My mum is so negative

[CA0310]

I am really struggling. My Mum is now in her early 70's, and lives alone. She is so incredibly negative and passive aggressive. Every time I see her the first thing she does is start on about various ailments but will only seek medical attention if I am the one who books it and goes along so she has no choice but to face the issue. Its as though she needs these ailments to hide behind. There will always be a reason why she cannot achieve anything - oh I am pre diabetic, asthmatic, my leg is swollen, I am deaf (she is partially). My Nan died 3 years ago and Mum still goes to a bereavement group - simply because she will get attention and sympathy there and that's what she craves. We went to a funeral last week and my Mum turned up with a crutch and walking slowly, and spent the entire time telling everyone about her problems, and what needed doing at her home, and was very brisk with another Aunt who talked to someone else after my Mum "oh are you ignoring me now". Every time I speak to her, there are multiple issues at her home, and for many many years I have sorted tradespeople, insurance claims, got her better deals on her bills etc but every single time there is an issue, the gardener cut too much off the plants, the builder used tiles she didn't like. Any chores I do for her, days out I take her on, holidays I bring her on are critisised to her friends, who I often bump into and who berate me despite me planning wonderful experiences and trips, she will always find the negative. We spend so much time looking after her, but it is never enough - Christmas she lied to people that she had spent it alone (I only found out when I found a xmas dinner in her fridge that someone had cooked). Thoroughout the pandemic we have had lovely restaurant meals delivered to her, sent gifts, done shopping etc. Every conversation is littered with "oh well this is broken" or "I need to sort this" which means that I am to sort it, but I am getting so tired as there is then always something wrong with what is done for her. She is really affecting me, I get so stressed when I see her. I had a lot of cancer treatment, and even then everything had to be turned around to focus on her - one of her friends called me shouting that I hadn't arranged counselling for my mum. Is there is ever a problem with myself or my daughter, Mum will twist it to get sympathy for herself but not actually help. I feel trapped.

OP, you could give her diamonds and she would complain they weren't pearls.
Kindly, she will never change and the best thing you could learn from this is to Not Give a Fuck what the gossips and the old dears in the village think of you.

Confusedandshaken yes yes to the insults with the Hinkle laugh....my dm did this when I told her I would have to surrender my driving licence due to anxiety.
She doesn't believe in MH issues dispite bipolar anxiety depression and schizophrenia in the family.I swear she has depression as she hasn't left her house in a year won't even walk off the drive because it is boring.
I don't know why they claim they haven't seen anyone then grandkids adult dcs Tec have all been rallying around.
Unless it is because the loneliness is so bad to start with.

@whatisforteamum that's so unkind of your mother. I hope that you find support from the OP's thread here.
You sound such a great Mum, rest assured that you are nothing like your own mother.

Oshikundu thank you.Yes I work really hard.not acknowledge because I don't earn 60k like db.
I walk everywhere,I love animals,try to take financial and physical responsibility for myself and be generally accepting of others and circumstances. I find pleasure in seeing the positives.Nothing like my DM and I tell my dcs I love them something she has Never done.

@FictionalCharacter

Mine was a lot like this and she got far worse when she got dementia. It was awful.

She won’t change. The only way to make your life better is to have much less contact and do much less for her. She’ll moan about you, but she does already while you bend over backwards for her, and at least you’d have a bit of peace, more time for yourself and wouldn’t be spending so much time listening to her complaining.

Not sure if my own DM is developing dementia but apart from that, this is my situation too. She has always been this way, very passive, very passive-aggressive, with poor self awareness and a total refusal to look at ways she could help herself. OP, people like this never change.

Your bit about taking your mother on holiday to Italy and her complaining about the pool, the walk from the car-park, the restaurants you chose is so like my DM! (And my late DF was the same.) If she visited us, I'd choose a perfectly acceptable hotel nearby. She'd spend the stay telling me how nice the hotel was, how lovely the staff, the food etc. . . then go back home and tell other people that the hotel was awful, and the staff, etc. And that it was a great pity that I had chosen the place.

I would twist myself into knots trying to find another hotel for the next visit. But that would be wrong too. One of the hardest things about such people is how they indulge in badmouthing. (It doesn't seem to occur to DM that my siblings and I talk regularly by phone and we are all aware of what she is doing.)

I finally came to the conclusion nothing I did was going to be right for her. So I stopped bothering. We are now very low contact. And as soon as these "games" start again (the badmouthing, the "woe is me" act, the "The GP doesn't understand me" act), I check out. Those emails (rare, now, she struggles to remember how to use the computer) don't get answered, neither to the texts.

