My mother is so horrible to me :(

[MakeThemEatCake]

Would this be a reason to go no contact with her?

I suffer from horrific migraines, she seems to get very annoyed with me when I have one. Anyway, I agreed to look after my young nephew this afternoon and she said she'd come with me for the first couple of hours to help, because I felt so ill from a migraine today. (Didn't want to let my sister down)

It kept getting worse, I have severe nausea with them, and she was getting more angry towards me the more ill I felt. She said some horrible things:

"YOU want to work with children? The state of you?"
"You've spoilt today now by being like this"
"You're mental"
"You're actually a nightmare to be around"
"I wont ever arrange anything with you again as you cant be reliable"
"You do realise you'll never work with children because of the way you are?"

I started crying and she got even more angry! I had to leave, felt my head was going to explode. I've let my nephew down but wasn't in a fit state to care for him. The head pain has eased a bit now I've taken painkillers but still feel so sick.

I've really had enough of her, she picks on me every time I see her, she doesn't like my son and he refuses to speak to her now. It felt like she kicked me where it would hurt, its my dream to work with children and I have bad depression and anxiety at the moment so her comments crushed me.

Thinking NC now, just needed to express what had happened tbh ,thanks for reading.

I replied just saying, thank you for apologising. Maybe I shouldn't have

I think you did the right thing. You've accepted the apology, without perpetuating anything or taking advantage of the opportunity to score any points.

If the straight no contact is hard try to disengage by being really really busy. 'Can't talk now have a million things to do bye.'

Don't reply to emails straight away and when you do make them short, don't ask her questions.

The biggest thing is to not give her any information about yourself. Everything in your life is fine, nothing to report, everyone is fine. Don't ask her advice about anything, don't tell her about interviews nothing. Everything is plodding along with nothing to report.

I don't think she is worried about you. I think she is worried that you won't do what she says. Worried that you won't act in the best interest of her and worried that you will expose her lies.

Worried about you and your best interests... No.

I think your short 'thank you' was perfect. Don't initiate further contact and be 'busy' as much as possible. If you don't think you can go completely NC 'cold turkey', then set yourself a 'limit' such as limiting conversations to two 15-minute calls per week (or whatever works for you) and stick to it if/until you feel you need to reduce contact further.

And Aussie is right on in saying to limit the personal information you give your mother. It's just giving her ammo. "I'm fine, how are you?" is pretty much all that is needed. Let her talk about herself for 15 minutes then make an excuse and get off the phone. Be prepared for some 'push back' and some 'flying monkeys' when she realizes (and she will) that you're easing yourself out of her life, but just keep backing away!

Thanks so much for the replies. I'm not feeling too good so need to try and sleep and am going to write more in the morning. Its been a difficult day with emotions and also been in pain physically this evening :(

Just wanted people who have been kind enough to talk to me about this and share their experiences, to know I'm reading everything, learning from it and I appreciate it so much!

CAke - I think you're reply was perfect actually. Acknowledging her communication but no further engagement - absolutely spot on!

Tell me - is your mother worried about "what people will think/say"? this is a common attribute of people like her. The reason I ask is because you say she worries about you - well she might, but it might be because she's worried what people will think if she's NOT worried about you, she might be worrying herself into a fret that people will think she's done something wrong/bad if you are ill/ go non-contact, so she contacts you to say how worried and upset she is - BUT as you've rightly said, it's still all about her. Because her primary worry is herself - how she feels, how people will think about her etc.

Sorry you're not feeling so good at the moment, hope you had a good sleep and feel better this morning. :)

Hey Thumb, I'm not too bad today thanks x
To answer your question - yes! She worries a lot what people think, an example being the restaurant situation I mentioned upthread. She was MUCH more concerned what her friends (I think colleagues actually) would think about me going home sick and not being able to serve them, than how ill I felt.
I guess that's an example of her blatantly not worrying, I see what you mean about it being stealth - as in she dresses up her fears about what people think by worrying about me? Yes I think this is possible. In my heart, I think she sees me as a failure or lost cause. Without saying too much in case I'm outed although I suspect that ship has probably sailed now, I do have mental and physical health issues which she says I could solve by making different decisions. She doesn't like the relationship I'm in, she thinks I'm making huge mistakes in my parenting.

I know she isn't proud of me.

I know she's very self conscious and does worry what others think. She's extremely liberal with critisising anyone and everyone, but if one of us dares to do the same, it is awful. She will cry, sulk, say she's useless, say she won't bother with anyone anymore, refuse to answer the phone/door etc and sometimes stay in bed for hours upset.

