Thread for those who have serious dysfunctional relationships with their Mothers

[bishbashboosh]

I know there have been threads before, so I know there are many of you out there who have very difficult relationships with their Mother...and I hope nobody minds me starting this now. It's coming up to Mother's Day, which is a really difficult time for us.

At risk of being narcissistic (and I am being), my own Mother left when I was young and has being the opposite of what I consider a Mother to be, that is the Mother my friends had, the Mother my cousins and husband had. I always think I am winning the battle, gosh, I have done it all! Eating disorders, self harm, you name it! However, today got me, it got me so much I want to hit myself! Someone who is old enough to be my Mother was kind to me, and grateful for a favour I did and that really got me. It's a crap time of year with all the 'fantastic Mother' stuff around and it is bloody exhausting trying to deal with all the self-hatred and anger.

I know it's not just me.

I am currently not talking to mine. I'm having therapy and am realising how very angry I am at what she put me through, especially as a child. She injured me (fractured bones) as a baby, and has hit me etc but it was the emotional manipulation and psychological stuff that was worse. I still feel bad for not looking after her, it was a revelation to learn recently that that isn't my job. Brain-washed.

CoilRegret a lot of my best friends over the years have been people whose mothers died or left when they were children. I think I feel like she also left me in a sense because, even though she was a single mum looking after me, it felt like she wasn't there, or something important was missing. She would deny all this, blame my dad and her family.

I am glad I have a son. Talking to my brother, who remembers, and my therapist, who believes, is what keeps me sane. Others don't understand.

Scabbyhorse "I think I feel like she also left me in a sense because, even though she was a single mum looking after me, it felt like she wasn't there, or something important was missing"

Felt that, too.

Hugs and hand holding to all. Thanks again, Bish, for starting this thread, and hugs to you too xxx

Sorry Bish, meant to say you are included in the 'all' bit. Didn't mean to separate you then from everybody else xxxx

I've always found mother's day very hard and hope you don't take this the wrong way,but it's 'great' to find people who have been through the same experience.

I have a very uneasy,kind of relationship with my mum now. It only just hangs together as long as we don't speak too often (once every few months is ok)

Having said that, I went through lots of councelling to get here and I think she may have undergone some therapy recently herself or spoken to the medieval magic fairies who inhabit her world and the local waitrose

The only way I can make it all make sense to me is to remind myself that she is mentally unbalanced or has a disorder and she literally cannot help her responses,in the same way that a small child can't.

It still hurts that no one really gets it and feels great sympathy for her when I mumble about some of the things that happened to me. I tend to edit it to make it acceptable to people with normal families,they really DON'T get it.

I'm nc with my abusive 'father' too and that's good. All of these things have kept me sane.

It feels pathetic feeling so sad on Mother's Day, I spent last year in bed crying, my poor DH and kids didn't know what to do with me. Funnily enough my DH lost his mum as a child, I'd never really thought of it that way.

I'm glad I am reading your stories as I think it's me and my fault. And feel guilty for not contacting her, I made an effort for many years and it always ended badly. She told me I had to get over her abandoning me as a child, and how much I was making f her suffer. I type this with my sick daughter on my lap, when you think you would go to the end of the earth for your child, it's even more tough knowing your own mother has never tried.

Gulp...thought I had killed the thread! Big hug for you- not your fault, never was,never will be. Detaching from these relationships is all we can do to preserve our sanity.

I think I'm going to spend some time on mother's day thinking about motherhood in general and about my wonderful ds rather than my insane mum.

With enough time therapy I'm ok with being very detached. No need to have lots of contact,look after yourself and your lovely dd now instead.

Really these people (including dads here) are very sad and have lost such wonderful relationships which they could have had under different circumstances. I'm just glad that I don't suffer from the same disorder my mother has.

My mother is like all of yours.

My mother mistreated all of us as children and it was hell. I got ill at 18 and she donated a kidney to me and afterwards said I don't ever want to talk about this I don't do emotional. . I made endless effort with her and stayed quite close to her for years as felt I 'owed' her and all around me people were deserting her and asking me to talk to her about her treatment of others. I never did until a few years ago she said something really nasty about my siblings and I just said I'd rather she didn't talk like that about them to me. That was 2 plus years ago and she cut me out of her life there and then.I find it hard at special occasions as people always ask if I have seen her. I know I won't see her as she cuts everyone out who disagrees with her. I have 3 sibling and one is from her new dh she says he is from better father and so prioritises him. Beyond evil

My sister and I really struggle to get suitable cards for Mothers Day. So many of them speak about wonderful mums who do so much for their children and are loved so much.

I have finally found one (5 card shops later) that says Happy Mothers Day on the front and is blank inside, where I shall just write From Lesley - no love from or kisses as I just can't be a hypcrite.

wynken, bug hugs. As you know, my mother is in a care home with dementia too. I won't be visiting on Sunday, mainly for practical reasons but also because I don't want to. She was by no means as awful as some mothers described on here but she was still a cold, emotionally manipulative woman who messed me up quite considerably. I'm just annoyed that now I'm at a place in my life where I have the cojones to challenge her on it, she's too gaga to respond.

Bug hugs? No, big hugs! No insects with piercing and sucking mouthparts involved

heart-piercing and life-sucking describes some mothers quite well dry half-smile

I have a dysfunctional relationship with my Mum. She was extremely difficult when I was growing up - violent, unreasonable, and emotionally cruel. But she had anaemia and depression at the time, and she clearly has other mental illness too (undiagnosed, she'd never ask for help as this would be to admit that she could make a mistake, which is not her strong suit). One of the things I find difficult is that I sometimes get angry and upset at the things that she did, but at the same time I also love her very much and know that she wasn't really fully in control of her behaviour.

