Children the incompetent, unite!

[thestamp]

are there any others out there like me? i am the daughter of an incompetent mother. by this i mean my mother...

... admired me in many ways, but had no insight into how vulnerable and in need of care i was when i was little
... truly believed that i was put on earth to care for her, and not the other way around
... ducks out of any responsibility by wringing her hands and sobbing about how she didn't know any better
... blames all the bad parenting and shocking family decisions on how she was just following the orders of my feckless father
... can't offer advice or support to her children, but demands both, which she then ignores
... seems fully committed to her own unhappiness
... shits on all attempts to be "saved", and then cries to the person she's shat on about how bad she feels about shitting on them (!!!!!!!!!!!!)
... won't see a therapist
... won't see the GP to address her very obvious panic/anxiety problems
... has exhausted the goodwill of countless people over the years

She does sound like she needs help and is in quite a bad state. I am just getting awfully sick of my mother being the one who gets sympathy, help, and lots of TLC from her nuclear and extended family. i get very little of that! since i am "fine"! and in any case, there are no resources left for me....! i can't tell you how much i have done for her... and yet she is still unhappy and will not be any other way...

i am in therapy and have reduced contact... but still i know, through little cues from my therapist, that she wishes i were more "understanding" of my mother...

it's not that i don't understand...
it's that i'm so sick of being the one who has to understand! i wish my mother would take a moment to understand me... that would be nice!

i wish for once, it would be OK for me to say how disappointing, embarrassing, infuriating, saddening and lonely it is to be the child of someone like this!

so i open some wine and propose a toast to all the women out there who remember the little girl who needed a parent, but didn't have one.

i would say i wish i wasn't alone, but i know i can't be, more's the pity!

this week i am going through a major happy (stressful) milestone in my career, and again, i will do it with just my DH and lovely DCs, no mother to cheer me on... just some resentful, jealous comments in a sad tone... and another piece of proof that i am "fine" so my mother can try to guilt me into being even more of a leaning post... while i change the subject and try to keep things cheerful and superficial.

Hi Stamp sorry your having such a stressful time, I understand your therapist seeing how it might be from your mums point of view, as that is part of the exploration of the issues.

But if you are concerned or feel pressured in some way to take more on board with regards to how your mum feels, and it trumping how your feeling then you need/are within your rights to bring this up with her.? This point might need clarifying for you as it seems there are some vestiges of guilt which are still in play, and if you feel your therapist is somehow responsible for this whether it is real or imagined it's not healthy or helpful.

The therapist is not there to takes sides, but they are only human and maybe she might be transferring on to you experiences she is having herself, when these should be kept out of the room. Either way your well within your rights to challenge them on this, and they would not be surprised if you do.

Chin chin!
Don't think my mum is quite in the same league as yours but I do remember one occasion vividly...

Bit of background - exh left when I was 5 months pregnant with ds, 10 months after our dd sadly died. This meant that I had to continue working much longer in to my pregnancy than I had planned (he stopped paying all bills etc.) and then return to my full time job when ds was only 16 weeks old. It was gruelling (my job is demanding, carries a lot of responsibility and usually I dont manage a lunch hour) and a horrible time emotionally too. I was up before 6 and on the go all day, nursery runs etc to fit in and I often used to fall in to bed about 8.30pm taking my paper work with me.

Anyway, I was trying to explain to my mum how exhausted in every way I was feeling. I was hoping for a little sympathy (bit lonely, being full time working single mum - no girls nights for me at that time) but instead she said,

"You're so lucky you don't find getting up early difficult - I've always needed my sleep. I simply couldn't get up at that time, my body couldnt do it" !!!

Like you, at that moment I was heartily sick of being 'so lucky I always cope with everything so easily'!

meant to be children OF the incompetent... lol... perhaps i am the incompetent one...

She sounds like me. She might be depressed. I was. For twenty years.

Humble, she is definitely profoundly depressed! but she refuses to take anti depressants and/or see a counsellor. Won't see a doctor. goes to some horrible chiropractor/naturopath type character who exploits her mercilessly, gets her to buy all sorts of useless supplements that are supposed to be the magic bullet. of course nothing works, which she then mopes about.

she took a-ds for a while a few years back, as prescribed by a GP, they helped her very much, then one fine day decided to stop them cold turkey and obv had shocking side-effects, panic attacks, etc... so has now declared she will never take them again because they are "poison" etc. etc.

counselling is dismissed as "not something people of my generation do". never mind all her children have needed counselling and benefitted from it...

