Had enough-toxic mother, difficulties with Dh/dc, stuck overseas

[Salbertina]

Dont know where to start! Overwhelmed, want to escape them all..go back to better version of old Uk life with a job to go to, adults to speak to, sense of purpose...
Underlying it all tho is the huge hole inside me which my kind mother seems v recently to have uncovered. I've posted about her before but am finding it increasingly difficult to rationalise/excuse/ignore her cruel, narcissistic attacks, even with therapy..j feel so isolated and alone. Have fun friends here but no real ones I think, all in uk.

Bumping

We're here!

How can we help you? You don't have to live like this.

What's stopping you coming home?

It's not worth it. Don't suffer. You only live once. Just move back to the uk. I stopped talking to my own toxic mother 7 years ago. Best thing I ever did.

Can you reduce/end contact with your mum?

Why are you abroad? Can you come home?

Thanks, hissy! Any contact good right now!
We're settled here for now - kids in school, uk house rented, just checked flight to uk and currently 2k single thanks to back to s hook plus paraolumpics!

I don't think any contact is good, if she rips holes in you. Better to be lonely.

I've give no contact for past few weeks but am getting obsessed w it all! Most of my thought/energies/dreams seem to be about this not quality time w my own dc! Am so afraid I'm even worse than her. Have got super paranoid from the rawness of it all - only really came out in the open this summer and so lots to process!
God help us, I know there are lots of us on here w toxic mothers...

I agree in theory no contact better than painful contact but when it's your own mother?! I need/want/lover her, god help me. In her own funny way I think she gas been "fond" of be too, though has never said, but decided I was damaged, to blame for our family's dysfunction long ago but told be in not so many words this summer! Lovely!

Sigh, iPhone autocorrect strikes again....

The problem is, if she is toxic, she is unlikely to ever be the mother you need, deserve and long for, but will be a source of pain and destruction to your sense of self. Her being 'fond' of you in 'her way', really isn't enough.

There's a lot to be said for self-preservation.

It'd help if you had external support, perhaps counselling, to bolster your resolve and diffuse the obsessing.

Sounds like you need to build a back to ukplan. If it can't be right now, you need to be getting your resources together. Have you any support locally? If your mother is not able to give you the support you need right now, you need support from someone else you can trust. Can you phone any of your uk friends and lean on them a little? It may be that once you are in a stronger position personally, you can cope with having your mother in your life, but if you are dealing with too many other problems right now, address them first. Good luck.

Yes. Make a plan - put some of your thoughts/energies/dreams towards a coming home plan and this might help you to cope a little better in the short-medium term. Just knowing you have the option may make you feel better though you may never choose to use it.

Cutting off your mum might not feel like an option for you at the moment but restricting contact may, as Clockless pointed out, help you to get on top of the other things going on. In turn, this could help you deal with Mum.

You sound a bit at the end of your tether so pick one small thing that is wrong and decide how you can change it - then follow through. This should help empower you to deal with the other bullshit.

Phone or Skype your friends - am sure they miss you too :)

Yes I do have a plan in my head tho not fixed with Dh. Am in therapy! Feel it's made stuff unravel even more- worse before it gets better, right?'! Slightly sceptical at times...mother contact or lack thereof should be easier as 1000s of miles away yet phone/thoughts still to contend with..
Am sick of this- and myself- cant see way thro

Thanks, yes , you're right. He seems good therapist tho if I do return to Uk obviously won't continue. I despair currently of Seeing that light trying to be mindful, to attack Power of Now but just can't get there to be totally in my present! It seems a world away or unattractive as don't like what is. Fed up w fighting own self.. And everyone else . Thanks for all yr kindness

Below is my last email from my mother (sorry for length but didn't want to edit selectively).

The context - mother was a bully and emotionally and sometimes physically abusive when I was a teen. (weak) father stood by and justified her behavior, denied/downplayed my experience. Older sister seemingly became golden child, me I think scapegoat of family dysfunction- parents' unequal relationship, mother's NPD and depression...that's my amateur therapist take on it anyway!

We now live 1,000s of miles away and see my parents 1x a year. My dp and I have had a tough few months and started a messy trial separation 2 months ago resulting in much distress all round due to his interest in another woman. I sent my parents a short email telling them, no response. We met up (first time in a year) in a cafe and when I popped to the loo they immediately turned to my husband ( from whom they know i am separated!)to ask in front of my young kids "if medication was involved with me" - (wtf?!). For the record I am a fully functioning human being with only 1 bout of PnD 5 years ago which required mild ADs, no hospitalization and I still held down a job, looked after 2 kids and passed my masters!

I decided to play it cool and not react immediately when dp told me. I emailed my mother my response a couple of days later so that I could be in calm, dispassionate (as far as possible) adult mode pointing out what I observed, felt and wasn't happy about - speaking in front of my kids, assuming medication involved...no proper conversation after 1 year! I received the response below:

"Dear Salbertina

I'm very sorry for what I asked (your husband): it was ill-advised. But I didn't express it quite as he says but chose my words very carefully:-
"Has there been any medical intervention?" which I was sure (your 12 yr old) would not understand. I was motivated by desperation, given
your sparse and rare communication. We didn't know what was going on. We both think you should consider professional help. Of what sort I don't know: useful help is difficult to come by but your violent temper which we've both experienced is a concern. You should, at your age try to control it.