FantasticButtocks (amazing name btw), thanks for your reply. So you've been a migraine sufferer too? That is so interesting that they went away when reducing contact with your mother. It does seem from what people are saying that LC is beneficial and essential actually. Hope you stay migraine-free

Imbroglio I think that's bloody awful how your family have turned on you!!! Do you think she showed them the letter? I've been reading odd bits about narcissism - do you think you're the 'scapegoat' in your family?
I've learnt through my qualifications in the past a bit about how groups form psychologically, and how often to bond, a common 'enemy' is decided upon. I'm just thinking maybe your family feel closer in some way because they all have in common that you're the distant one? Might just be me overthinking, I am no psychologist!

Thanks Aussie and Across. I understand what you're saying - keep it breezy. Don't make a big deal and announce L/NC as that'll just create more drama. This is what I intend to do now.
I WILL cross paths with DM, a birthday party is happening soon that neither of us would miss for the world so we'll see each other there. I'll just keep the talk lighthearted (as much as it can be)...

Just try to keep away from her at the party. Stay in group conversations as much as possible and if she joins the group, slide away from it after a minute or two and join another one. Try to avoid being alone in rooms, corners or hallways. Don't sit on a sofa unless there's no room for anyone else. Help with cleanup ONLY if there are plenty of people in the kitchen. I did all that to avoid an old (nasty) bf at a gathering once many years ago.

Yes - and remember you are not 'avoiding her'. Acknowledge her as normal, ask her how she is and then find something you need to do/someone you want to speak to. You don't want anyone else to think you are being rude to her.

... and thanks for the comments. I don't really know what happened, but I reckon I pissed off the family Queen Bees. They had different ideas about who was my mum's next of kin. Sadly my sibling thought this was a great opportunity to get the boot in, even though he wasn't interested in looking after our mother himself. Other family just looked the other way.

Brokenhearted your mother and sister sound EXACTLY like the ugly sisters! Why do you all see them?

I have two ugly sisters, too, and they constantly snipe and criticise and ridicule and judge. Or patronise. They are no longer in my life I am overjoyed to say.

My mother has a stroke if I distance myself (cue family baying like wolves: you're killing our mother!!). I've managed quite a good relationship with her, finally. For a long while it was a 5-10 minute visit, all perfunctory conversation, nothing about me. Stroke-prevention Now it's better and sometimes we have lunch. But she knows I will absent from her life/the table if she doesn't behave herself. Never said, of course, but I move instantly if she starts up with her stuff. I cover it up in civility. You would never know if you were looking on.

There is simply NO POINT reasoning with people like this. What you DO has all the power. I've been working on this for over 20 years, mind and certainly did all the reasoning etc etc blah blah. Waste of breath (and upset).

I had to go to school the day after my father died because 'what would people think?'

She once praised how beautiful my friend was dressed compared to how bad I was. We were in the same top, just a different colour.

My mum would never critise me in front of people. So I am never alone with her... Ever.

A good idea is to deflect to her with open ended questions.
'How is your job?'
Great, how was your shopping trip?
'How is your health?'
All good no change, did you see that new shop opening on the high street.

Then let her talk about herself while you nod and ask more questions.

It would be interesting to see how many of you health problems become better with lc

Hi thank you for the last few replies and advice about coping at the party across.

It's no good, I can't do this and I feel today that it's me that is the problem. My sister is against me going LC just been speaking to her and I can tell, reading between the lines and she said "Mum says things that are truthful but just has no filter and can't help being nasty in the way she says it, but it's just brutal honesty". She said I just need to give it back to her equally and she will shut up then.

My dad said pretty much the same last week, that what she says is right, but she just has no tact.

It is me, I know it is, I am a huge fuck up and a let down and a loser :( sorry for the negativity, just don't feel I can trust myself in making judgements.

And NO it is NOT you with the problem.

Your mother is the problem as well as your family of origin.

Your sister and father are acting in their own interests here and not yours; they do not want to rock the boat. They enable this woman's behaviour for their own reasons; namely they do not want to be targeted themselves and are more than happy for you to take the fall.

I would read up on narcissistic personality disorder as well re your mother and see how much if any of that ties in with your mother as well.

Thanks Attila. I have been doing a bit of reading about it but will look further. I just feel like some of what she said about me last week is very true, and I could improve the things about me that annoy her (and obviously others) and then she wouldn't need to be nasty to me.