SO frustrating it is impossible to express. i have tried to get her help for so long but she just doesn't want it.

my therapist says she likely has dependent personality disorder and does not want to be happy/independent, never will be, i just have to accept it. it's very hard to accept though. i feel angry and cheated by it all.

I think you do have to accept it, as you can't change her, and she doesn't want to change.

However, what you do not have to do is accept responsibility for her choices, or the outcomes of them.

I do accept that she won't change. really i do. it has been years of disappointments, she has let me down in so many ways that i honestly have no hope left at all. i don't even like her anymore and i certainly don't seek anything from her. because she just can't give it, and i know that completely.

it's not her not changing that i find hard to accept --

it's accepting that this is it, this is the only mother i have and she is so useless, self-absorbed and draining.

i struggle with how unfair it is, that i have been such a good daughter and am so successful, and yet, i will never have a mother i will be proud of, who i can turn to.

it's just galling how unfair it is.

By which I mean you can make choices yourself- not to be a leaning post, or advisor. Not to prop her up. Clearly it is making you feel angry and exhausted.

Stop doing it. You'll feel better, and anyway it isn't healthy to have an adult/child dynamic in your relationship with her.

Cross posted. It is unfair. You must parent yourself.

Really- take care of you.

My mother was like this, but far less repentant.

I am a regular but have nc for this, maybe I feel guilty for writing it but I couldn't ignore.

I'm sorry you've been going through this for so long. Whilst it can't say I've had this all my life, my mother is now entirely emotionally dependent on my DB and myself without any thought for what we have to go through to fulfil her needs.

I have been close to breaking point (whatever that is) three times this long weekend, driven over 400 miles taking her places, given up precious time with my own young family, and feel like she believes it is my duty to look after her this way without any thought for my duty to look after anyone else, let alone myself.

I too have spoken with a therapist and whilst our situations are different, she stresses to me the importance of not feeling selfish for wanting more understanding and less dependence from my mother.

However, I dont think it's gone on as long as you and can only imagine how draining it must be.

My only way of coping is to accept that I can't change her so I have to change how I deal with it, but I hate what she is doing to my life and can't see it ending. So the only way I can see it getting any easier is by doing less whenever possible. Previously, I felt I must not have been doing enough because she always asked so much from us, but I realise that the more I do for her, the more she expects. It becomes the norm.

Frankly, The only way I can see this getting easier is by backing off and doing less and less for her, regardless of the emotional blackmail I will receive as a result. I'm becoming more immune to it by the day when I see how much it affects other people in my life. She is making me choose between my loved ones and I feel she expects to be the one who is put first every time.

It's my life now, she's not going to change and it's sad, but I feel that she has made me a better parent to my own DC by instilling in me a determination to be to my children the mother I always wanted (and yes still want) her to be to me.

Good luck, I'm sorry she hasn't been able to give you what you need. I'm sure there are reasons for it but after this long I can see how they don't make the situation any easier.

I'm sure a lot of people will tell me I should see things from my mothers pov too but, for now, I just wanted to say I understand and it's sounds to me like you're making an incredible success of your life. Good luck.

OP I know how you feel. Although my 'mother' doesn't sound like such a victim as yours does I know the feeling of having incompetent parents. A few stunning examples in my own history:

• They almost allowed me to die as I had an undiagnosed hole-in-the-heart. At 4 yrs of age, I was rushed off to the local doctor having collapsed and blue in the face. He sent me straight to the hospital. They never noticed anything was even wrong until that point.

• At 9 yrs of age, my school teacher suggested that I needed my eyes checked as I sat at the back of the class and could not see the black board. Again my parents never even noticed. By the time the teacher pointed this out, my eye sight was -3 dioptres (very short sighted).

• At 14 yrs of age, I complained that I was getting bullied at school. They said 'just ignore them'. When I complained that this wasn't working and I was having migraines as a result - nothing. They didn't even take me to see a doctor.

The funny thing is, when my sister went to live overseas, she bought them a puppy (why, I'll never know). As an adult, I could see that not only were they inadequate parents, they weren't even adequate dog owners! These are people who should never have had children.

i am in therapy and have reduced contact... but still i know, through little cues from my therapist, that she wishes i were more "understanding" of my mother...

