Devastated - why didn't DM do anything?

[WeAreSix]

I don't know where to start. I need to talk about my DM, but my head is spinning and I just can't get recent events out of my mind.

We've never had an easy relationship, although I think she would describe us as 'close'. She's always wanted to be my best friend - not the kind of relationship I've wanted - but I've always let it go. She had a very difficult childhood and didn't have a good mother role model as my Grandmother was very unwell with Mental Health problems. I've read about narcissists on here, and wonder if she has some of these traits herself... she always turns things around to be about her (a problem is always her fault, she always feels to blame etc).

I probably wasn't the easiest teenager but I'm pretty sure I wasn't the worst.

When I was 13 I met an 18 year old who I was absolutely smitten with. Looking at the age gap now, and how young I was it seems utterly wrong but by the time I was just 14 and him then 19, he was my boyfriend. He didn't treat me well. My parents knew about the relationship and allowed it to go ahead but I had fairly strict curfews, where / when I was allowed to go with him. As far as I was aware, they didn't know what was actually going on.

I don't know if the relationship with him was to blame or not, but throughout my teenage years I had problems with food. Nothing was ever diagnosed but I controlled food - I starved myself and had target (low) weights, lied about eating etc. The relationship ended when I was 17. The food issues carried on.

I had another inappropriate relationship which resulted in a ruptured ectopic pregnancy and I nearly died. My DM refused to acknowledge the pregnancy and told everyone I had appendicitis. Her account of my time in hospital was that it was worse for her than it was for me. I was hurt about her reaction, but was so deep in grief and confusion I never dealt with it.

Shortly after, I moved away from home and met my now DH when I was 18. He helped me massively - my eating became normal-ish and although I still hated the way I looked the obsession with my weight became less of a problem.

I didn't think my parents knew about the problems I had with food - until last week. I was having dinner with them and my DD when my DM decided to tell me what a nightmare I was never eating, how hard it was to live with an anorexic and that she knew I had an eating disorder.

I was too stunned at the time to say anything. I honestly didn't know she knew about my issues with food. I hurried the conversation along to a different topic. My 10yo DD did not need to hear this.

My anger about her talking about this in front of DD has turned into disbelief that she knew I was starving myself and did absolutely nothing. She said that she'd been told that the best way to deal with eating disorders was to ignore it. I don't know who told her this. I was never taken to the GP about my eating as far as I remember.

I am beginning to wonder what else she knew about and chose to ignore. Did she know what was happening when I was 14 and ignored that too? These two experiences in my life have shaped the way I am - all of my low self esteem and lack of confidence stem from this. I am angry and hurt that she didn't protect me, she didn't stop all the hurt My own mother could have helped me and she didn't.

I don't know where I go from here. I can't stop thinking 'She did nothing'. DH is as surprised. I can't talk to her about it - like I said, she turns everything around to be about her... it'll be yet another of her 'failings', it'll create more problems than it will solve.

Why didn't she intervene? Protect me? I just don't get it

Not sure how old you are, but some generations see that sort of thing as a teen phase and that you'd just get over it. Not to mention it's embarrassing to talk about anorexia, and any other mental health issues. She doesn't sound like she'd take a deep and meaningful about it very seriously, which would probably piss you off even more. Lots of teenagers ARE weird with food - and she's ignorant and uncomfortable. It can be a battleground with parents that teenagers win too. Coupled with your grandmother's mental health problems, she's sandwiched between two generations of problems (she feels) and not getting any attention herself.

It's upsetting for you, but maybe worth ranting to your DH and MN and not brining it up with her. Sounds like it could become a real hornets' nest of her telling you what an awful time SHE's had.

I feel for you and understand the hurt, My mother IS a narcissist without doubt and more or less abandoned me when I was a teenager working away every week leaving me with alcoholic father who had MH problems and was abusive, She mentioned a couple of years ago how devastated she had been when she found a load of vodka bottles under my bed when I was 16. She never said a word.... It's hard to imagine now as a parent myself how you could ignore something like that. I'm sorry.

Agree with above poster - little point in discussing it will become all about how upsetting it was for HER and how she couldn't handle it and you will feel even worse. I'm sorry what has helped me is learning to accept my mum is the way she is and lowering my expectations. We have a much better relationship as a result and some of it is good :) Hoping and waiting for contrition will just bring disappointment and heartache.

We can't change the past but we can change how we react to it and not let it spoil our present and our future. Good luck OP

Thank you both for your replies and sharing experiences.

I'm mid 30s. I have thought about the generational thing, and how eating disorders were viewed 20 years ago.

You're completely right about expectations and I'm judging DM by the standards I hold for myself as a mother, and how i would react and deal with my DD if she had similar problems.

There's been so many niggly little problems over the years - far too many to list here - and this is the most hurtful. And this is the one that may well be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

I don't think I can forgive her this time.

It's ignorance I think my lovely. My mother reacted in the same way to my bulimia in my very late teens/early 20s.
I believe my mother is a narcissist too, for various reasons. Might help you to google Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I'm NOT saying this is the answer, but it may lead you to a better understanding of just what the hell went on when you were younger.
Some people metaphorically stick their fingers in their ears and hum when something they don't understand comes along. Whether or not they're a parent. I find that weird, esp now I'm a parent myself.
Be aware that you may never find all the answers you crave. Don't let it drive you mad, or make you too sad

I feel so betrayed by her.

I do see some of her in the wiki description of narcissistic personality, but not all. I think she's a product of a mother with severe MH (my GM had extensive ECT, medication, sectioned numerous times) and being forced into a mothering role too early.

BUT while I can empathise with her own sadness, I cannot get just leaving me to it. And questioning if she knows the awfulness of my first boyfriend. It has bought so much pain and self doubt to the surface

DH thinks that DM is lying. That she's pretending that she knew because not noticing what I was doing makes her a failure (in her mind).

And it occurred to me this morning that not one bit of the blame has been laid on my Dad. I've apportioned the whole thing on DMs shoulders.

I told my mum I had been bulimic during my teens and early 20s, to which she replied, 'I think most people have something like that.'

Honestly! It really made me realise how little she noticed. But I also know that if she had noticed, she wouldn't have seen it as an illness, she would have been cross with me. So in some ways I'm glad.

Do you think things would have been very different for you if she had tried to do anything for you?

I get on fine with my mum. In my mind she did many things wrong, as well as many things right, but I do know she did the best she could and I worry that my own children will have a list of things I've done wrong! Do you think your mum was trying to help by not doing anything? You say she said she was told to ignore an eating disorder. Maybe she did worry about you, but the advice was to ignore.

I feel for you, because living with the after effects of an eating disorder is hard. It never goes away and makes you feel pretty shit about yourself.

The thing about teenage girls is that you do have to tread pretty carefully around them at the best of times. If your parents were worried about your first boyfriend, they could also have been worried that forbidding you to see him, for example, would have driven you away and further into his arms. It does happen. Similarly, what should she have done about your eating disorder? As you were lying about eating, it was always going to be a tricky thing to address. Perhaps she did seek advice and, having been told to ignore it, thought she was acting for the best. You obviously didn't ask her for help on either issue -- and telling someone you think they have a problem is a pretty scary thing to do.