How do you grieve not having a nice mother?

[bamboleo]

As an adult, I've been trying to understand more about my not very happy childhood and my awful relationship with my mother, who I now understand is a textbook narcissist.

A lot of the things I'm reading suggest making peace with the fact that your childhood is over, and grieving for the loving mother you never had. I really want to do this, but I don't know how.

Can anyone share any insight? What does it mean to you to grieve - is it just sitting with your feelings and allowing yourself to be sad? I try journaling and that helps express some of my anger, but I just wondered if there's a clearer process I could try? I desperately want to heal from this, I feel like it's ruining my whole life and I'm tired of being so sad and angry and lost.

I think grieving is all about not suppressing the emotions that come up along the way. Accepting the pain that comes up. Peeling back the anger over time and letting the hurt underneath to the surface.

I'm NC with my toxic mother. It took time but I still "grieve" now for what could have been. I've come to terms with my situation now but it's still hard sometimes.

I agree with PP, if this is a fairly new experience for you then just let the hurt come out. Cry. Scream. Whatever makes the feelings come to the surface.

I would say don't dwell on it though. Don't let these thoughts consume your life. Throw yourself into work, hobbies, whatever makes you happy.

Unfortunately there is no clear process. Everyone grieves differently. I promise it does get easier with time though x

My mum died in 2019. We had a very difficult relationship, she was abusive emotionally and suffered with schizophrenia and alcoholism. We lived together until I was 32, I’m 42 now. I felt I spent my whole life trying to make her happy and being who she wanted me to be. I tell myself that her dying was the kindest thing she ever did for me, which sounds utterly horrible I know but thinking that way has enabled me to see this part of my life as a fresh start. I have never really grieved as such. I see my life as two lives - before Mum dying and after Mum dying.

You let yourself feel what you need to feel and don’t beat yourself up for your mothers abuse. It will take time. I had a rollercoaster of emotions with rage being the biggest one. I also had nightmares about her as things I suppressed bubbled to the surface for me to finally deal with.

Part of it for me has been acknowledging that the sadness will re-emerge at different life stages. I have felt sad for the younger me, but when I had my first child I experienced it all again with some anger about how she could be the way she is - along with sadness for my daughter who would never get the grandmother she deserved.

Not at all. Luckily cut myself off from her emotionally and financially in every way in my early 20s, now she's getting old and thinks there can be reconciliation.

Too little too late. I did alot of counseling (also look into Dr. Ramani), it really opens your eyes to how pointless it is to try and appease narc mothers. Let them wither away into meaninglessness

I'm NC with my mum. I have moments where I think maybe she could have changed and it would be different and then I remember what she put me through and protect me daughter from her. I don't think I grieve it. I accept that I may as well be an orphan. I put my energy into being the mum I wished I had for my daughter. I do envy people with nice families sometimes but my DH's family treat me like one of their own which is an amazing feeling.

I don't see the point of dwelling on the past it doesn't change the present. I refuse to let what she did control me any more and that in itself is freeing.

Like I tell my daughter holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

I honestly think once I cut my family out of my life my life got better and now I refuse to take anyones crap! If I can cut family out then anyone else is inconsequential x

For me, it took a great counsellor to help me through. I’d been very lc since 2017 and then nc since 2020, when I realised she was using money to control me (in a weird tit-for-tat way). She stopped contacting my children too when I stopped ‘complying’. Even though they sent her cards and flowers for her birthday and Mother’s Day, they haven’t had cards or presents from her since 2020. Even my dd who just turned 16 didn’t get so much as a text, she has her own phone and my mum knows her number

Hi OP.
It's time for me. I've been NC with my own mother for the last 30 years.
My father sexually abused me when I was a child, my mother knew about it but rather than protect me she would use it in arguments she had with him, to help her win the argument.
It was a betrayal of the very worst kind.
I've grieved over the years, but rather than let it beat me I've been determined to be the best mother I can be to my dd, I also decided many years ago to not become bitter about it, so I am ambivalent in my feelings towards her instead.
Sending you love xx