I went for counselling when I was 15 abut my mother and got the same response. Being 15, I didn't go back (at least, not for years). Of course you (and I) realise that our mothers have problems - it was us who fed the information to the counsellor! I know that one of the problems I had was that I was desperately worried about my mum but felt helpless.

Myabe a small thing overall thestamp but i am in therapy and have reduced contact... but still i know, through little cues from my therapist, that she wishes i were more "understanding" of my mother...

Actually you can and maybe should challenge your therapist on this. She shouldn't be judging like that on principle.

You've explained very clearly on here that you do understand, but you'd like sometimes to be the one who was understood instead. ( Now I'm extrapolating: For there to be mutual understanding, maybe? )

Have you said that clearly to her? If you have, then the lady needs to stop doing the cues thing. You don't need the judgement and the pressure. If she doesn't, then you may even wish to look elsewhere.

Do you have support yourself in handling your mother, other than her?

"i am in therapy and have reduced contact... but still i know, through little cues from my therapist, that she wishes i were more "understanding" of my mother"

I have been thinking about your above comment and the conclusion I've come to is that perhaps you now need to look for another therapist. Not all of them are good and some of them can be downright harmful. You have been more than understanding when it comes to your mother at great cost to yourself.

I would try and find someone else who actually has no bias about keeping families together despite the presence of mistreatment.

I think whitechocolatestars has it, exactly.

Now, maybe all of the posters on here have mothers with different personality types, or different issues. But some people are learned victims, because it has always worked for them.

It is easier to see the pattern and to be objective about it at a distance. For example, I see my sister has learned this behaviour from my mum, and treats her very busy daughters, who have toddlers themselves, as a constant source of help- emotional, lifts places, money, etc.etc. She wouldn't dream of helping them;even when they were newly delivered of their babies, she was demanding or wheedling for help.

Meanwhile, instead of becoming like my mother, I became over-capable, which has caused its own problems. So I have had to learn to sometimes ask for and accept help, which has always felt uncomfortable to me. I had to learn to say no politely, and not to accept responsibility for the consequences of my refusal for others.

Hi Stamp

I've read your posts, and the one thing that has struck me is your profound frustration and anger at her, but that also you are in a way mirroring her behaviour yourself. You have spent years being made unhappy by her choices and treatment of you it's consuming your life, you say you have accepted the way she is, but actually you havnt. You are caught up in her cycle of disappointment in life
And your disappointment in her.

To accept would mean a more positive outlook for you and your thinking about her, you would be referring to her maybe in the past tense because you had got past it. But your not your consumed by her failure as a parent, you can't change her , she has and is continuing to change you though.

You somehow have to make peace with her in your head, you have to draw a line and stick to it, if that's no contact completely then so be it.

i think what i'm experiencing right now is a resurgence of all the pouting, hard-done-by feelings that 4-year-old me was never allowed to indulge in, because it was never safe to do so. i feel obsessed by the unfairness of my lot, like a child ruminating on being cheated in a game.

i do think some of it is due to my feelings of identifying strongly with my youngest, he is a lot like me, i sometimes feel great envy of him, having a mother like me, a father who is present and engaged with him, etc. it's all mixed up with me loving him very deeply and also feeling some healing as i love him/feel the envy of him.

my current struggle is to move on from the unfairness and accept it for what it is, the way of the world. i have a lovely life and i want to live it in the present. i am in a cycle of obsessing about my mother's shortcomings and it IS ruining some things for me, and i AM trying to replace it with other things... it spills over sometimes... hence this thread. which i should probably hide since it's just another way for me to get stuck in thinking about it...!

i'm working on a lot of things to help me move on into my present life. one thing is finally planning and ordering professional photo albums for each of my children. another is planning proper lovely family hols and days out, taking loads of pics and really making it very special for all of us. making memories, etc.

Attilla and others, to be fair, my therapist doesn't want me to "make up" with my mother, or be nicer to her, etc. (i am nice to her already, it's my thoughts that are the problem). i think she is trying to help me find compassion for my mother, so that i can accept her/the situation better.

so pointing out that my mother is a victim of her own upbringing etc. the therapist doesn't bang on about it, not at all. she mentions this kind of thing briefly maybe once every 2-3 sessions. i am very oversensitive to it though, so it's magnified. i have always known that about my mother - that it's not her fault she's broken/pathetic - and have always felt great compassion for her.

what i am angry about now is that I have never had the luxury of compassion and understanding.

