How to handle overbearing, socially weird mum.

[MeltedButter]

My parents left this country when I was 18. I'm quite bitter about it because it was never spoken about before they left and I didn't get support moving into uni or have a place to go at term time.
I've felt another wave of bitterness for my children as they don't get to have a relationship with their grandparents.

They are very strong Christians and I'm not. So even if they were here I don't think we'd have a close relationship. They try to visit once a year which I find stressful because of the adjustment from not being in the same country to them being in my house.

Anyway my issue is that every few weeks my mum will go through a phase where she messages me daily. If I don't reply she will message again on a different app. I find it so annoying. Even if I don't reply I feel like I be got this task hanging over me.

She sends me cat videos, personality quizzes I think to try and draw my attention in. Instead of just asking how I and the kids are. I find that weird and annoying.

She hardly works, she just spends her time on social media and naps. I think she may be undiagnosed ADHD or something.

When I do talk to her on a video call I find it so awkward. Conversation isn't natural.

I just don't know how to handle her expectations. If I was to message her something like please don't expect me to reply to you every day it would crush her. She's very sensitive but then I'm left to feel shit about it. Which obvs isn't her fault.

This Captain Awkward article about difficult parents might help you a lot.

One of her suggestions is to have a regular, boundaried weekly communication slot. E.g. maybe you call your mum for half an hour every Sunday night and do something else while you talk to her, and the rest of the week she is blocked/ignored. That way she is reassured that she has a regular slot and trained that that is the only time she is rewarded with your attention, and you get to spend 99.9% of your week not thinking about her.

I think that's exactly what I need to do. And I'd rather it be a phone call than a video one. I'm procrastinating over doing it. Probs cos I feel like I have to tip toe around her emotions.

I'll check our the article.

Thank you

If this is only every few weeks or so, I don't see what the issue is.

Cat videos, memes, seem pretty harmless to me.
She could be complaining about 100 imaginary ailments or pestering you to buy a bunch of tat from a hun MLM scam.

Try to work on your bitterness. What's done is done with them moving away.

"She hardly works, she just spends her time on social media and naps. I think she may be undiagnosed ADHD or something"

Why undiagnosed ADHD?. It sounds like you're clutching at straws here. Have you actually considered that she could well have some sort of personality disorder?. If she is too difficult or otherwise too batshit for YOU to deal with, its infact the same deal for your children also.

Whatever the reasons for she being the ways she is its not your fault she is like this nor did you make her that way. What if anything do you know about her own childhood, that often gives clues. Your parents have always put their own selves first and left you when you were 18 without seemingly any support.

The writing was on the wall long ago re your parents generally and how selfish and otherwise self absorbed they are; you saw how they behaved when you were 18. These people have not changed at all in all the years since. They have not apologised nor have accepted any responsibility for their actions. Your parents were and remain totally disinterested here in both you and your children. It is a blessing in disguise that your kids have not had much if any of a relationship with them; it would not have been an emotionally healthy relationship for them in any case.

What are your own boundaries like with regards to your mother and father? Start blocking her access to you, if she cannot and or will not behave decently then she should not have any access. Even if she is only doing this every few weeks its still part of a cycle and one you should have no part in.

You may find this website helpful:-
outofthefog.website/

@stalkersaga

This Captain Awkward article about difficult parents might help you a lot.

One of her suggestions is to have a regular, boundaried weekly communication slot. E.g. maybe you call your mum for half an hour every Sunday night and do something else while you talk to her, and the rest of the week she is blocked/ignored. That way she is reassured that she has a regular slot and trained that that is the only time she is rewarded with your attention, and you get to spend 99.9% of your week not thinking about her.

Wow, you'd block your mum all week except for half an hour?

OP, is it easier for you to communicate via text or via phone? If you make a quick text reply does she immediately carry on as though you have a lot of spare time? What would happen if you said, "Sorry, busy at the moment, that video's funny! x"?

If I was to message her something like please don't expect me to reply to you every day it would crush her
No, it wouldn’t. She might be annoyed but that’s on her. You don’t owe her a prompt reply to every bit of trivial crap she sends you.

Wow, you'd block your mum all week except for half an hour?

If you have a poor relationship with her, and she's stressing you out with random barrages? Yes, absolutely I'd block her on social media for most of the week. You can unblock her once a week and deal with it all, and in an actual emergency no doubt she'll call. She doesn't get a "OMG you have been blocked YOUR CHILD HATES YOU" notification. She just doesn't get an answer.

"If I was to message her something like please don't expect me to reply to you every day it would crush her. She's very sensitive but then I'm left to feel shit about it. Which obvs isn't her fault".

Of course its her fault but she has always been like this and that is not your fault. She is absolutely not sensitive (she has no empathy or insight) and would furthermore not feel crushed if you wrote something like the above; that is your own fear, obligation and guilt talking. You already have physical distance; you need to put in far more mental distance between you and she.

Try to work on your bitterness. What's done is done with them moving away

Well the flip side of that is that OP mother needs to realise when she put thousands of miles between her and her daughter, her daughter may have come to the conclusion that closeness was not important to her. When you aren't in someone's life on a regular basis people move on, life goes in different directions and you end up with nothing in common to talk about.

As for the bitterness OP speaks about I agree that she needs to move on, she needs to make peace with the fact that they are not the parents she wants them to be and build relationships with people that will be the kind of people she wants in her life. I think boundaries such as a designated phone call time and the parents staying in a hotel or air BnB for visiting may be better, they are strangers to their adult daughter, they left an 18 year old, who is now an adult with her own family responsibilities.