Mother issues - anyone else ?

[Cloud9889]

I feel a lot of anger towards my mother that now I'm a mother I'm finding hard to deal with. I don't like confrontation. I'm not sure why but being in the presence of my mother makes me stressed. I'm always waiting for the next put down.
My mum was very much involved in her career when I was young, unfortunately not always out of choice and I think she found it really tough.
Emotionally she was quite absent and still is . I've had quite a tough time but don't feel able to talk to her and have been dismissed in the past for doing so .
She's very good at belittling me, however , she can also at times be caring - I just don't feel it's consistent.
I don't really have many people to turn to and not really sure what I want from this thread.
I guess I just don't want to feel alone.
I'm finding it really hard to not be the mother I had with my kids but I just don't always think it's in me. In many ways she was a successful and kind person ive just got some pretty painful memories of her behaviour that I can't seem to shake .. maybe I'm just expecting too much of people ?

Or even being over sensitive given I am stressed and tired and have too young and demanding children ?!

I am having similar experiences with my DM. It's hard. And I think it gets thrown into sharp relief when you have your own children. Can you talk to your husband about the things that happened? Or can you access some counselling? If neither of those is possible how about writing everything down? Like writing a letter to your mum or to your child hood self? I don't think it can be good for you to bottle it up.

Get counselling to talk it all out and understand it . Becoming a mother brought up a great deal of issues for me , stuff from my childhood that I had not realised had had such a big impact . The more self aware you are the less likely you are to pass on any dysfunction . It's not necessarily your mother's fault either she will have carried dysfunction from her up.bringing. Good quality psychology / counselling will be incredibly helpful in breaking the chain ..The more self aware and informed the better parent you will be . GOODLUCK

Thanks . I had 8 months of counselling starting when late pregnant with first child . Had 8 sessiond recently so I do feel I've talked . Just not sure I have it in me to keep talking out loud. I just wish I could think positively about my life/mum like I used too. I've made DR appointment although my trust in medicine and NHS dr is very low. Might be my trust issues though !

Well done for making an appointment. Keep talking. You can do this.

Becoming a mother triggered a lot of pain for me too. I love my DDs so fiercely and cannot bear the thought of making them as unhappy as my mother made me. I was diagnosed with PND and use anti depressants which have helped tremendously. I also had some CBT which was useful to some extent, and I found the resources relating to narcissism on the 'Stately Homes' thread useful.

Keep going, keep talking and exploring your emotions. I still have a way to go but am in a much much better place than I was. Good luck

It is alright to feel the way you feel about your childhood and your mother. They are your feelings, no-one else has to approve.

Also, you are not your mother. You are her daughter and she raised you so it is likely you will see some of her in your parenting but you are not her and your children are not you.

Have you had any talking therapy?

Ah sorry I missed that post!

Could you afford to look into some private psychotherapy?

I would recommend counselling then you make no decisions that arnt well thought out , you also get to develop strategies to deal with her . I hv done this and feel calm
And relaxed about my decisions

See whether you recognise your mother in any of these books: Will I Ever Be Good Enough, Karyl McBride; The Emotionally Absent Mother, Jasmin Lee Cori; Toxic Parents, Susan Forward & Craig Buck.
Be assured you are not alone. And there is every chance the problem in your relationship is her, not you.

I think we have the same mother!!

www.daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/characteristics-of-narcissistic-mothers/

Try this...

I noticed that you only mentioned your DM, and that she had to work a lot and not always by choice. There is no mention of a DF. If DM was working all hours when you were a child who looked after you while DM worked.
What I am considering is that perhaps DM had to work all the hours because DF was not there. DF may not have been contributing in any way. As you are now an adult with DCs of your own, DM will have spent many years working all hours. It is very tiring being the sole parent and the sole provider. You work all day and after work you do the child care and housework. It is not as easy or as cushy as some folks think and single parents still get a lot of stick. I know because I am in that role now. Mothers are human and should not be expected to get everything right and be perfect at all times.

Thanks for all your responses . DM was not on our own. My DF was always around. From what I have gathered from my DS and from some things he has said he had a major breakdown at some point when I was very young. He lost his job and then struggled to find lasting work which was what my DM would prob consider well paid . My mum used to say a lot about wanting to leave and I could tell she hated being the main earner. It's so hard for me to have these feelings about her because she was in a difficult situation . She would tell me she wanted to leave - being fairly close to my dad (obv he was around more and actually did have time for me despite being quite a difficult person at times - he had a very difficult childhood - bi polar mother etc ) I found that devasting news to take. She never did leave but he is so under her thumb .

Not on her own I mean ! In fact now I rarely see my mother without my father despite her independent past. It's like they are joined at the hip. When i reached out to her when I was in hospital being induced with my first child she seemed reluctant to come and see me citing something about who was going to look after my dad - even though I was crying . When I was younger I was I remember asking her about my mental health and responses were generally - that's not normal or not you as well. My DSIS had and still has ongoing depression and was an in patient for anorexia nervosa as a teen .

I've paid for for private counselling - over £1000 and we just don't have a lot of money for it now.

Sorry about the spelling and grammar I am up feeding a teething DS, far too early / late !

I guess quite an unusual situation then?!

I am currently in counselling with my mum, it's not going that well as she is defensive, reluctant to open up yet insists that I do, and will not accept responsibility for the past. It is however helpful to me just to be heard and validated by the brilliant counsellor we have. I too became angry at my mum once I became a mum.

I am now planning to move away with my dh and dc (we have wanted to for years but stayed out of guilt and obligation and this has given me the kick up the bum needed to do it) and I plan to conduct my future relationship with her over Skype and occasional visits.

Can you lessen your contact with her?

Which problem are you trying to solve? I am a little confused. Becoming a mother has made you more angry at her bad mothering, I get that, same thing happened to me but I'm not sure what you are trying to do now based on your posts.

Are you trying to go low contact to distance yourself from the drip drip of her poison?

Are you trying to unknow what you know so you can go back to thinking she was OK?

Something else?

One of the triggers for PND is absent/inadequate mothering during your own childhood. It doesn't manifest itself as ambivalent feelings about your own baby. Actually, you may feel fiercely protective of your child while in a world of horror and pain about your own mother. Your father is irrelevant in this equation because it's your own experience as a mother which is triggering the problem.

Help and support (particularly groups) are useless because they focus on trying to get you to bond with your baby, not understanding that there's other motivations for your feelings other than a "difficult baby" that won't sleep. In fact, listening to people talk about how their mothers are helping them can make you feel worse. Flowers for you, OP. I felt like I didn't have a mother growing up...even though she was there! She blamed me for all her and my sibling's problems. She said I never wanted to be held even as a small baby. Publicly she's a lovely woman who bends over backwards for everyone. I'll never forgive her.