FOG having a bad episode with my mum

[thegreenlight]

Gosh this is so so hard. My mum has basically done something awful (verbally abused a friend and colleague of mine publicly on FB about something I told her in confidence) was absolutely mortified when I found out about it in work (my husband found out and tried to calm things without telling me. I’d had enough and didn’t respond to a text of hers (she was acting as if nothing had happened) and then I got up the courage to tell her how difficult my day had been because of what she had done (not unkind at all, just saying it wasn’t the best way to go about things) and now she’s turned this all round to be that I am the worst daughter in the world when she does so much for me. My husband told me not to engage after sending the first message but I did and now I’m a mess. I never tell her what she does is wrong and now I have and I feel like the guilty party.
I honestly am a perfectly solvent adult in most areas of my life but I can’t deal properly with this! There is a lot of back story and event that have happened but this time I told it wasn’t right and now I wish I hadn’t. Help, any wise people out there who can help me make sense of how I’m feeling.

Well that message makes me look barely literate

Stops telling her things in confidence?

And at some point you’ll have to give up caring what she says/ what her reaction is to things you say. Because otherwise you will never move out of this zone you’re in.

My husband said exactly that. I have learnt my lesson. It wasn’t anything horrible about this person, just something that affected my situation iyswim. I do need to stop caring, goodness I wish it were that easy.

Your DM probably meant well but she sounds difficult and over-bearing. You have stood up to her for the first time ever and the result is very uncomfortable for you. But that doesn’t make what you did wrong. Your DM has overstepped a boundary and potentially created problems for you at work. You’re entitled to be p1ssed off about it and tell her so because you don’t want her to do this again. She’s trying to bully you into not standing up to her again. That’s not okay.

Many years ago, someone close to me once pointed out that I really struggled with feeling uncomfortable (emotionally). Funnily enough it was also in the context of standing up to a close family relative but it has had a wider application than that. It was a very insightful and helpful statement. Because I hated to feel uncomfortable emotionally, I would rush to try to fix things and often make them worse in the long term. I’m more comfortable with feeling uncomfortable now - I just recognise it for what it is and I’m better at avoiding precipitate action which might remove my immediate discomfort but does nothing to solve the underlying problem and may exacerbate it.

Your task is to live with the discomfort of having annoyed your DM, keeping in mind that you have done nothing wrong.

Good luck!

I know it isn’t easy, and I’ve been though similar myself.

The funny thing is that once you, ok maybe not “stop caring”, but stop being afraid of what they will say/ do, they actually start behaving themselves a bit better around you.

Good point. I did try and fix it and it just gave her the opportunity to turn it onto me which she has and now believes totally that I was the one in the wrong. Enabler dad has been drafted in to tell be how disappointed he is in me for speaking to her like that (nothing unkind at all, just saying that it didn’t help).

You need to completely step away from both parents now because you will keep on being the fall guy whatever you do or say. Your own fear, obligation and guilt keeps you trapped and my advice too is to further reduce all levels of contact now to a point of zero. Your dad is really your mother's secondary abuser as well as her willing enabler, he has also failed you utterly as a parent. Women like your mother always but always need such an enabler to help them.

Its not your fault your mother and father are like this and you certainly did not make them that way.

Do you have siblings, if so how are they treated?.

They have very little to do with them do I don’t really understand the whole ‘family dynamic’ of well meaning conflict and resolution! They are a lot older than me and all boys so don’t seem so affected by it. They used to ring up and scream at me until my husband lost it with them and they haven’t done it since. I made him apologise though which is still a sore point between us. I hate this about myself but don’t feel strong enough to deal with it. I still hate upsetting her.

My parents used to ring me, not my siblings!

Why do you want to keep your poisonous parents in your life...

Because I love them, and I suppose I feel responsible. I can’t really put my finger on why though.

List the positive things they bring to your life.

You clearly feel obligated, is it really love or are you confusing another emotion with love?

I would go on the stately homes thread

Would you have tolerated this from a friend?. No?. Your parents are no different and besides which they are not worthy of being called that.

People from dysfunctional families end up playing roles, what is your role here?

You’ve used your husband as a buffer unfairly between you and they because you cannot stand up for your own self. Your parents have given you all this FOG you now have and that FOG you have in spades is spoiling your life now as well as your relationship with your husband.

You may love them (children are programmed anyway to love their parents no matter how abusive they are) but their actions towards you are not loving ones, they are all about power and control. Neither love or care about you, they just want you to shout at you and and blame for their own shortcomings. These people will never apologise to you nor accept any responsibility for their actions.

Please find a therapist to work with and importantly one who has no familial bias. It is not your fault they are this disordered and you did not make them that way.

Do read and post on the Well we took you to Stately Homes thread on these Relationships pages.

I think you could well be codependent and this has also led to a lack of boundaries re them also because neither have ever really encouraged you to have any. Your mother likely sees you as an extension of her.

It’s the way she’s not apologised in any way for causing me problems at work, it’s all about her and how I’ve made her feel.

It always will be. It will nton change. Its abuse.

It will always be about her and you to these people are their personal scapegoat.

What do you think about the responses you have received today?.

I just don’t know how to take the advice on board, I see it makes sense but it’s like I’m in this bubble of bad feeling and guilt and imagining her sad is breaking my heart even though I know I did nothing wrong. To be fair though despite all the protestations of how much I had upset her she was still posting chirpy Facebook messages to other people ] it’s been an eye opener. I’m not round her house apologising so that’s progress and the responses I’ve had make me stronger to not just cave because it’s easier.

Your mother had no heart and you have been conditioned from childhood onwards to feel responsible for both her and her enabler of a husband.

Please read the websites entitled Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers and Out of the FOG.

It will take a while for it to sink in and then you will begin to find a way to distance yourself or your life will always be like this.
Look after yourself, you are important.
Don't apologise for her behaviour.
Its breaking your heart cos you are realising what this is..and it hurts.

These people do not give a shiny poo about you, your life and your feelings. You are their scapegoat after all, that’s your role here to them. She (and for that matter your dad) do not care that her actions hurt you so they really do deserve no consideration from you. Freeing yourself from the FOG that envelops you is a process of recovery and you need to start that process. The resources you have been advised of will help you start that process of healing.

She's not sad or upset, she gives not one shiny shit who she has hurt or upset!

“I’m in this bubble of bad feeling and guilt and imagining her sad is breaking my heart even though I know I did nothing wrong.”

Yes, you are. And it’s not your fault - it’s your parents. This is how they’ve trained you. It’s abusive.

Step back and try to observe the feelings impartially. A huge learning for me was to learn to have my feelings rather than my feelings having me. Still not brilliant at it but hugely better than I was. And it makes such a difference. You can say to yourself - “right now I’m feeling guilty and sad that I’ve stood up to my parents. That’s interesting. But it was the right thing for me to do and I stand by what I did.”

Forgive the pop psychology but probably at some level this has brought up a fear of abandonment - you are scared of being abandoned by them because as you were growing up that represented a true existential threat. And you’re having a wounded child type reaction (all totally understandable). But it doesn’t represent an existential threat any more. You’ve got a husband who obviously has your back. And you’re a grown woman who can take care of herself.

Good luck.

My mum would threaten to kill herself often and my parents had quite a volatile relationship. I would try to be asleep before my mum got home from work at 9 as they would scream and shout at each other. I hid at school once until it closed as I didn’t want to go home.
They have done some very nice things for me though, mostly material but they do love me in their own way. They tell me often what great parents they are. I suppose the abandonment point is something I had never considered. This is all really helpful.