Please or to access all these features

Mental health

Mumsnet hasn't checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you have medical concerns, please seek medical attention.

Visiting my mum gives me so much anxiety!

2 replies

Amipreggs09 · 16/06/2020 11:52

I have really bad anxiety, and visiting my mum feels so toxic to me. I go because I have a son and he loves seeing gran and grandad, but I hate it. I don't hate my mum, I love her. But her topics of conversation really piss me off. Constant moaning about everything and I mean everything. Same things every time. I've heard the same things over and over and over again and it makes me so annoyed. She never shuts up! There's never a minute without talking! Or she watches those forensic programmes and police stuff and then sits and tells me about it all, which I hate. I have really bad anxiety and being forced to sit and listen to murder stories and sad stories about episodes she's watched just give me extreme anxiety. Or literally sitting talking and saying the same things every time I'm there. It isn't good for my soul, it feels very toxic. Having a nice visit and a cup of coffee and then being told about some guy who murdered his whole family, it ruins my mood and my day. My son has autism, and if she looks after him for a while I literally get told everything he's done since I left. And I mean everything. What he ate, what he's done, how many times he's been to the toilet. My family know I have really bad anxiety and she actually makes it so much worse. It makes me not want to go there, but then I would feel bad for it. So am I expected to just sit there getting more and more angry before I explode one day and just say mum.... I don't care. I don't watch those kind of programmes and I don't even watch or read the news because if I hear something about someone being killed or a really sad story it ruins my mood sometimes for days. Like I said my son has autism... And she thought it was appropriate to tell me about one she watched where a poor disabled teenager got beaten up and left to die.... DO I REALLY NEED TO KNOW THIS??? I still think about it, it still upsets me, I don't need to hear things like this. I hate it! I really just needed to vent here lol anyone else deal with anxiety around their parents? I end up leaving every time really pissed off. I feel like just screaming at her to shut up for 5 minutes. Can I sit with a coffee watching a programme without her commentating through the whole thing! I can feel the anger just radiating through me like a heat rising up through my body. Someone please tell me I'm not alone. Sometimes I just need quiet. I need people to just stop talking to me.

OP posts:
Lo5tcause · 16/06/2020 12:02

Can't you just tell her you don't like those programmes and it makes you anxious hearing about it? Would she really take it so bad?

SilverLiningSearching · 21/06/2020 16:01

I dread visiting my mother too. I find it easier to make the visit as short as possible tell her you have to leave at x time when you get there.
Could you take. DVD of DS favourite film/tv programme, ring up before you go arrange this? Could you sit in the garden.?
If she starts rehashing these crime stories again, I would inform her that she has told you it before and try and control the narrative of what you want to talk about.
I think your mum (like mine) sounds very insensitive and not educated herself about mental illness. I am reducing contact with my mother, (decided to do this after NOT missing her during lockdown), sorry I don’t have any more answers.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page