My mother

[Watchingthyme]

So. I don’t know really how to deal with my emotions on this. I guess I am a bit angry and probably very passively aggressively angry at her.

We are on holiday with my perfect sister and my mother. My sister doesn’t work. Never has. Apart from on Saturdays for pin money.

Doesn’t pay any rent or keep of any kind. She’s 28. She is so aggressive and finds fault in everything, moans about everything. Especially on this holiday.

I’m a bit older. Single. Not very happy with life. For a myriad of reasons.

I’ve had therapy. Both my parents were a bit shit. To say the least.
My mum is passive aggressive. Has her favourite. Gets angry. Doesn’t really like me, and was pretty awful to me as a child. I’m not imagining that, it was common knowledge with all my extended family, to the point it’s a joke now.

She’s had a meltdown at me today, I’m not trying hard enough, I’m sulking, I don’t communicate, I don’t suggest anything (why would I when my sister will just be a bitch about it) it’s all my fault.

But I’m sitting here on my own, thinking maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m just a shit person, maybe I’m horrible to be around, maybe I sulk and that’s why I’m alone in life.

Yet again I’ve come away feeling like I am the one at fault. Apparently I alienate everyone from my life. I don’t want to. I want a mother that I can love, I just can’t seem to do it. Something just stops me. I feel like I am filled with anger.

@namechange5575
I just looked up CFT
it sounds like something that might be very helpful thank you

Ah. Oh dear. So possibly she has overwhelming feelings of her own neediness, if she was never given loving care, and so she secretly wants you to be kind and loving to fix her. But she hasn't given that to you, so you don't have internal resources to easily stabilise your own mood, let alone hers. Plus you're understandably angry and resentful to her for how she treated you and what she was unable to give, so probably disinclined to as well. That does sound very very challenging. It is unfair hopes on her part, and she will always be cross when you 'let her down' (ie fail to be a perfect parent or therapist to her).

Read up about Narcissistic Personality Disorder parent/child. Your mother sounds like she may have NPD.

Tell her very simply that she never loved you, everyone knows & talks about how she never loved you, and that you don't know what it is she wants from you, that she's given you nothing to draw on that would give you any understanding of what she wants or expects from you.
There's nothing wrong with you that being kind to yourself & learning to love yourself won't help with.

How does she try, exactly? By sending you long emails bemoaning your faults? I'm concerned she's just better at being abusive.

There's already lots of good advice on here but I would add to that - given the dynamic you've described, continuing to respond to your mother's requests to be closer is actually continuing a very unhealthy pattern. This is not dissimilar to staying in an unhealthy romantic relationship.

It seems that you still think it must be your fault that this is somehow not working, that if you just try harder it will get better, if you just manage to change in some way unspecified, you'd be a better daughter, have a better, closer relationship with your mother.

The hardest thing to come to terms with (especially when it comes to your mother) is that it's not you, she isn't ever going to be the mother you want her to be and its damaging you to repeat this pattern.

From personal experience, after alot of therapy and a very sad period of grieving for the relationship/mother I was never going to get, i found a way to manage how we interact that isn't heartbreaking or destructive for my self-esteem. It does involve some distancing, tight management of my expectations of her and also an awareness of the traps I can fall into when we talk (mine thinks she wants to help, but if ever she's asked she's quick to say no. I now no longer ask)

Good luck and I hope you can find ways to enjoy the remainder of the holiday - maybe take yourself off for a day or bury yourself in a good book.

It's saddening to read so many of there threads.

If a friend treats us like this we'd walk away but because it's a mother we are still trying to get their approval

Walk away.
Ignore.

Laugh in their face (maybe not till your stronger)

Delete all emails unread.

She's had 40 years to get it right with you - she's failed.

Put your energy into something you can succeed with.

Your mum is a nasty piece of work.

Step away from this dance.

That how you win.
Be the bigger person.

CBT is the best thing I ever did.

This is not your fault.

