Mother refuses to address childhood - (long, sorry)

[zozobra]

My mum and I have always had a rocky relationship. When I was a child she was emotionally distant and had a bad temper. I can't remember ever being cuddled, only being told off. She was (and still is) very house proud and I was very clumsy. I still remember the utter dread and fear that I felt whenever I spilled or broke something. She hated it when I cried and would shout at me to stop crying and tell me my tears had no affect on her (one of these incidents is the first thing I remember). When I got a bit older she would sometimes slap me in the face and I remember the sheer anger in her eyes and how scared I felt.

Now that I have my own daughter I have remembered more of my childhood and realised just how dysfunctional our relationship was and I am angry. I want her to explain or at least recognise that her behaviour was less than ideal.

Recently I have brought up a couple of incidents from my childhood and she has completely denied they happened. She hates confrontation and if I push the issue she will burst into tears and leave the room. She cannot handle any strong emotion at all and will cry at the drop of a hat. She will say hurtful things or snap and then go off in a sulk. The next day she will say "I'm sorry about last night, I was tired, let's move on shall we?" and refuse to discuss it. If I press for reasons why she snapped she will cry again. Rinse and repeat.

I talked to my younger sister recently about my feelings and she was shocked - she remembers a happy childhood. I think mum might've had (undiagnosed) PND with me and maybe that coloured her relationship with me. My sister refuses to believe my version of events and won't talk about it anymore.

Mum and I get along a bit better now but she finds it difficult to express herself or deal with any conflict. Last time I went to stay with her (and my dad, who is lovely but tiptoes around her) I put my shoes in the 'wrong' place and she walked into the bedroom where I was feeding 5 month old DD and threw the shoes at me aggressively (they missed). When I protested she told me that they were in the wrong place. I asked her if she would've treated her friend X like that she made an exasperated noise, rolled her eyes and walked away. I felt like that irritating child who used to spill drinks on the carpet.

I am a happy, confident adult now with normal relationships but I can't seem to get past this. I want to ask her questions about my childhood but how can I when she denies everything?

So sorry this is long. I would love to hear from anyone who has a similar relationship with a parent and how they addressed the thorny issue of a past which one party is reluctant to visit.

You could be writing about my Mother with anger, tears, criticisms, more tears, sulking, neediness etc

I have learnt over time that her 'truth' about not only my childhood but even the way she behaves now, is very different from mine. The 2 will never be the same & so I simply do not broach it with her, it only lends to more tears, anger, emotional blackmail ad infinitum.

I'm sure someone will be along soon with something more useful to say but there is a thread in Relationships called 'But we took you to stately homes.....' which you may find gives you a sense of relief, entertainment, & tears in equal measure.

You are not alone in having a toxic Mother & her behaviour is not your fault- its all about her.

What about writing to her?

I don't know, I think it depends how much this is disturbing you. Is it affecting you enough to say to her that until she has this conversation with you in a mature fashion and actually listens to you, you can't have any contact with her because you simply can't maintain the relationship like this.

When you were a child, she could control you with yells and violence. Now you are an adult she controls you with her tears and her temper.

Her methods may have changed, but her intention has not.

This is a power thing. She currently has power over you because you still see yourself as a small powerless child seeking her approval. The two things you have to understand are that you'll never get her to acknowledge or apologise for the past and that, as a 'happy, confident adult', you're now more powerful than she is because you hold the trump card i.e access to a grandchild. Rather than trying to get her to change, keep calling her out on any more shoe-throwing incidents and assert your authority as forcibly as you're able. Ultimate threat is 'behave yourself or you won't see your grandchild'...

No excuses for treating your kids like that but it does sound like she might have had PND or depression.

You need to live in the present and future. Easy for me to say. I had a far worse childhood that you describe. I could only move on when I stopped dwelling on my past.

Thank you for your replies.

Hecsy, it's not disturbing enough to me to go non contact. It's just frustrating that my anger about my childhood will never be addressed. I disagree that she controls me. Our relationship is very much on my terms now.

Cogito, she doesn't have power over me. In fact the balance has tipped and I feel more powerful. Which is perhaps why I am now pushing for some recognition of what happened in the past. But the rest of the family are still tiptoeing around her. I told my sister after the shoe throwing that I wouldn't stay with our parents anymore. She said "mum will be so upset." So, it doesn't matter if the rest of us are unhappy - just as long as mum is managed. No. Not going to go down that route.

I will keep asserting my authority. I have already told her that I am not going to let her treat me like crap in front of my child as I don't want DD to grow up being afraid of me like I was of her. That didn't go down well and there was crying and "I can never do anything right"s but the next day - all forgotten.

"you'll never get her to acknowledge or apologise for the past". I was afraid someone would say that.

Chamonix I'm sorry your childhood was so crap. I know what I described wasn't a patch on what so many others have been through. I am not sure how to move on, although I think moving to the other side of the world from her did help!

lucky - thanks for your reply. I have lurked on that thread.

My mother was a carbon copy of that. I put up with it until last year. I never brought up her abusive nature when I was a child but I asked her not to say a particularly nasty thing she had been saying to me as an adult. She went nuts and wrote me a horrendous email listing all my failing and never spoke to me again. She had done similar with my other siblings bar one her favourite from another partner. That was about a year ago and it is hard but I think I am better without her

I think throwing shoes at you is control tbh I know it is hard to admit I defended my mother for years for various reasons but she got progressively worse

Sorry, I must have misunderstood. I meant no offence.

