Does anybody NOT get very tense when their mum is visiting?

[Spidermama]

I get really wound up no matter how hard I try not to. It's almost like a visceral response. My mum has just gone after a four day visit and the relief is immense.

Is it normal to find ones own mum so irritating and upsetting?

Hmm it is interesting what you say about a generation who didn't resolve their childhood issues. I don't think I'll ever resolve mine & that is a worry for my DS. Perhaps what you have to aim for is just NOT TO PASS IT ON or at least to be bloody sorry for what you do pass on.

When I have said this to my mother I get either total blanking or (once) 'how dare you accuse me of abuse, now I feel abused'. And this was while she was training as a psychotherapist. With really emotionally f*ed people, there is always denial and it is always all about them- they are the victim, even the victim of their own children.

I have found it really hard to establish a relationship with a therapist, but it could be just me. I do feel that with one of them I wasted hundreds of pounds on platitudes. Another tried a lot harder but I just felt I was going round in circles. Perhaps I also don't trust therapists because my very emotionally insensitive mother (and also sister!!) are both therapists!! But I have heard a lot of very good stories from others.
I have been referred to the NHS about 4 times due to my many years on antidepressants and have NEVER actually received any therapy. The best I have got is one appointment with Perinatal Psychiatry at Kings (SE London) as I am currently pregnant and not on the ADs. They just told me I was depressed (really??? amazing) and tried to put me back on ADs. That was it.

Spidermama, I was advised years ago to write a letter to my mum about how I felt (never sent it but I don't think that was the point). My mum had cancer for the last 10 years of my life and a friend told me I'd feel bad if we didn't make up. We didn't, and I don't. I did get to the stage where I could almost look her in the eye. I really feel I missed out - sil shops a lot with mil. But I remember when baby 4 was born and mum insisted on going to Bluewater with me to "help" - she had a total flare up with me for speaking to a guy behind me in Starbucks queue, and I came home really resenting her. I'm sad to say I don't miss her. But I don't feel bad about it.

When I first moved in with dh (11 yrs ago) when ever we went away over night we'd come back to a very vacuumed house! Which was nice until we came back off honeymoon and dh's porn pile had been hoovered under and put in a tidy pile under the bed Tidiing less and less ever since! Danm Porn!

Spidermama and Charlieq, Your mothers have been damaged in some way, much the same as mine and PAges. If you read the my mum has cut me out of her lifethread, there are lots of thoughts and advice on there that may be helpful. PAges and I and some others are working through it together, and I have to say, that thread is REALLY helping me to put my thoughts in order. ITs as though only people who have been let down dreadfully by their <span class="italic">mother</span> are able to understand the pain involved in this kind of thing. One thing we are all trying to cope with is the fact that our mums trivialise our experiences.Oh it wasnT that bad/ Youre making it up/ YOuve remembered it wrong. They cant know how we felt because they werent us. They think because it wasnt hell for them, it wasnt bad for us either (In fact as kids, we probably were used ask punchbags, emotional or physical, to make them feel better)
This is narcissism: people who are narcissist think that others are just players on their stage, but they have the star role. Others feelings cant count, because that would mean admitting others (especially children) are separate people, and not just on this earth to reflect them, and serve their emotional needs. So if they hurt others, they cant see it or admit it, because they themselves don`t feel it.
I read that the recovery rate for narcissistic personality disorder is very very low, because by the nature of this problem, its other people who are always at fault.

Sakura has summed it up perfectly. Charlieq, your mum's reaction was exactly the same as mine - except mine won't even talk to me now. Turning it around so they become the victim is classic narcisstic behaviour.

Havent read all of the thread, but yes I get so tense when my mum is here. They stayed for 5 days at christmas.

I look foward to her coming, but like someone else has said, turn into a teenager when she is here.

She moans about her family constantly, she eats chocolate biscuits for breakfast and sits on her chair and does not move the whole time she is here. My Dad, bless him, runs around after her, making tea, collecting her cups, offering her biscuits, washing up etc.

She does play with ds, but only from her chair

But oddle enough, if I an ill/upset or something terrible has happenned, she is the first person I want to speak to. Makes me feel instantl safe and loved, no matter what.

"I cannot tell you how much it upsets me that she doesn't seem too bothered about spending time with her DGDs"

The above comment from wheresthevalium struck a chord with me as well as my parents (and inlaws) frankly cannot be bothered much to see their only grandson.

I tackled my Mum about this last week and all she said was, "I'll come and see him when it gets warmer ".

