Is it time to confront my mother?

[Muchadoaboutnuthing]

My mother was/is an alcoholic. She made my childhood miserable. She was a very capable alcoholic, she held down a very responsible job and to an outsider we must have looked like a very respectable middle class family, two parents working, 2 children etc. She hid alot of the drinking from my dad. With hindsight I think he must have had more of an idea of what was happening than he let on, but he was more intersted in keeping up the show for everyone else. He worked nights so that was when most of the drinking happened. I left home at 17, as soon as I finished school. I moved 100 miles away to be with my boyfriend, now DH. I became pregnant at 19 and we moved back close to my parents. I now have 2 children and have been with my dh for 11 years. For a number of years I pushed my childhood to the back of my mind its only in the last 2-3 years I have been having flashbacks and been thinking a lot about it.

I'm not sure why this is. I'm putting it down to a combination of the fact that my own life is very settled now, I have my kids, my DH, my job, we're in our "forever" home after a couple of moves. Also we have started fostering and I have started working with teenagers, many of these come from homes similar to mine and I'm wondering if this is subconciously bringing back memories. My relationship with my mother has become strained. I dont want to be around her, I rarely call to see her any more etc. I recently found out during a conversation with my DH that she once told him that I remember things as being worse than they really were. This has angered me beyond belief.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure why I'm posting. I'm just really confused and need to get my feelings out. Part of me feels I need to confront her, part of me is terrified of the consequences of doing so. Sorry, I know this is jumbled. Has anyone been through anything similar?

If she's already starting to re-wite your past, do you think confronting her would get her to admit it? Or is she more likely to dig in and maintain the lie? A lot of damaged people have selective memories when it suits and they are the last people to ever apologise... which is what I suspect you're really after.

I don't think I would confront her unless you feel certain that it would be beneficial for you. I think the likely scenario is that she will deny anything you say, laugh airily and point out that you are over-exaggerating - she held down a job, so of course she wasn't an alcoholic, etc. I imagine this would make you feel worse. In your situation I think I would simply draw away from DM and have as little to do with her as possible. I think you would get more relief from possibly exploring your feelings with a counsellor than with your mother.

x post with Cogito - we're on the same page, here, though.

What the other respondents have written.

What would you want to achieve from a confrontation?. An apology or acknowledgement of wrong doing towards you?. I am sorry but I don't think you will receive either from such a damaged and toxic person.

The book Toxic Parents by Susan Forward has a chapter in it on alcoholic parent/s; that may well be worth reading for your own self.

Think your mother will continue to choose to rewrite history if you were to confront her. I would talk all this through with a counsellor before deciding to do anything direct with your mother.

My Mother had a number of issues, and an alcohol problem. She died when I was in my early 20s. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if she was still alive and would we talk about how difficult she made my teenage years. However, I don't have that opportunity, and actually I think it is better to park that stuff and move on.

Your situation is different in that she is still alive and sounds as though she is making life difficult for you now. I don't think a confrontation would help. Perhaps counselling for you? If she raises the issue, you could say that you have a very different recollection of your childhood.....and you did not appreciate her comment to DH.

Thanks for the replies. I am having similar thoughts about confronting her which is why I have put it off for so long. I do think she would make light of the situation and it would make me feel even worse. I don't necessarily want an apology but more an acknowledgement that I'm not mad or making stuff up. I just hate the fact she ruined so much of the early part of my life but gets to swan around with her nose in the air looking down on everyone else. She seems to have convinced heraelf that she was a perfect parent and we were the perfect family.
I have a great counsellor at work who is available to us due to the nature of our work. I might have a chat to her and try to get my head around it all.

Your mother has to believe her version of events in order to survive, same as she needs to look down on others. I think she's spent so much of her adult life relying on lies, deception and a very thin, very brittle veneer of normality & superiority to mask her reliance on alcohol that she lost sight of reality a long time ago. That's how all addicts are IME... pathologically selfish people who find deception as easy as others find breathing.

You'll never change her and neither will you get her to acknowledge the truth. She has created a universe she can live with and you won't be able to challenge it. It will have to be enough that you and the people you value know the truth.

I have faced alot of mental health issues in the last few years, triggered by becoming a mother and realising that i would NEVER do to my children what was done to me

After alot of therapy I want to ask you if there is ANYTHING your mother can say that will help where you are up to at the moment?

Sh can't change the past, if she recognises it that isn't going to change things for you, if she denies it, she could make it worse.
I do feel that you can manage how things are for you now, so perhaps best for you to focus on you now.

Things get better, I can honestly say that after 3 years of therapy I have a better warmer healthier relationship with my parents. I can accept that they did the best they could whilst still accepting that it was far from good enough.

Thanks for the replies. Funnily enough the only positive thing I can take from my childhood is that I do believe it has made me a better parent and foster parent. Maybe I need to just focus on this for now.

I don't think there is anything she can say that will make me feel any better. I just resent the issues that my childhood has left me with. I have terrible issues around alcohol, I get really nervous when I'm around people who are drinking and I'm constantly anxious when dh goes out for a drink in the evening, even though he only goes a couple of times a year and has 2-3 drinks at the most. I have an 18 year old fd and feel the same when she goes out with her friends. I have trust issues, although that is getting better. I have real trouble forming relationships, not romantic ones but more friendships. maybe some of these are just characteristics of me and nothing to do with my past but I do believe my childhood helped shape some of them. I have ordered the Toxic Parents book, had heard of it before and always meant to get a copy.

You say she gets to swan around with her nose in the air looking down on everyone else. Don't kid yourself, everyone will know she is a drinker, the only person she is fooling is herself.

hivmy childhood wasnt great i was physical abused by my mams bf now husband she never did anything it has masivly afected my adult life i wanted to talk to her about why she just let it happen to be told i over exagerated it was then my son was born ibwudnt let him anywere near my son me and my mam havnt spoke since it was hard at first but am glad it was just to painfull to be around her what ever you chose to do remember u are loved i am a very happy women now i have lefy all that behind me hope you find some peace x x