VLC with parent - always conflicted

[nibdedibble]

To cut a saga very short, I am VLC with my mother. My choice. She's a waste of space and not really able to be a parent.

Give her a drama of any sort and she is right there. So, when lockdown began, she was emailing me a lot, and if I didn't respond immediately I'd find another one in my inbox. She wanted to know if we were all right.

On the face of it this is showing concern. The next three weeks were the same, overly concerned emails and messages. And for the past however many weeks: absolutely nothing. It's like, I wasn't going to rise to it, and feed her need for drama, so we've been forgotten again.

This is why I can't have a relationship with her. I actually didn't want to hear from her at all. But I did, and now I feel rejected again.

I'm almost 50. Does it ever end? I've had this for forty years and it's so painful, all the more so as I get older. It still really, really hurts.

I'm assuming there's loads of backstory here, so I might be looking at it too simplistically, but is it possible that she would have stopped messaging/being concerned if you had replied to her once? You say VLC how often is that normally? You could maybe just say "Hi mum, we are fine and if that changes I'll let you know. I won't be able to email every day but I'll contact you in (however long)."

That’s almost word for word what I did reply. I got the initial email, didn’t respond the minute I got it but by the evening had two more in my inbox - ‘please let me know you’re all ok’. Dramatic, but ok. A bit of chit chat then the same a week later, this time it was about panic buying, she’d seen dreadful scenes on the news and wanted my story. I responded but I’d not been panic buying so no fuel for her. Ditto a few days later, no drama this time, and I responded to her.

I emphatically don’t expect her to be checking in with me but it hurts that I was only worth contacting when there was, in her head, potential for a story.

(And in all this there are two children whom she never really cares to ask or hear about.)

Oh I see. Sorry I misunderstood, I thought you hadn't replied. No real advice but I hope you have other family you can have good relationships with, and a large glass of wine