My mother and I have always had a very difficult relationship. She has always been very cruel, dismissive of my achievements and when I was a younger person terribly neglectful.
There is a nasty background, she says she knew that I was “evil” since I was a baby, so unlike with my siblings, she raised me from that perspective.
Examples of the situations I have endured include blaming me for being sexually abused when I was 4, she totally refused to talk about it for years so, growing up in a culture that put a lot of value in virginity, I grew up feeling rejected and thinking that I was worthless, but that made me try much harder to please her so, by 20, I had accomplished more than my siblings. But she still didn’t miss any opportunity to put me down, discredit me with friends and family and the level of gaslighting was sickening. I put distance between us as soon as I could.
Fast forward a few years down the line, I am married and have a child, that get us closer to start with but, it wasn’t long enough that raising a child really made me realise how abusive my mother was, I started to see her behaviour in a different light as I couldn’t imagine doing or saying such horrible things to my son.
When I decided to leave my husband, she took his side and it was a huge effort to get her to stop casually passing information to him when I was under police protection and my case worker trying to get DS and I to a refuge. She said I was lying.
A year later, my young child described something that happened during contact with his dad that made me realise he was experiencing the first steps of sexual abuse, and being a survivor of it, I really hit the roof, I didn’t want him growing up as I did. My mother told me to shut up and say nothing which obviously brought back all my childhood trauma in a monumental way as I always wondered why she never did anything to deal with it or help me go through the trauma of the abuse.
When I told her I didn’t want DS growing with the stigma of rape as I did, she told me to shut up that she had taken me to the doctor for a check and I was still a virgin.
She obviously thought that was enough to close the subject but I cannot bloody understand why she didn’t tell me about it. I have vivid recollections of the abuse, about the guy demanding oral sex, about his fingers on me and the bloody pain but, apparently, because my hymen was intact, it didn’t matter.
Throughout my life, anytime someone says something nice about me, she corrects them saying I am very problematic, hysterical, deranged and imaginative. The level of gaslighting and re writing history is absolutely sick, I have lived far from her for many years which has helped but, I do resent seeing family and friends who appreciated me before, scolding me nowadays about my “behaviour” as she has always been such a great parent and “loves me so much”. If only they could see what happens when they are out of earshot…
Anyhow, I have not seen her since before Covid started because there were restrictions to travel to the country and also because my salary has gone down and can hardly pay the expensive longhaul flight to get there.
I have a good relationship with my dad and he is getting very old and frail. He has got to that stage where every little problem may land him in hospital. I have booked a flight to see him, knowing well this might be the last time. My dad insists that my mother is included in every conversation, we are family he says, but that then results on my mother talking over my dad, changing the subject completely and bitching about other people or talking for hours about how wonderful and fantastic my siblings are. Needless to say that with such short time I feel as she is blooming wasting the minutes I paid for dearly to be in touch with my dad or other members of the family.
I am going to be there for 2 weeks, can’t stay elsewhere, and it is very difficult to escape my mother as I am not allowed to go out alone, we have had proper arguments after her insistence to chaperone me everywhere I go, she insists to come when I meet with people, if I say no she ignores me and imposes herself in a way that is impossible to say no. If I explain clearly I want to be on my own, she insists on sitting on the car outside the restaurant where I am meeting with my friends.
I want to see my dad, but I am dreading being in contact with my mum so much I have developed a massive rash I only get when I am stressed. All the trauma is coming back, how do I deal with this during the time I am there? I normally feel like I need therapy every time that I see her but the last time was so bad I am feeling dreadful already and I am not even there yet.
Any suggestions?