I thought that her tears and tantrums caused you to stop questioning - that would be her controlling the situation - cos you don't get to have the conversation you want and still have things unanswered, she stops that from taking place through manipulation and stonewalling and chucking stuff at you.

But I would just like to say that telling someone that you needed to have this conversation with them, be heard, and get some answers otherwise you can't continue the relationship isn't actually taking the decision to go 'no contact'. It is putting the ball in their court and giving them an opportunity to do what you really need. If it is their choice to not do so, that's not you going no contact, that's them choosing to not have you in their life because they prefer that to addressing important issues you have.

You feel it's not at that stage and fair enough, only you can decide that, but I didn't want you to misunderstand what I had said. I didn't say cut her out. I said tell her what you need and what your terms are and she makes the choice, not you.

The thing is I didn't think it would mean no contact but my mother would never address anything and so no contact is what I and my sister got! So be careful

zozobra,

I do not think she will ever give you the answers as to why she did (and still does) treat you this way. Toxic people never apologise nor take any responsibility for their actions.

It is NOT your fault she is like this; her own birth family unleashed that lot of damage on her. What if anything do you know about her own childhood, that will give clues.

Reading "Toxic Parents" written by Susan Forward may help you further as would be looking at the "well we took you to stately homes" thread on these pages.

I would say that if she is too toxic for you to deal with then she is also too toxic for your child to have contact with.

I don't do well with the past either, chamonix. It is sad on one hand, but quite liberating on the other.

Zozobra, I agree with Cogito in that, imho, I doubt you will find the closure or emotional relief you are seeking from your mother. If this is consuming your brainspace, perhaps seeing a counsellor who specializes in dysfunctional family dynamics would not be a waste of time or money. Books by John Bradshaw on recovering from abusive childhood experiences may also be of interest to you. (There are several, review the summary clips on Amazon and choose from there.)

I do not think your mom will ever be able to look at her parenting of you objectively, admit mistakes, and apologize for them, and empathize with you at how awful your time in her care must have been. Imho, the shame in that exchange would be overwhelming for her and that may be why she refuses to participate in it.

I also agree with the control dynamic mentioned above and second (or third?) the idea that she may cut you off first to have the satisfaction of being in the driver's seat of the relationship's end. That may be in the balance of your need for resolution of the past...if that is too much to risk, then I suggest stop talking about it with her and using third party sources mentioned above (counseling, books, Stately Homes thread, which is basically a support group).

I am sorry that you are hurting, and I hope you can make peace within yourself soon.

I have a mother with similar traits - very moody, ruled the house with her temper as a child, sometimes violent, catty, but never admits to anything - quite secretive, really - and if confronted will generally break down and go all weepy.

I too think she may have had PND with me, and perhaps a difficult birth, as I seem to be the one she didn't bond with - we've never been close - and she also used to say terrible things to me about my personality, character etc, traits that I now feel she hated about herself.

She also acts like a living saint when in public... behind closed doors she's very different, icy cold, really quite eccentric ie hates sunshine, very picky about food etc.

Your mother reminds me of her in the controlling traits, moodiness and violence - throwing shoes at you is very aggressive, as is getting annoyed about where you've left them. Like you I really only 'woke up' to her when I had my own child and realised how cold she'd been towards me, compared to how I felt towards my own baby. There was also an element of jealousy or disapproval in how I look after my son, which continues.

I did try to address her violence once and got hugely punished. Nothing was ever admitted to, and I was made to feel terrible for causing trouble.

I did speak to a therapist about her, and the difficulty I was having with her since having a child. Two, in fact! The message I got from both was that I needed to look after myself, to move forward, and she wasn't going to do anymore emotional development, so stop expecting it. After a certain point the power shifts and you just have to 'manage' your parents to an extent, particularly if they are difficult. I have greatly lowered my expectations of her and really don't rely on her for any of the emotional support you might think you'd get from a mother. That makes life easier.

I am also very firm about not tolerating any bad behaviour from her. I call her out now, rather than just taking it, and she knows that if she misbehaves she can't see her GC (sounds like you are already doing that). It gets easier but it is hard when you have a child and realise what you missed out on. It takes up a lot of my time and energy thinking about it, but I am slowly getting stronger and MN is a great resource.

Sorry quite an essay there but hopefully some of it is helpful!

Viking that is what I think is horrendous too You cannot rust narcissists to tell teh truth either My mother peddles a story of a sad childhood which I always took on board as an excuse for her behaviour but when my sister and I looked into it and spoke to her siblings (she has nothing to do with any of them) we found the reverse! She was the golden child and hugely spoiled

I agree with Chamonix
op what you are asking for (explanations, apologies) you ain't gonna get, and while you are in position of supplicant to her you won't move on

oscalito i recognise lots of that.

noddy holder amazing isn't it.... until MN I thought i was the only one.
but also comforting.

Zoozobra the other thing I would say is that getting angry is healthier than getting depressed. You can address the anger, but perhaps more productively with a therapist than with her; she really doesn't sound willing to change or even admit she has problems.

When you have your own child it is both depressing and liberating at the same time.