"I just feel like some of what she said about me last week is very true, and I could improve the things about me that annoy her (and obviously others) and then she wouldn't need to be nasty to me"

That is actually part of the mindset of a victim of emotional abuse; these people think that if they behaved differently the abuser (in this case your mother) would not be so horrid to them. Your mother would be awful regardless of what you said and did.

It is NOT your fault she is like this, her own family of origin did that lot of damage to her. Do you know anything about her own background; that in itself would give clues. Your father and sister also act like they do for their own reasons; probably also out of self preservation and want of a quiet life.

And what she said about you last week is she simply projecting her own behaviours onto you.

Abuse is about power and control; she wants absolute over you.

I know, reading that back to myself I can see that it is a victim of abuse mentality when I do know that in reality, a person who abuses will do it no matter what.
Yeah I know what kind of background she has that could have caused her to be like this, stuff with her own parents and a similar relationship with her mother. FOG expectations from her own parents, particularly guilt.

I think you could be right, my dad and sister don't want to rock the boat and cause more chaos, they are very calm, sensible and don't like drama and so if I upset the status quo then that will affect them. I understand it and don't want to bring that on them at all.

Am just taking it one day at a time and hopefully just a blip today and I'll feel stronger tomorrow.

Your sister and father are conditioned to appease your mother no matter what. You are meant to be the family scapegoat, and they will try to make sure that you stay in that role, because if you don't, someone else might have to take the fall.

So ignore what they say - her words are not "the truth", they are her version of what she sees with a very negative filter and take no account of anyone else's situation, feelings or anything else.

Take your opening post - you had a migraine.
I suffer from horrific migraines, she seems to get very annoyed with me when I have one.
It is not your fault you get migraines. She "gets annoyed with you" because she doesn't understand why you get them, she probably doesn't get them so doesn't understand how debilitating they are. That doesn't make your migraines annoying to everyone else, only to wankers with no empathy.

Anyway, I agreed to look after my young nephew this afternoon and she said she'd come with me for the first couple of hours to help, because I felt so ill from a migraine today. (Didn't want to let my sister down)
So she came with you to help because you were so anxious to not let your sister down - a caring mother at this point would have said "go home to bed, I'll look after DGS" - because she was there anyway. But no.

It kept getting worse, I have severe nausea with them, and she was getting more angry towards me the more ill I felt. She said some horrible things:
Because she was frustrated that she was doing more work than she wanted to? Because you were ill with something she doesn't understand? Because why? WHY get angry with a sick child??!

"YOU want to work with children? The state of you?" You had a migraine, you were unwell. This does not make you incompetent or permanently ill.
"You've spoilt today now by being like this" HOW? She wasn't even supposed to be there initially!!
"You're mental" There is no validity to this statement at all - filter or no filter, it's a lie.
"You're actually a nightmare to be around" - she might feel that way about you but that's her problem - you're not a nightmare yourself, and actually it says more about her inability to cope with your illness than about you.
"I wont ever arrange anything with you again as you cant be reliable" Bollocks - you were ILL.
"You do realise you'll never work with children because of the way you are?" What, ill? stupid stupid stupid and wrong.

I started crying and she got even more angry! I had to leave, felt my head was going to explode. I've let my nephew down but wasn't in a fit state to care for him. The head pain has eased a bit now I've taken painkillers but still feel so sick. NO - you haven't let your DN down. YOu tried your hardest despite being ILL.

I've really had enough of her, she picks on me every time I see her, she doesn't like my son and he refuses to speak to her now. It felt like she kicked me where it would hurt, its my dream to work with children and I have bad depression and anxiety at the moment so her comments crushed me. And didn't she know it. So she thought she'd put the boot in to someone already down and unwell - peachy behaviour! That's not "no filter harsh truth", that's mean, spiteful, vindictive bitch behaviour.

As I said - your sister and father have their own vested interest to keeping you where you are now - they are as bad as your mother for failing to check her appalling behaviour towards you, just letting you take all the flak, out of self-preservation.

Any good reason to stay in touch with them either?

Thanks Thumb, that has really helped seeing it broken down and looking at it rationally.

You're right, the things she said to me last week were about HER frustration and anger and weren't true. Even if they were true, a caring person with empathy would express their concerns very differently.

The frustration was because she was meant to be working that afternoon, she is self employed and works from home and I was keeping her from that. But it is flexible and she can work around most things, so it wasn't enough of an inconvenience to cause her outburst.

And anyway, that was just another in a long line of attacks towards me.