Your anger is because on a deep level you know she's awful to you and how unjust it is.

Once you've accepted your anger is valid you can let it go.

Good luck lovely x

Ah OP, I'd say narcissistic personality disorder too. When I realised my mother had it (Stately Homes Threads) it put a lot of things into perspective.

Until I was 34 I thought I was unlovable, odd, plain, awkward, bit of a misfit. Admittedly I was not the out going party girl my mother wanted.I had everything as a child, my friends thought my mother was marvellous- she made such an effort with them but critocised every inch of them to me when they left. Lumpy girls, boring girls, local bumpkins, why didn't I have better friends.

Your mother may seem to have friends but are they true or just superficial?

Oh yes at 34 I had a baby. When he lay in my arms when he was 3/4 days old I looked down and knew I could never be unkind to him or hurt his feelings. In that moment my relationship with my mother crystallised. I grieved. With hindsight although she seemed popular she fell out with a lot of people.

I am nearly 60 OP. I would still like to please my mother but I never shall. I shall never be good enough.

Lead your own life OP, plough your own furrow. Why can't you pack and leave?

Until I was 34 I thought I was unlovable, odd, plain, awkward, bit of a misfit. *

Lol
That was me too.

As my baby daughter grew and loved me anyway I thought.

This baby is awesome. And happy and giggly
She totally loves me.
An innocence baby can't be wrong.

It began the process of change my opinion of myself.

28 years later and after a lot of growth and insight I am one of those women I've always admired :)

I am also unraveling damage done by my shit parents. I am 47 and it is affecting my relationships with my husband and children because I am always afraid and always deeply ashamed and unworthy inside. I have been listening to a Ted Talk by Brene Brown on Vulnerability and I thought of you. It really, really hit home. When you’re ready, perhaps you might take the time to listen to her talk about shame and vulnerability. (It’s free) x

@Watchingthyme - it is not your fault.

I hope this may help. It helped me A LOT:

http://parrishmiller.com/narcissists.html

If I hadn’t of come on holiday with her and my sis. Then I wouldn’t have had a holiday at all.

No you've been conditioned to think like this. Not only does she set you up to fail you also set yourself up to fail.

You're 40. This dynamic has never improved. It might change (different ways and different things to pick at you with) but it never improves. Wanna know a secret? It's never going to.

Remove them from your life you'll be surprised to see how much life improves the longer you keep from exposing yourself to them. There is no magic answer. You need to change your behaviour and expectations.

I should specify I don't mean you need to change as a person but you need to change your behaviour with them. Limiting contact is a start. Stop all the repeated interactions that you know leave you feeling like shit.

Do you live separately from them? I think you need to keep your distance. Your mum won’t change but you need to change your reactions. I had a very dysfunctional childhood. I’ve just bought a book called Running on Empty , by Janice Webb, about overcoming emotional neglect in childhood. I haven’t started it yet but I’m hoping it will help me. It has good reviews. I grew up just ‘knowing’ I was worthless, I hid it well, but was always scared people would see through me. I’m 50 and still trying to sort myself out.

Wow thanks everyone. I didn’t expect so many messages.
I’m going to try and be cheerful today. It’s the second to last day and I just want to get through it.

I don’t know if my mother is a narcissist. Sadly it’s almost certain my father is, but that’s a whole other thread.
I have a step brother who is NC with both of them.

It’s very hard to feel like she’s abusive, because she will do nice things. And I think deep down she wants to be loved. It’s all very complicated dynamics.

I live very far away from them and have since I was 17. And I do have limited contact, which annoys her, as I clearly don’t care.
The other scary thing, is sometimes I feel like I’m turning into her.

Mostly when I am around her I feel tense. Like there is a knot inside me getting tighter and tighter.

Thank you for all the suggestions I will definitely look at them, with my old therapist we talked a lot about shame.

I think the main problem with therapy was, I can see the logical explanation for my behaviour to how I was treated. I can see what my mother is like. I have distanced myself quite a lot. Yet it still massively affects me and every part of my life. and I can’t seem to change that.

