Making healthy boundaries with my mum

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To preface this I have a pretty busy life. 3 kids, each with their own needs including a toddler that doesn't sleep well. I work pretty much full time and also just finishing a reno on our house and I am frazzled...... absolutely exhausted as is my partner.

My mum is aware of this but is putting so much stress on me with her moaning. She seems to catastrophise everything. A small thing can happen and I have to give her endless reassurance that the world isn't out to get her. She constantly says things like "why is thing happening to me, what have I done wrong?" say because her food shop got cancelled last minute due to driver sickness. Or a workman takes her deposit then doesn't reply quickly enough to her messages (probably because he is busy working mum!) and she's screaming down the phone at me that she has been scammed. It's exhausting!

I don't think it helps that she seems to follow absolutely awful people on social media who go on and on about ridiculous conspiracy theories and she sits there all day long listening to their drivel. I have told her to stop and explained that its making her miserable but she won't listen.

She is rude to people when we go out in public and just very awkward- think someone getting their food before you in a restaurant and her shouting loudly "we were here before them!"

She is putting more and more on me, sometimes practical help. Other times just the mental burden and I feel like I am at breaking point. I have stopped answering her calls because I feel like I have to build myself up to deal with her first! She is also really disrespectful about my job. I've recently started a new job which allows me to wfh which has been a godsend as i had a huge commute before. She is very cross when I say I can't talk because I am working- I get told, well you're at home, I'm sure you can spare 5 mins. It won't ever just be 5 mins and I know I will feel awful afterwards.

I have asked her to call my brothers, especially when she needs help around the house (one lives at the bottom of her rd!) as I have so little free time as it is, but she says they won't understand and will shout at her. She does call them sometimes but the majority of her angry shouty calls are directed at me.
I have started to try and put some boundaries in place, just repeating the same thing back to her (because she asks what she should do about a situation then doesn't listen to what I have to say/follow it through) I think she wants to rant at me and I say fine, leave it with me but I can't do that any more. I don't have the time. When I stand my ground she becomes very woe is me and again it is just exhausting. "you all hate me don't you" "Oh I am so useless!!"

I just don't know how to protect myself against this. I know part of this is my fault for being a wet piece of cardboard and I need to stand my ground but its been going on pretty much all of my life, so ending a life long habit is easier said than done and I am not sure what is normal sometimes to be honest.

Any advice would be appreciated.

You're not a wet piece of cardboard.

Her behaviour smacks of social conditioning - sexism basically. Your brothers' time is far too precious to waste, I bet she thinks they have far more important jobs (especially because as you wfh, it can't be real work hey?)

Adjust the messages on your phone so that you don't take calls during working hours - and give yourself some time either side to decompress /prepare before you start accepting calls. Tell her your boss has ordered it company wide in order to prevent personal calls.

Decide on how many days per week you are prepared to talk to her and then tell her unless it's a genuine emergency (ie 999), your days are just too crammed at the moment to talk every night but you will call at X time for an hour whe she'll have your undivided attention and yes mum it's terrible and I'm sorry, I care, but life is so hard right now and it really means so much that your supportive of this because you understand how hard life can be at times ...(no sarcasm, turn it round so that she's helping you).

And then keep to it.

Like parenting small children, establishing boundaries with adults takes consistency even when they rage against it.

If she persists outside the parameters you've set, a quick text 'sorry mum, call brother #1 he's good at this stuff/in a late meeting'

You don't just need boundaries. You need distance. Physical and emotional. You need to go very low contact with her, effective immediately. Your mum is simply toxic, and you have a responsibility to yourself to remove this poison from your life.

Stop seeing her regularly, stop answering your phone. She refuses to reign herself in so you are the one who has to change your behaviour and response to her.

It is not your job to fix stuff for your mum, you have so much on and a different mum would actually be supporting you practically or at least cheering you on from the sidelines if age or other reasons made that impractical.

please put yourself and your children first, can you imagine doing this to them as an adult?? There’s a reason your brothers are exasperated by her.