"what i am angry about now is that I have never had the luxury of compassion and understanding".

Exactly and your therapist needs to properly acknowledge your own hurt here. I wonder if fear, obligation and guilt re your mother is still very much present within you.

It is NOT your fault that your mother is the way she is; you did not make her that way. Her own family did that lot of damage to her. Some people have personality disorders and many never seek the necessary help.

If you have never done so I would also suggest you post on the "well we took you to Stately Homes" thread.

whitechocolate i'm so sorry for what you are going through. i can tell that you unfortunately know how i feel. it's shit isn't it. i hope you can continue being strong and putting up those boundaries. your DCs (and you) will benefit in the end. it's really fucking painful though.

Hi stamp

You do have the luxury of compassion and understanding, you will find it inside of you but it has to be directed at you for yourself.

Your mum has the same option she just chooses not to take that option because she uses up everyone else's. You been reactive for a long time now, it maybe time for some proactive stuff. Sounds good what you are planning, ide shut the therapist down with the compassionate route every other session, im a therapist it sounds like she is not seeing your side of things, and keeping bringing up your need for compassion for your mother is holding you back. As I said before that's her stuff and not yours.

Understand that you will have wobbles you are fully entitled to have these frustrations about your childhood. Maybe start on how much time you now give these thoughts and feelings, if you can when they start sit with them, give them the five minutes they deserve and then no more, I sometimes suggest putting the kettle on or some other basic function that moves you along.

These thoughts are valid but they are not entitled to take up so much of your head space, threat them as un welcome guests and shoo them away as soon as possible.

so i open some wine and propose a toast to all the women out there who remember the little girl who needed a parent, but didn't have one.

I think of myself as a tough old boot after so many years of this, but that has just made me cry a bit stamp. I know where you are coming from. My dad was beyond useless, my mum was supposed to be the OK parent and I kept telling myself that. But she never loved me, she never parented me – if you asked her, she would insist she did, but it was all about what she needed, always – and it's taken me so many years of trying to keep her happy to finally get to the point where I'm realising there's nothing I can do, and no mum for me – no actual mum. It really hurts. And the stupid thing is I feel ridiculous to still be dealing with these feelings in my mid-40s.

I think solidarity with people who know how it feels is helpful. I also agree another therapist might be a good idea. I have one who has ever so gently, without trying to tell me what to do, been trying to suggest I could consider not seeing my mum at all, and that's something I needed to hear.

to you stamp and a hug.

A big hug back to you Astronaut! Sorry for making you cry! tbh it made me cry to write that, i feel so sorry for that little girl. All the best to you... i know in time i will learn to be happy and leave this behind, it's just really hard at times.

Guiltypleasures i know you are right. the self-discipline is hard sometimes but i need to write it on a card or something, "unwelcome guest", and keep it near me so i remember i don't have to ruminate, i can move on in the moment.

i do feel better today than i did yesterday. it is good to think of it as a "wobble". because it is, it doesn't define me, i am moving on.

A toast to all of you from me too, stamp and green, thank you for your kind words. Stamp, thank you for raising this thread, there is some great advice on here and it's something you can so rarely share with people.

It is painful, awfully painful. It's an important point raised to remember that it is all too easy to be caught up in our mother's cycles. I worry for my future terribly because of this. As you say though, there will be good days and bad days and as far as moving on goes, I know you can't leave it behind. It's part of you, it's just not that easy.

You are already making the biggest changes by wanting to address it but I fully understand how even when you are not actively doing something for your mother the hurt and unfairness still consumes you. It does me too. It's hard not to be reminded of it, I look at people with "normal" mothers and families and wonder if they have any idea how lucky they are, not that they don't have other problems, but whether they take the gifts of compassion and clarity of mind for granted.

Whatever it takes, this will take time. I would say try to do one more little thing for yourself and your children each day that makes you smile. One step at a time, believe in yourself. However, I for one am going to think very hard about whether my mother is drawing my life into her own cycle and whether my future is in her hands or my own, I know where I want it to be.

Guilty pleasures your words really strike a chord with me and astronaut I'm sorry you've been through this too