How can you ever love yourself if your mother didn't love you?

[relentlessloss]

Does it ever hurt less?

Since I had my DD two years ago I cannot stand the pain.

I think it can hurt less but it doesn't stop hurting.

Things that have helped me are

• understanding that my mum has probably had a lot of stuff to deal with that I will never fully understand because she would never discuss it. Too late now, but some fragments of the puzzle sometimes appear.

• appreciating that no-one is in a vacuum. How she was with me is as much to do with her other relationships as it was to do with her own feelings. Lets just say that she was always susceptible to influence by others.

• realising that I'm ok. I'm not perfect but I try hard, I'm decent and I listen. I'm a lot older than you, OP, and my mother is an old lady. I am doing my best to see her right. There have been times that I thought that would never happen.

• learning to 'love myself' - woah - early days on that one. Speak to me in five years.

Counselling, meditation, alcohol (not in that order).

I'm not sure I will ever learn to love or even like myself.

I have all the head knowledge, but it doesn't ever seem to shift how I really feel...

I'm one of you and I'm still a work in progress

Same here. Recently gone no contact. My own children are very upset about how badly my mother and sister have behaved towards me, maintaining a relationship with my abusive ex. It's sadly comforting to know there are lots of us.

I'm sorry that this thread has caused anyone pain. (((Peppermint))). My childhood was deeply unhappy, but it wasn't abusive. No child is responsible for abuse. No personal circumstance can ever excuse it. I am trying to live by that, and am in therapy as of a few months ago, for my daughter's sake.

My mother was an inadequate mother for me, somehow the worst mother I could have had. I felt so trapped, and was so happy to get away and be free..... now I have my own child, I feel so trapped again. My love for my daughter doesn't liberate me, nor does hers for me. I can't forgive myself for any inadequacies in my parenting, though I try to be a loving mother, because I am so afraid. I cannot find a way to live my life and be a mother too, though I desperately want to. I need more balance, but I'm paralysed.

The truth is, I don't like my mother at all, but I am so like her. I don't love her, and I don't love myself, and how can my daughter ever fit into this picture? She looks exactly like her dad and I'm happy! My friends lament their children's lack of likeness to them, but I can't imagine wanting a person to look like me. But now she is talking, she's like a little mirror of me, she repeats my words. I can see that she is so, so wonderful. But sometimes - often? - I feel such rage about everything, and she knows it, she feels it. She hears it. She sees it.

I've been NC with my mum for a while, about a year and a half. She got a partner in the weeks after my DD was born (her first and still only grandchild), and disappeared off the face of the map. Being NC with her isn't extreme at all, because it hardly marks a change. I don't miss her. What would I miss?

Whenever the subject of my birth came up, she always told the same story. She would say, laughing, how ugly I was when I was born, all red and squashed, and how my father said that I was beautiful.

Who would say that to their child, over and over? Why does she think it's funny? My whole life, I have heard that story. I could never tell my DD that she is ugly, she is perfect to me, and always has been.

Thank you all for your thoughts, which I have been reading and digesting I hadn't heard of John Bradshaw but I have ordered some of his books to look at, thank you Peppermint. I'm in counselling. I need to grit my teeth and get on with this bloody meditation lark because I know it will help but my god it is painful. I don't want to sit quietly while my subconscious vomits bile. Alcohol: well yes, thank god for that.

Goats I don't want to be that mother. I don't want my daughter to write that about me, in 20 or 30 or 40 years.

Same for me but it is my dad which is just as painful for me.

I always thought how can a man love me if my own dad can't, even though logically I know he is a sociopath. It isn't me logically, but still.. those deep thoughts are there.

Does the pain ever go away? well I am nearly 34 and I am still waiting for it to happen. However, I am learning that I am loveable and weeks go by without me thinking about him. It still hurts that he is out there (with more kids, two he lives with and by all account treats well) and I had to block my half siblings from FB as the pain was too much seeing them writing about our dad doing things with them. The reality is he needs these ones, they look after him. He simply doesn't need me or the other 10 children he dumped.

The scars remain though. I fear rejection badly. I am always shocked when people like me.

My brother always accepted it better than I did, then he had his first child and it broke him for a while. He couldn't understand how our dad abused us and stopped seeing us when he felt so much love for his child. It took a few years for the pain to ease up again.

It took years of my husband's love for me to realise I am loveable but I still have moments where I think deep down he can't do and times when I wonder how long he will love me for. I do however, have a lot of self respect. I had to learn that.

It sucks but all we can do is build a better life for our children.

I missed your last post and my heart breaks for you.

I wish I could offer you some words of wisdom or something to help take the pain away.

Sorry if I have caused anyone upset - especially peppermint. But the thing is did your mother choose to be a bad mother? Did she deliberately set out to harm you? (I don't think mine did - I know she really didn't understand me...)
No - you were not to blame ...circumstances and personalities were. And you are now where you are and you can't turn the clock back. You can only move forward.