Yes I definitely want to stay in touch with my father and sister, I know it may sound like they are enabling DM, they generally are very supportive of me and understanding and I have a good relationship with them both, especially DS who is my best friend.

In fact, they have also both had run ins with DM over the years but she is never quite as cruel to them, only me and my DS. So they do understand where I'm coming from and have both, ironically announced they are going NC with her a few times in recent years too. I've always supported this as I know what she's like, this is why I found it a bit odd that this time around after last week, they are almost sticking up for her and I just get the impression they think I'm overreacting.

However, neither of them were there I suppose, so they probably just rolled their eyes and assumed she was just moaning generally as she usually does.

It's ok, I am just going to gradually back away and will defend myself if it comes up in conversations because I know for sure how it felt that day and it was not acceptable treatment!

Cake Attila and Thumb are bang on the money with their assessment of your situation. Grab this and work with your counsellor on strategies of how to manage the situation with your DM.
How did your counselling session go yesterday?

Hi tinsel, well it actually went brilliantly but I have another issue that's really worrying me at the moment so we only had time to focus on that. I can't explain as its too identifying but it affects me in a more immediate way so we talked about that first and the time just flew unfortunately.
We only have 50 minutes and it really isn't long enough to cover everything. I was a bit frustrated as this whole situation is weighing on my mind, but I will make sure its the first thing I talk about next week.
The good thing is, the thing we did discuss went well and I left there feeling more confident and assertive and I'm hoping that will have a knock on effect with my family issues.

I think I mostly need to work on trusting my own judgements and instincts, I tend to try to see everyone's point of view and then doubt whether my own one is valid.

OP, I have a very similar mother (and father actually) and you have had excellent advice on here. Some really important things to remember:

• you grew up with a mother who was not loving, not healthy, not supportive, not 'normal'. Your relationship with her is toxic, and most likely the cause of your anxiety and depression, and possibly migraines.
• you are grieving. Grieving for the mother you thought you had, and wished you had, and the mother you deserved. Grieving takes time and is very painful. Go easy on yourself.
• If it helps, think about yourself as a dear friend. What would you think if a dear friend told you that her mother was saying and doing these things? How do you think this friend would be justified in responding? We're often kinder with other people than we are with ourselves.
• Therapy. Again, therapy. One more time - THERAPY. Others posters have written extremely postively about their experiences and I can add my voice to that. You're dealing with the legacy of an emotionally abusive mother. This is dark, painful, gruelling stuff and in my opinion, professional support while dealing with it is absolutely essential.
• Detach. Stop sharing the details of your life with her - it just gives her ammunition. Think of the people in your life who really are there for you, who really care for you, who you can rely on. None of them are your mum, and that's a very painful fact. Allow yourself to feel the pain and to have massive wobbles like you did yesterday. You dont need to keep a brave face on all the time. Let the pain out. When you're feeling stronger, remind yourself of all the support that you do have, and the people you can rely on. You're not alone with this. x

Thank you for your supportive words Lottapianos

I really feel for you having both parents like this, can't imagine how stressful that's been for you.

Great advice and I am going to take it all. I'm very aware of how I take care of others way before myself, a friend of mine would have been much more supported by me and I would absolutely tell them to go NC if they were being so hurt by their DM. Yes, we only have one mother BUT that means nothing really in this context. You could counter that with "You only have one life" and then say that it's too short to be spend being undermined and spoken to like shit.

I'm having counselling but wish I could afford to go private and have psychotherapy instead of person-centred counselling. If I ever do have the money, that is something I'll invest in!

There isn't anyone in RL I can share this with, I don't know anyone with a relationship with their DM like mine. It has helped immensely to talk on here, I can't even explain how much.

So grateful MN exists!

Great, I'm so pleased for you Cake.

I totally get what you say about being unable to trust your own instincts. I've said myself many times on the Stately Homes thread that one of the many legacies of being brought up by someone like your mum is that you always doubt and question your own thoughts about everything.

You're doing well Cake, you sound so bright and clever and self aware. It's definitely not you that's in the wrong here.

'Yes, we only have one mother BUT that means nothing really in this context. You could counter that with "You only have one life" and then say that it's too short to be spend being undermined and spoken to like shit'

Yes! Exactly. Learn to start putting yourself first - I promise you it gets easier with practice.

Not all mothers are the stereotypical nurturing caring types. As you can see from all the responses you have had on this thread!

oh dear.....glad my mother doesnt do email.....i only get THE LETTER as my children call it.....got a stack of THE LETTER....i do the low contact, feel much better for it...cant be doing with her favouritism for my sister....but she cant see it