I would like a normal relationship with everyone in my life!!! But I know that isn’t possible. Perhaps I just haven’t accepted that.

And I’m sorry that others have had to deal with this in their lives. Feeling worthless is really horrible. Xx

@ScoobyCan
I just read that link. Some of its very much like her. Some of it isn’t! That’s the problem always.

Just came downstairs. She’s being extra nice. After leaving me in tears last night telling me I was a sulky nasty ridiculous person because I got angry. Then I end up angry again because Ive let my anger get the better of me, and if I hadn’t then last night wouldn’t have happened.

This is why I feel like a mad person. I know I need to distance myself more. I just can’t seem to do it. 😢

@Watchingthyme - it doesn't have to all be true. But to leave you in tears last night and yet this morning come down nice as pie pretending to play happy families? Perhaps research a little about trauma bonding. Honestly, it might help.

I've been conditioned to think like you. My mother and my father have never apologised to me - he was the facilitator, the enabler, which let her get away with her sometimes despicable treatment of me whilst always showering my siblings with unconditional love. And others in fact - I would ask for something for instance "can I store these two boxes in your garage for a month?" - she would say no; next thing her cleaners son's girlfriends brother would have emptied the contents of his house into my parents garage whilst he went travelling indefinitely.

I grew up feeling worthless. The scapegoat. It was always my fault. I'm 40. I've only just learned about healthy boundaries. I'm coming out of an abusive marriage because that's what I thought was "normal". It wasn't. And now every day is a school day.

Big hugs

@ScoobyCan
That does resonate. When I left my ex who was abusive. Though not always. She offered to store some of my stuff in the loft. I had thrown away a lot already, which was very emotional. All she said is I don’t want this stuff around messing up the place for long as her current DH doesn’t like mess. Sounds like nothing but it was my whole life in front of me. And I was going to have to live in a friends spare bedroom so I could only take a couple of suitcases.

Her mother was a really evil bitch. So I’m not surprised she’s damaged really.

@Watchingthyme - so was my mother's mother. And now my own has finally acknowledged that she treats me like hers treated her - in fact she's gone as far as saying "it's my mother's fault I treat you so badly". My face when I read that? 😐

Blame-shifting. I've learned to grey rock because I refuse to be walked all over anymore, and I've implemented my own boundaries so that the "relationship" is on my terms. It's taken over a year and it's taken a lot of help from this very forum and from counselling / therapy. I was advised to look at the Stately Homes threads on here for further support and you, like me, may realise that there is other stuff which resonates with you from other members' experiences.

The best advice I've had is "observe, don't absorb". You can't change anyone but yourself - what you can most definitely change is how you react, and how you respond. One of my main responses has been "I hear what you say, and it is interesting you think that". Each individual experiences things differently - no experience is the same, so your sibling will have experienced the same things so very differently to you (which isn't helpful as she won't understand your feelings regarding the mother-daughter dynamic you have, and the one she has). Until you find your tribe, the people who you no longer have to justify yourself and your feelings to - the people who love you for who you are, not for the way you've had to adapt to FEEL loveable, you might feel a bit lost. The trauma bond will entice you back into the family dynamic until you yourself build the boundaries to say "this is not acceptable and is not how I deserve to be treated". It is so hard, I know, I've been there - some of my previous posts will show you that. But I feel so much stronger now that I've created space, and distance. I don't claw my way back into the "safety" of my family nest anymore, because the vipers in that nest no longer have the attraction I used to believe existed. They no longer have the ability to spit me out when they feel I've got too comfortable and too close, because I've managed to extricate myself from the toxicity.

I'm sorry to ramble and I'm so sorry you're going through this. Research, space, distance, learn to love yourself - because the moment you realise you are actually capable, and independent, and that you are loveable, worth something, and deserve better, you'll feel like a butterfly escaping a cocoon.