I have massively reduced my contact with her as I used to call to chat to her and check in that she was ok. I know she gets really lonely but she won't get in her car and drive over here- its 20 mins tops! I have offered that she can come over for tea with the kids or meet me for lunch.

She hasn't given me any support at all since I had the baby even though she said she would when I was pregnant.
I used to call her when I had a problem or needed some support but she would either turn everything around to be about her or just not listen. I would get lots of hmmm, uh huh, yeaaah......... which didn't actually fit with what I was saying so I stopped calling her because she wasn't listening to what I was saying. I could hear her on facebook in the background. The final straw came when I had double booked myself and needed to pick me eldest up from somewhere. I asked if she could grab them (it was 10 mins from her house) and take them back to hers and I would grab them from hers 30 mins later and she refused. Said she was too tired- they are older so would have sat in her living room on their phone the entire time, it wasn't like she had to do any childcare. It made me realise how one sided things had become as I go out of my way to do things for her. My partner goes over to do her DIY. I am always sorting out admin for her.
If she read any of this she would be crushed but then go into pity/victim mode so it would be pointless pointing any of it out to her.

I think some of it comes from growing up, she could be quite explosive in her reactions to things so I just did what I was told to avoid conflict but now as an adult I do it with everyone.
I am also trying really hard not to react the same way with my own kids. I don't want to pass my bad habits on to them.

I don’t feel beholden to my dad (only living parent - mum was amazing) as he was a pretty poor dad, plus I hold all the cards now (we feel so powerless as children) but he wants to see me/dd and I don’t really care about him so if he wants it to happen then he has to make the effort.

your mum is adding nothing to your life except stress, you need to detach and value yourself, not let her continue to minimise how you feel as she was able to when you were young, you are doing brilliantly but could you have some counselling as to why you still need her approval when you really don’t owe her anything??

@Mediumred its something I do with everyone. My brain needs everyone to like me even though I know thats impossible. I feel incredible guilt just for writing all of the above.
My mum had a very damaging upbringing (military) and I think some of that naturally rubbed off on to us kids.

i really feel for you but you know that by recognising these traits and how draining your mum is, that is the first step to dealing with them.

Nothing you ever do for your mum is going to be enough, once you make peace with that and only give what you easily can (not knocking yourself out) you will start to feel better.

Most of us as we age get to closer to the ‘I give zero fucks’ stage, I hope you do too as it sounds like you are doing amazingly but you need to give fewer fucks what mum and others think and put yourself first a bit!!!

aggggghhhh had another god awful interaction with my mum this weekend. I won't go into specifics as I get scared she will see this and know its me and it would just cause so many problems.
She phoned about another of her problems that she had catastrophised. I calmly tried to help her but I genuinely didn't know the answer so she became really agitated and was yelling at me. In the end I put the phone down because I wasn't willing to be screamed at and she was really cross with me. I am glad that I was able to be firm but it makes me so anxious when she behaves like that.

I really don't understand why she thinks its ok to talk to me like that.

Google The Karpman Drama Triangle - victim, persecutor, rescuer. Its very wearing behaviour to deal with. Once you understand how it works you can predict where she will go next and try to head her off.

Some of this is oh so familiar to me. Especially the calling daughter not sons issue. It drives me insane. My dm seems to perceive that daughters should be closer to their mothers.

Mine is less critical than yours and quite sweet but is needy and goes all doom and gloom sometimes. I feel for you as you have all the issues I do and yours is critical.

I feel like I'm the parent. I can't remember her ever supporting me really.

What if you made a time to call her maybe twice a week and use a timer, after 20mins say "got to go now, someone's at the door / the oven timer's gone off / I'm on my way out / need to bath the kids. And strictly stick to that timeframe. You are not responsible for solving all her minor problems so just make general listening noises. Also if she shouts, say I'm not OK with you shouting at me, goodbye and hang up.

Those would be very normal things to do, what she expects is not normal. She is not looking after you, so you need to put yourself first.

God, I'm exhausted by your mother just by reading about her....

You really need to reinforce your boundaries with her. She's walking all over you.

Screaming over the phone at your children is NOT OKAY!

So sorry you are having to deal with this.