Mine died 7 years ago I had a call she was on life support , after a heart attack... I did go to her bedside my siblings were there who didn't speak to me either it was akward ..
I don't know , I hadn't seen her for the 6 years before she died she had driven past me and the kids or walked pst in tesco for example so I felt a lot of things and I realise my mum
Was not the same as my siblings mum
I have elder kids I think I tried so hard not to be like my
Own mum I over enabled them a lot , my youngest now I try and see when I'm doing it ..
when she died I don't think I grieved as was also going through a abusive relationship and leaving ( fleeing ) I still am not sure if I grieved but I've come to see that she had a really awful childhood and try to think it was more about her than that she just didn't love me
Feel what you feel lovely but try not to bottle it up 💐

For me the main things are time, open-ended therapy, and being a very different person/parent. I sometimes (quite rarely now) reflect on a lovely day with a friend or a good chat or cuddling with my kids and think what a shame it is that my mother’s bitterness and bile means that she’ll never have experiences like that, with her family or anyone. Her loss.

Therapy. I thinks it's too short on the nhs as just 6 weeks but it was very insightful. Also very very painful. It's like the scales completely feel off my eyes and I can never go back to my pre therapy fog.

I have to be kind to my inner child, talk to her as I wanted to be talked to as a child. But it's painful. My mum doesn't love me and never did.

I get over it mostly by being the very best mum.i can be. Honestly people how amazing I am for my sen kids, people rave about me and how I advocate for my kids. I laugh with them, I'm childish with them, I'm my teens mate.

I'm everything to them that my mother never gave me. I feel better knowing that I can and have broken that cycle. When my kids disappoint me and let me down I force myself to offer help, tell them I'm there for them whatever they do. She will never get the satisfaction of seeing me turn into a bitter spiteful cow. She won't get the relationships I have and that's really very sad but I respect that that's not what she wants. Her actions are all conscious choice and she chose to hate me. I owe her nothing. Ouch

🌷 to previous posters and the OP bamboleo

I spent a long time seeking out mother substitutes and feeling sad seeing seemingly functional families but I'm a Mum now myself and try to see myself in a supportive network of friends and workmates and the happy family I created.

What an utter mess my parents created - I pity them.

Just remember: when a pawn gets to the other side of a chess board, it can become a Queen.

Be very gentle with yourself - none of this was your fault. Some people are crap parents.

I think how you are feeling now - the anger and sadness - is part of the grieving process.

I spent a long time sad, then angry and now I've completed acceptance. It has taken me years, so my best advice would be to grieve but also make sure you live your life.

Plan for the future, live in the present but also respect your past and cut yourself some slack.

Lots and lots of therapy.

I discovered my anger at my mother in my 20's and 30's, partially reconciled with her, at least to the point where we were civil, but then a few things happened that made me realise that she's in no way contrite, doesn't even realise how useless a parent she was, and is still absolutely the horrible, vindictive, spiteful, partisan person I had always suspected.

As soon as she betrayed herself again, I momentarily felt extremely badly let down, but then I realised all she had actually done was validate all the feelings I had earlier struggled with when I wondered if I was somehow part of the problem or I was being unfair in judging her. Well I realised immediately that wasn't the case, and in fact, I was entirely justified in feeling they way I did because my view was 100% accurate.

That validation means that I no longer even give my mother a moment's thought. She is not in my life in any way. I have no plans to ever interact with her in any way whatsoever in the future. She could well be dead for all I know, I simply couldn't care less. It's enormously liberating realising you were correct all along and you have nothing to worry about or regret. My total indifference to her is entirely of her own doing, and I no longer devote any time to thinking about it and I no longer invest any emotion in it either.

She's no loss whatsoever, so I have no reason whatsoever to give any thought to it.

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply, I appreciate it. It's really hard. For various reasons I can't cut her out completely as much as I desperately want to. The poster who mentioned feeling like life began once their mother died feels about right, I just want to be free from her.