And yes you were the child - but now you are an adult - an independent person in your own right...you can leave behind the hurt of the past...as much of it as you can. You can go NC or you can choose to try and understand and forgive if you can - but it is your choice as an adult.

I can feel sad when I think about some things, I can try not to make the same mistakes but I can't change anything by wishing things had been different.
I still don't know if I have or can explain very well ...but I know it really helped me....

Oh this thread is so sad but also so affirming, in a way. (((()))) For everyone.

relentless I had one of those conflicted moments a while ago, when DD2 put on my shoes, flung my scarf around herself, grabbed my bag and headed for the door saying "Mummy see you in a little bit" (she's three). I was utterly floored that anyone in the world would want to pretend to be me. At first I felt really ill and werid about it, but at the same time so incredibly touched and amazed.

My mother died when I was pregnant with my twin DDs and although it was hard and I was numb for most of it, the rational part of me knows it was actually the best thing that could have happened to me. The freedom I've gained is amazing. I'm still working through all of it, and I'm sure always will be. But most days are okay.

Your child is very young and taking up a huge amount of your time and energy, and there are many reminders of your own upbringing. Great that you are seeing a counsellor.

Please believe me when I say that this will get easier when you have more time and look after yourself without it being such a conscious effort.

Also, your daughter is not you, any more than you are your mother. She is very much her own person. Maybe try to imagine her coming into your life from the future just as herself, with all that wonderful potential, rather than imaging her as the next in a long line of people with all the baggage that entails. You are the person that is giving her that freedom, and taking the pain. Does that make sense?

Think I may be talking bollocks.

relentless that must have been such a difficult post to write.

I can't give you any reassurances. Sometimes we do our absolute best and sometimes even then we fall short.

What I do know is that you do love your daughter and that will help immensely.

Fwiw I think you're right that at some level your daughter will pick up on the rage within you. (she will also pick up on the love you have for her!).

I cautiously think you have to find ways to manage the areas where you know you are finding it difficult. Literally, consciously sit down and think out ways to handle times when you get mad or can't cope. I get the impression your little girl's father is around? can you sometimes ask him to take over? (everyone does this at times! but it may be even more helpful for you to be able to do it).

Counselling is an exceptionally good idea. If you can afford it, it would also be a good idea to see if you can find someone who gives child-rearing advice, maybe through the health visitor (they're called 'pedagogues' where I live but I'm not sure if there's a name for it in the uk).

I'd do it sooner rather than later because your daughter is still young and children don't half test your patience and your limits as they get older. They don't know when you have nothing left to give or are having a bad head day!. If you are able to get advice early it might avoid some of the nasty bumps that you can run headlong into without guidance.

Counselling is also a good idea as the sheer rage that you are feeling is hard to live with and is extra awkward when you have a little one. Even with the best will in the world, if you're containing anger and your little one does something naughty, it can spill over. (anyone who starts pointing fingers can butt out now. It's just human when you've come from a bad start. What matters is trying to handle it).

Also if you can, talk to your partner about how you are feeling. it can feel terribly dangerous but it's actually probably safer than bottling it all down.

A lot of people feel trapped by their children, if it's any help. Well, you -are- trapped. You've been your own person now there's someone who you have to put your own needs and pressures aside for. If it's any help it generally gets better over time especially when you have the will to do the best you can for your child.

A couple of links with people who have also struggled with their children, parenting in the front line:

[http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/parenting/860205-I-need-to-find-somewhere-I-can-talk-openly-about?pg=1 I need to find somewhere I can talk openly]]

(Darn, I can't find the other one but the post was written by someone who was saying how hard they found it to have to do the endless round of utterly boring things like making dinner for them, wiping up, ironing etc. It was very honest).

Some people sail through parenting. You're 'supposed' to. But the reality is that many people don't and when you have a bloody awful example of parents yourself, you don't have a good model to draw on. But there -are- people who break the pattern of parenting. It's extremely hard work, but it does happen when they have the will to keep persevering and can keep on picking themselves up ... and it's not all grimness. There's the love back from your baby, and the good, happy moments.

Wishing you all luck, relentlessloss.

My mother was abusive and awful but knowing that she was seeing a psychiatrist aged 7 (in 1950, in a working-class Irish family, in a rural community - so not 1987 California!) has helped me a little to see that the problem lay with her.

What made matters a lot worse for me was that her twin sister joined in with the mind games she played with me, they'd be good cop/bad cop and I never knew which was which. I see now that my aunt probably wasn't mentally healthy either. My life was a misery until my DBro and I figured out a system when we were in our 20s to take turns to be NC with our mother and aunt, which gave each of us time to live our own lives while our mother was in and out of psychiatric care and rehab (she was alcoholic).

