I'm 53 years old and suddenly realised I don't really like my Mother.
My Father died of cancer 3 years ago in July and ever since then I'm finding it increasingly difficult to be around her.
She has managed to successfully alienate anyone that wanted to help her including her neighbours. They still have no idea to this day what they did wrong. She just exploded at them one day and kicked them out the house. I was expected to stop talking to them just because she had. I refused. I would not have coped caring for my sick Father without them,they were absolutely fabulous, so kind caring and supportive. Ill never forget their kindness at that time, and infact, even now they are always here for me.
She wasn't there for me when both my Grandmother and Father passed. I was 18 when I lost my grandmother and it hit me hard. She never even asked me once if I was OK, and left me adrift at the funeral. All i could hear was her saying she wanted to take her own life. I was scared at the time i would lose two people from my life. It troubled me greatly. The same thing happened when I lost my Father. She didn't support me, and rebuffed my attempts to support her, it was like she enjoyed being horrible to me to make herself feel better. I tried for weeks to get her to come to bereavement counselling with me, i thought we really had a chance to talk things through. She flatly refused. Last week she was then telling a medical professional that she couldn't open up to me, as we were "not that sort of family". I felt like I'd been kicked in the gut.
She complains about every thing and every one. She lies about everything and tries to set me and my nephew against each other in a quest for us to give her the most attention. I'm made to feel guilty about not visiting. I'm made to feel guilty about visiting and the visit only being two hours long. I'm effectively timed. I can't win. I've got an auto immune illness and am shattered most of the time. She does absolutely nothing to help me, help her to make her own life better! She's banned cleaners and care workers from the house. I've tried to be firm but fair, so she then threatens suicide. I've never been able to open up and talk to her as she's an emotional cripple and always has been. Trying to talk to her will result in her going on the defensive and sulking. She would spend weeks not talking to you if you upset her when I was living at home. This affected me deeply. All i ever got thrown at me was that id better not come home pregnant like both my sisters, who incidently have been estranged from her for 35yrs. I lost them too, because I wasn't allowed contact. This had an impact on me forming relationships. I was scared to. I later found out that she was 16 when she had my eldest sister, but sent her own daughter to an unmarried mothers home when she was 16 and pregnant. I can always remember the awful things she said to my sister when she got pregnant....yet she did exactly the same thing!
I seem to have spent all my life seeking her approval, trying to keep on the good side of her, and now I'm spent. I just don't feel as if I can do this anymore.
By the same token, I feel a bad person for having these feelings. She has no one else but my nephew, who hasnt yet registered what shes up to. But then I feel anger, because here we are, 53 yrs down the line and she still has this control over me that I can't explain. I just don't know what to do moving forward. I just don't know how to proceed as this situation is making me so stressed and Ill.