As an adult, she has distanced herself from me and been incredibly unsupportive. What makes it worse is that she couldn't do more for my sister, who still lives at home at 33 and who constantly briefs against me as a means of ensuring that I'm excluded. The worst thing is, my sister has rewritten history, and in her version the violence in the household when we were growing up was all my fault and I was a horrible, disruptive influence instead of being the young teenage victim of an incredibly controlling mother. I can understand how it might appear that way to a younger sibling who didn't necessarily see the worst of my mother's behaviour - there was a special intensity of fury and fists that was very much reserved for me - but it's also a very convenient fiction for them to cast me in the role of the 'scapegoat'. If you asked them what they thought of me, they'd say I was utterly selfish and incapable of love.

So I feel like I've lost my whole family. I can't rely on them for love or support - when I got meningitis in my first term at university, they didn't visit. When I got divorced much later, they let me sleep in my car rather than offering my a place to stay. I live a few hundred miles away now, but ring them every week, I send gifts, and I try to be a good daughter. But it hurts a whole lot at times.

I went NC with mine 3 years ago, she hasn't met my 4 month old doesnt know my 4 year old and never will. She was useless, llet things happen to me that shouldnt happen to a child, chose drugs and men over me and was generally a twunt. Even as an adult she would continuously let me down so enough was enough... yet even today i wondered what she was doing, i was always the parent of this dynamic.

My mother acts like a saint outwardly, and she does things that people would think 'oh that's really nice!' But everything that comes out of her mouth is twisted and vile. She's utterly disgusting about my father, who is her biggest enabler, and she is utterly disgusting about everyone apart from my youngest brother (the golden child) and the dog.

I grew up being the victim of violence, psychological and emotional abuse and most damaging, the feeling I was never loved or wanted.

I hate her. She was controlling way into my adulthood, and when I had my daughter at a young age she controlled her too, took her away from me and treated her like I wish she had treated me. She adores my eldest.

I feel the grief of not having a decent mother every day. It hurts.

Cleorapter

My mother acts like a saint outwardly, and she does things that people would think 'oh that's really nice!' But everything that comes out of her mouth is twisted and vile

Those words could have been used by me to describe my mother - I can never refer to her as "mum" because that sounds too nice.

My mother has been told that things she has said/done have upset me, but she has made no attempt to rectify this. It is so hurtful and is why she's getting something I won in a raffle as a present - in fact she's bloody lucky she's getting anything at all

Lesley, my mother would never apologise for anything she's ever done.

Actually she has apologised but only during one of her 'I'm a victim' moments where she cries and says things like 'I must be such a horrible person, I'm sorry for everything I've done, I may as well go and kill myself' it's all manipulation though. You have to live it to know what I mean. She can turn tears off and on like a tap.

She also lies, a lot. Makes up things that never happened (for example, she told my brother I told her to go kill herself, I never said such a thing and never would) and she will tell more and more lies to back up her lies. It's disturbing how she seems to believe it though.

She has no real life friends. And has fallen out with anyone she cannot control. Which is me now. I've had NC for three weeks and she won't be getting anything from me on Sunday. I despise her.

my mum is happy as long as she gets things all her own way. She cares not a jot that there is no affection or sex in my marriage and attempted to bully me into staying with DH when she found out about my affair back in 2003. (ive stayed but not cos she bullied me into it.) she cares more about how it looks to outsiders.
When i was a child i was an avid reader. still am But shes never seen the point and thinks that women should worry about how they look first and foremost. Looks are more inportant than anything else. When i was eleven i became short sighted and needed glasses She told me NOT to wear them because they made me look horrible.
When i was 14 i was being badly bullied at high school to the point that i was considering suicide. I had the whisky out of the cabinet and pills in my hand DB (golden child) panicked and phoned my mum at work She came home and shouted at me for interrupting her working day. She HATES women REALLY hates them Ive heard her slagging off female celebrities/actresses/ especially if they are over a size 12 /been married before/ ruined for all other men etc. She told me i was ruined for all other men when i lost my virginity at 18. Couldnt/cant talk to her about ANYTHING without her shouting the odds and desperately finding a way to blame whatever the problem was on me. Whenever i had a falling out with a friend at school it had to be my fault.
My dad enables to an extent A lad who was bullying me at school threw a can of Coke down a new skirt i was wearing one Sat in town and my dad insisted i must have done something to provoke him. Yep Everying was/is my fault because i happen to posses a vagina. Some of this is down to religion (Her interpretation of Catholicism) and culture Some of it is downright mysogyny.

I hate her. She was controlling way into my adulthood, and when I had my daughter at a young age she controlled her too, took her away from me and treated her like I wish she had treated me. She adores my eldest.

My mum is too Its one of the reasons i havent had kids. She would have used the fact of me being a mum to control me even more e. g. "mothers dont do such and such etc ad infinitum

Cleo i live it I know EXACTLY where you are coming from. My mum turns on the tears when i stand up for myself. She gaslighted me when she found out about my affair. My DH hadnt touched me for 7 years at that point and didnt want to go to counselling. She tried to say he didnt want to touch me because i had an affair. Well unless he had a fucking Tardis and used it to warp the timeline......er no i dont think so

Ugh. Why are there so any toxic mothers. I couldn't imagine treating my precious children the way they treat us

Cleo

And to all on this thread who are going through it.

struggling100 this is also similar to how I feel

'One of the things I find difficult is that I sometimes get angry and upset at the things that she did, but at the same time I also love her very much and know that she wasn't really fully in control of her behaviour'.

to everyone on this thread. Might buy myself some flowers tomorrow lol.

Scabbyhorse- I am glad I'm not the only one. Sometimes I wonder if I'm a freak for not wanting to go NC, or if I'm just suffering from some kind of guilt complex, or if I'm a pushover...