My mother killed herself before I got together with DH; while she was alive my love life was a shambles, I always repeated the pattern of my relationship with her, wanting the difficult men who blew hot and cold and messed me about. I didn't place any value on the men who loved me as I didn't place any value on myself - I didn't want to join a club that would have me as a member!

It sounds silly but I found reading The Rules useful, it helped me 'fake it 'til I could make it' with regard to self-esteem, appropriate behaviour and so on, as I couldn't trust my own instincts. I now have a lovely DH, 3 amazing DC and a happy life, and, although I have good and bad days, I am making progress in liking myself.

Oh and OP, I get why you want your DC to look like their dad - DD1 is the dead spit of my mum and I find that difficult.

I wasn't upset, sorry for any misunderstanding.

It's just that when you've come to terms with the fact that the mothering (or lack thereof) that you received has really caused a great deal of damage, and that it has been hurting you your whole life and now you have to take responsibility for it (not in terms of blame, but insomuch as it's your hurt, just as if someone shoots you in the arm it's your arm and you are responsible for making sure you get it treated) it is really, really, really frustrating hearing/reading that your mother is/was only human, nobody's perfect, your mother doesn't define you.

It's frustrating because it seems a bit defensive, as it's a denial of the actual depth of hurt involved and the fact that actually few things define you more - whether that 'definition' means crippling depression, recycling their narcissism or spending your whole life trying not to become them.

Because while you are responsible for what you do with your pain, you are not responsible for causing it. And I guarantee the people saying things like "she's only human" are not showing the same kindness and compassion to themselves, but are desperately trying to make it better.

Once you reach the point of seeing that it cannot be made better, only grieved for, you can't sit there while people say things like: nobody's perfect, they're only human, and not point out that, actually, who was the adult?

I hid the thread to avoid sounding too uppity but have failed, sorry.

I believe (from experience), that both are possible, Peppermint. To grieve the mothering that never was, to acknowledge that it was the mother's responsibility to do better by her child, which she failed in, to acknowledge the pain and hurt that caused, to get angry about it on teh hurt child's behalf, and also to acknowledge that the mother was a weak and flawed human being, worthy of some compassion for that.

You don't sound uppity Peppermint, and it's an important point.

In one way, saying "she was only human and flawed" sounds like it could add up to "she couldn't help it so get over yourself and stop blaming her". I don't think that's a useful interpretation, but it's one that someone in this situation can easily leap to, especially given that having not had a nice mum tends to leave you with low self-esteem and a tendency to blame yourself.

I think there's another way to see the same thing, which can be helpful (or it has helped me) which is to see it as "she is a damaged person and was/is not capable of giving you the mothering you need". That helps me to let go of ever expecting her to. It doesn't mean she's not at fault or that she doesn't carry responsibility for the way she treated me – she still does. But it lets me separate myself from her and stop ever hoping that one day I will be able to keep her happy or get love from her. It's not forgiving her, it's not absolving her of responsibility. It's more like just recognising I'm going to get nowhere and making my peace with it.

I never felt loved or wanted by either of my parents, they were utterly emotional absent. I have vivid memories of wondering why on earth they had children whilst I was pre-teens. That together with their highly critical natures has just left me without anything I like about myself let alone love.

I'm not sure I will ever be emotionally healthy/not-depressed. I wonder if at best it will be a case of coming to terms with that but whilst currently not receiving any professional help I know I am slowly sinking back to the deep dark depths.

This is a very helpful thread. CatOfTheWoods, you have articulated exactly my reasons for finally separating myself from my mother. Thank you for that.

OP, much of what you write resonates with how I felt when my DC were very young too. In particular the relief I also felt that they look like their father, because if they look like me, they might be like awful me. Mine are older now and so I am much further down the line than you. Stick with the counselling, talk to your partner and/or trusted friends or forums like this, but do talk. I am in a much happier place now. When one of my DC told me her friend said I was really pretty the other day, instead of as I usually would dismissing her as blind/lying/deranged (no offence intended) because I have had the belief that I am vile in all aspects entrenched into me since birth, I thought "oh that's nice". Because even if it's not true, I like myself enough these days to recognise that others might also think I'm an okish sort of person.

Not very well expressed but I hope clear enough to give you some hope for the future. You love your daughter and through the tumult of emotions you feel right now she knows this. Remind yourself of this.

Goats and cats have articulated what I mean much better than I have.
I am pushing 50, confronted my mother 25 yrs ago...
I've had a long long time to come to terms with everything.
(And I hit absolutely rock bottom - suicidally depressed - not just due to my mother -mixed in with all this is also dealing with being seriously ill/nearly dying etc ...so some of the 'you can't change it but you can (have to?) live with it' comes from more than my mother's treatment of me).