I think (husband) shouldnot have taken offence at what I said. When we were with you last July, he was quite off-hand with us. I know we're not his sort of people,nor is he ours but we're fond of him and we try to "get on".

Love from Mum and Dad xxx"

So to clarify what I'm struggling to process now-

• Neither parent made any effort to call, let alone offer to help,upon hearing about the separation - how kids were, how I was, where living, reasons etc

-My own mother sided with dh against me during our separation by asking him in my absence what was happening

• my df assumed for some reason based on no evidence that separation was due to my "MH issues" and that I must be on medication, even though i had said it was due to dh's "inappropriate behaviour

I am SO shocked at their view of me

-that I am some damaged, mentally ill individual responsible for all the failings in her life
-that I cannot be communicated w directly but only via dh ( from whom I was then separated!)

And yet my dh has been wholly supportive of me and now sees how toxic they are, as does hugely supportive MIL ( how I wish she'd been my actual mother!)
As do all my close friends in Uk. Together they all esteem, respect and love me for what I am but I'm forgetting ALL this now and feel I am becoming their view of me, if that makes sense. I have withdrawn from everyone since coming back from uk, feel v depressed, bitter, unlikeable, hollow and weak.

Just to reiterate, I am/was a fully functioning masters-educated professional w successful career, friends, no apparent MH issues and a loving dh, kids and friends. All gone to pot rather now back overseas, no career as not right to work here which I struggle with and this combined with dm & df have sent me spiralling down

And to add, my dm speaking via dh I can see in the cold light of day is HER issue, not due to me. She has a long history of triangulation- w her own df, with my dsis at times and via df to me on anything emotional. She has never since I was a teen, if then, spoken directly to me about anything emotional, she cannot do it and will say she is not prepared to talk about it or for me to stop being so self indulgent/ over sensitive, silly, wrong, dramatic ... Or speak via dad.
I only recently realised the above isn't normal!

You have a LOT going on. I think for the moment, the separation needs to.go down the list of priorities while you come to terms with your mother and her way of treating you. That is going to be having (as you have noticed)a major impact on your day to day living .
When I started therapy, it got so intensely painful that in order to be able to function, I did have to go on anti-depressants.
Are you working with your therapist on getting past the fact that you essentially spent your childhood being told that you had no right to your feelings? That was a major problem that I had to work through before I was in a position to work on anything else.

Friday, sorry to hear you had to deal with that too.
Thing is I still struggle to seem my feelings as really valid. Know that sounds stupid, but its true. My therapist thinks I have v little sense of self and overly strong internal critical parent..probably true. But I still believe all that stuff, that I should " grow up" to quote my mother and stop being emotional ie to take the blame for their dysfunctional NPD/enabling marriage and the resulting family dysfunction. How do you overcome decades of conditioning? First by parents then by self.. .? Trying but failing and bloody positive thinking Pwoer of Now or mindfulness not helping. Friends here dont get the real issues with my dm ( unlike in uk where they have met her, know the history and understand) and I know think I'm being dramatic/attention seeking/cruel or generally should just get over myself.. It's only now that I'm slowly realising how very dysfunciontla they are, despite materially giving me a lot as a child along with the classic middle class pursuits, pushing, reading etc. I also remember my mother being loving and v engaged when I was a (blonde, pretty) young child. Not so when a lanky darker haired challenging teen!

Sorry, Frida!
Are you over it now, would you say? Did therapy work for you? I honestly despair of pulling through this, feels too much. Then I remember being told off by a cbt therapist ( who I saw with pnd years ago) for my "lack of resilience"
Cow!

Its difficult to do but you have to try and force yourself to stop caring what your parents think of you. They have conditioned you to care what their opinion is and you obviously feel deeply hurt and upset they view you in a certain way.

It doesn't matter what they think of you, you are a good person. They are only insulting you to try and break you down so they can manipulate you.

Think about it, I bet no one else causes you to react in the way your parents do. No one else treats you with such disrespect, that's why. From now on, you must try to believe their opinion of you is of no importance. Keep telling yourself you're a good person and one day you'll start to believe it

You're right, but how?
I want parents who love me, like and respect me uncondiotnoially, something so many have unthinkingly, my dh for one. I know, sadly, many of us dont -hence all these sad threads on MN.

And they act like- and am sure sincerely believe- they do love me as they should! They honestly think I'm ill and damaged! So, so hurtful and Ive only just realised this, I actually believed it myself till this summer and so saw/understood no difference

I have a similar mother and think dairys advice is great I am going to try and implement it in my life in general .I have so many lovely friends and dp and ds etc I can't allow this one miserable bully to influence my life another day.