If DS also is inclined to want to see his nan then we have to visit their house. Can't fully get my head around it either - she was quite involved with us as children. However, I think she is of the "been there, done that and do not want to do it again" school of grandparenting. My Dad is just as bad if not worse. On their last ten minute visit he turned to his wife and said, "oh we'd better get going now. Its time for tea". To my mind my parents main priorities these days are shopping, running around after my childless brother and holidays.

Their indifference still has the capacity to hurt but the hurt has increasingly become replaced by a "stuff em its their loss" attitude these days.

I'm impressed that you appear to have eliminated the guilt swedishmum. That's a big steep. I can do this intellectually but not emotionally.

Sakura I dipped in and out of that thread. I seem to remember it was a long runner and I kept resisting it because things were very raw with my mum at the time and I wasn't ready to face it.

I'll go back and have a proper good read. I'm glad it's helping you. Isn't Mumsnet great sometimes?

My mum thinks spending time with her grandchildren means sitting in the same room as them while they watch CBeebies. They watch more TV when my mum's around than at any other time.

Also my dd has been pensive since my mum left and today I found out why. DD loves to do exercises. She carwheels and does the splits and does yoga and practises a lot so she can do it. My mum said to her, 'It's very bad for you and can make you ill to do so much excersise'. DD has been really scared she's going to get ill. I can only imagine this was either jealousy on her part or irritation at dd jumping around near her. Either way .

I'll go and look out pages' thread now.

For me spider it was really about truly growing up and not being scared of her anymore I am completely myself with her now and don't mind what she thinks and it seems to have been positive.My mum buys my ds endless things which is not ideal but I have accepted that that is her way of being a grandparent not my way of being a mother.Just be yourself if she doesn't like it let her lump it.

Noddyholder, that's the stage I am trying to get to. Any tips? Atm I don't know if my mother and I will ever see each other again as she has told me it is beyond redemption (after me and my brother confronted her about the stuff she had done)and I am pretty happy wihout her around. But at some point I may have to see her if she decides she wants to see her dgc, and I would dearly love to be in that "grown up" place where she no longer has any affect on me.

Pages where is that 'grown up place' to be found....
I think I get it sometimes, then a setback or onset of depression sends me right back to being 4 or 5 and terrified of this bullying woman who is the only mother I've got.
Sakura I did read that thread and like another poster below found it so raw I couldn't post myself!! interesting about the narcissistic personality disorder. I think my mother was actually diagnosed with borderline personality disorder- the 'I hate you, don't leave me' syndrome- she would scream, yell and punish constantly then become obsessively overprotective. I was followed around a lot, she tried to control my behaviour & constantly compared my 'spoilt' 'ungrateful' childhood to her terrible deprived one.

As time goes by I feel a sort of (painful) vacuum in my feelings for her and actually more active pain due to the betrayal by my dad who stood by and let her do all this and is still in total denial about it.

another thing my parents do which some of yours may also do? They ignore me and sort of go direct to DS, as if that makes up for f*ing up with me. also they treat his very existence as a sign that I have 'turned out alright' so I must be making the past up, after all.

When I was suicidally depressed a couple of years ago my dad would call and ask 2 lame questions usually about DS. I was pretty unhinged and screeched at him that he didn't give a sh** about me only DS. He replied 'well I show my concern for you through helping with DS- and I have been helpful with him haven't I...' wtf????

I started practising reiki a few years ago and my mum couldn't accept the new happier chilled out me but where I used to be miserable/bitter in order to agree with her I just couldn't do it anymore and eventually she saw that I had truly moved on and grown up and she stopped(not 100%) She even stayed over at xmas and we all enjoyed it and there were no rows BUT she still has negative viewa about life in general and I accept that now but never agree with her out of loyalty now and am hoping one day my contentness and happiness will rub off on her -although i won't hold my breath Just let your parents see teh real you the one that all your friends see and i think in a strange way you will gain their respect

I don't know the answer to that CharlieQ except that I am getting there and the counselling has definitely helped. I guess Noddyholder has found that place so it is possible. I am pretty okay these days but still have guilt pangs from time to time. I have to remind myself that I have been conditioned to have them by my mother whenever I have dared to put my own needs ahead of hers.

Your mother sounds very damaged, though (like mine)and you seem pretty clued up intellectually about what is going on. It is the hardest part though to translate it into feeling it emotionally as Spidermama says. Intellectually I, like you, am aware that I no longer need her for my survival as I did when I was 4 or 5 and I think I have combatted that part, the fear of abandonment. I am now just working on combatting the guilt at having chosen to take care of me instead of her...