try and get rid of it. She often tipped milk over my head at lunchtime, in temper, and I had to wash my hair before I went back to school. When I was a teenager she called me a slut for having a boyfriend. Many other examples. However she was always complimented on how well turned out her daughters were - we were always clean and well behaved in public. A “perfect “ family to anyone who saw us.

I looked after her when she was old and dying, due to guilt and a sense of duty. I couldn’t leave her to struggle on her own and wouldn’t have forgiven myself if I had neglected her. Obviously sister was nowhere to be seen.
When she was dying, I was talking to her and telling her DSis was travelling to see her and would be there soon, to try and comfort her. I knew she didn’t want me there, and only wanted DSis.
I asked her once why she had been horrid to me. She looked shocked and told me “at least you weren’t spoilt “. I’ve never forgiven her.
Please do whatever you feel is best for you and your family.

That's a really naive way of looking at things. People have mental health issues, sometimes hormonally related to menopause. It is not a choice. You can't choose not to have a breakdown or a psychotic episode or some other mental health issue. I have no idea what happened to your mum, it may not be mental health, she may just not be a nice person. But for you to day you could never treat your kids the way you were treated shows a complete misunderstanding of the impact of mental health. You are not special or immune, you could be affected too.

If you have to resort to blackmailing your adult children into seeing you/caring for you by dangling the carrot of inheritance, then somewhere you failed as a parent...

Nonsense - look at MN - everyone is expecting inheritance, yet most elderly parents with health problems are dumped in a care home. What, all elderly parents failed as parents? No, we failed as adult children, that is all.

I also wonder if her terrible behaviour of you coincided with the menopause. If so, this wouldn't justify or even excuse it, and like you I don't believe I am capable of treating anyone like that menopause or no...

But then we learn from our parents mistakes. For example, I regulate my emotions much better than either of my parents, partly because I learned from when they were unable to.

It isn't unusual for the relationship between mothers and daughters to implode when puberty and menopause coincide, and menopause awareness and support is still very novel. Throw in a life upheaval like your sister falling pregnant and I recognise the experience of her turning overnight.

Nothing excuses the way she treated you, or reduces the long term affect this has had. I don't think anyone is suggesting you let go of the hurt or damage her behaviour caused you and act like it never happened. But if she was going through dramatic hormonal swings due to the menopause, along with the stress from her other daughter falling pregnant, then it may give you a framework for exploring this safely both by yourself and with her.

And doing so may mean that in time you're able to build a new relationship with her, one in which you're able to heal.

I'd suggest posting on a less brutal board than AIBU OP, it's not really suitable fro what you need.

In my opinion you owe her nothing at all.

Doesn't matter why she did it, she hurt you very badly.

And your therapist was wrong, it isn't either accept it or cut contact. You can go to any amount of low contact that you like. You can "grey rock". You can have all sorts of tailored therapy eg EMDR etc.

I'm so sorry for what you went through. If you need it, there are reddit forums for surviors of different types of child abuse. They're very supportive and properly moderated.

So you think that parents can behave abusively to their children for no reason and that they should still expect the abused child to care for them in their old age?

If they had no inheritance to leave, I doubt whether you would then think it was OK for OP to cut them off and provide no care at all.

Parents have an obligation to raise the children that they chose to have with care and kindness. Unfortunately, many parents don't do this and some are actively abusive and unkind to their children.

OP doesn't owe her mother anything, irrespective of whether her mum has an inheritance to leave.

Might be something in this. My mother decided in advance that teenagers were the enemy, bought herself a book entitled "Help: I've got a teenager" and left it lying around. Read it and misunderstood its advice and applied it all wrong.

Do you know why you would have felt guilty if you hadn't cared for your horribly abusive mum in her old age?

The things that she did to you were illegal and she should have been prosecuted and imprisoned for child abuse. The thought of you feeling obliged to care for her with kindness after what she did makes me feel quite upset.

My mother was also awful to me. Strangely once she developed dementia she was nicer. I managed to move forward because she feels lije a different person now. We all deal with it, in the way it suits us, and our circumstances.

Some people don't have the skill or love to be decent mothers.