I have more peace now. It's very sad that my relationship with my mother is the way it is but I accept that it is never going to be different. I am in my early 50s and have wasted far too much of my life trying to fix my DM.

Don’t bother trying to talk to her.
She’s a narcissist.
I have one too.
Leave her to it.

Definitely echo the others who say that this is narcissism.

In the official terminology there are overt narcissists and covert narcissists and they vary in some regards but all narcissists have a lot in common. Destructive game-playing. Setting other people (often very skilfully, you might not realize for a long time) against each other. Badmouthing. Viewing themselves persistently as victims. Never taking responsibility. And both types can be ever-so-charming to other people, esp people outside the family group.

There are some good sites about all this online, OP, if you wish to explore this some more. Perhaps the hardest thing to accept that such a person will never, ever change; in fact, they can't. But that doesn't mean anyone else has to take abuse and nastiness from them.

@tiktok

She’s unpleasant to you, about you and tells lies to other people. I cannot understand why you have not ceased contact years ago. If you can’t bring yourself to truly cut her off, then restrict your contact to texts every couple of days to check on her well being.

Feeling guilty is crazy. She’s horrible to you.

The OP's mother is absolutely horrible, yes. As someone with a mother who sounds very similar, I do though understand why the OP might not yet have ceased contact. It does seem extraordinary to people who have grown up in a healthier and far more supportive family. I personally held onto the hope (hope against hope) for many years that my DM might change, and onto the belief that her nasty and undermining behaviour was due largely to having to live with my DF. It took me a long, long time to realize that my DM is as damaged and destructive as my DF in her own right. It was only when I started reading about narcissism (esp the covert type) that I recognized that my DM's behaviour actually has a name and that many, many people have also struggled with parents like this.

In short, I kept on going back because I felt she might change. Once you understand a bit about narcissism and recognize that your relative is one, there is then the painful realization that they are not going to change, ever. There is a special kind of grief involved: you are never going to be properly loved or supported by this person, because they don't know how, can't learn, don't want to learn, and will go to their grave insisting that everything wrong in their lives has been the fault of others. It takes time to get to the stage where you can let go.

Therapy with a therapist experienced with clients affected by parents' narcissism would probably help, OP. It would help you deal with all the huge confusion that being the child of such a person involves: guilt, love, rage, bafflement.

Tragically, and infuriatingly, narcissists manage to "recruit" sympathizers and enablers to do their dirty work. (Your mother's friend who rang you up angry that you hadn't arranged counselling for your DM, she is one such person.) A good therapist would help you sort out how to deal with such people.

Turquoiselemur yes the hope that they may change rings true.
It is almost looked we feel underneath there must be a kind supportive parent.
I fell for the mercy call yesterday!!
I was awaiting a call from the GP she called and said she was unwell and needed a prescription collecting.Antibiotics.as she has been hospitalized loads of times with cellulite and won't try to lose weight.
Anyway I don't want her suffering.
Turns out another prescription is elsewhere but when I go to get it.I have told her repeatedly to give it in sooner via us but no her heart pills are not ready for BH weekend.
I call this morning and my dbro is there.
She seems back to her old annoying self.!
I will drop fish and chips as promised but I do feel sucked in again.

You're going to have to let go of any and all hope that she will change; these types do not ever change. She will continue to try and suck you back in, you need to completely disengage from her and drop the rope she holds out to you.

TurquoiseLemur, you explain why the OP cannot refuse to go along with what her mother wants and cannot cut contact.

I do understand.

I think my point would be now is the time for the OP to take some action, which might include as you suggest therapy for herself.

I agree she needs to take action. Why should anyone have to put up with behaviour that is consistently destructive? Children of such people do far longer than we should. . .and we are encouraged to, in many cases. Often by people who genuinely don't realize how awful the parent is. (Narcissist know exactly how to be charming when they want to be!)

Also, there's so much stuff out there along the lines of "But she is your MOTHER!"

Therapy can really help. So can support groups for adult children of narcissists. (Several of these are on Facebook.) What helped me personally to make changes was 1) realizing that the behaviour is recognized as an actual disorder and is way more than just an individual "being difficult" and 2)understanding that narcs don't change and 3) becoming aware that there were other people who had had had similar experiences with their own parents.

I had therapy many years ago before I knew that "narcisism" is the word that would describe my parents. Extraordinarily, the various therapists I saw never mentioned this to me. Did they really not realize? Maybe not (narcs can be very charming etc and i was seen, I suspect as nothing more than a difficult teenager.) There is also more specialist literature on narcissism now. Some therapists still have a poor understanding of the dynamic but generally, awareness is improving.