So conflicted and confused about my mum

[Mummyissues]

I'll try to condense this. Just feeling emotional about my mum and not really looking for answers as such maybe solidarity, other people's experiences, support, to vent?

I'm early 30sF, raising young children, challenging professional career, mum is 70 and my parents still together.

Mum is (I believe) an emotionally damaged person - endured abandonment, neglect and emotional/physical abuse as a child and sadly this has shaped her entire life. I also do wonder if she could be autistic, hard to separate. She is needy/dependent, anxious, obsessive, ritualistic, pessimistic, has a completely external locus of control, and hasn't worked or done much of anything in decades due to her mixed mental and physical health problems. She could never play and has always struggled with playfulness/humour etc. She doesn't help herself with her problems, she retreats from challenges and relies on others. She has never really been able to have friends and has struggled with all relationships throughout life.

I know almost every detail of her life, because from as early as I can remember I was her therapist. I have always concealed my own sorrows/ difficulties from her, since a very young age I've known she's not up to dealing with my stuff.

When I was growing up she could be mad, like crazy scary mad. It wasn't all the time but regular enough to have an impact. She would have these paranoid obsessions over what she perceived to be slights and she would go on screaming tirades and I would have to calm her and sympathise with her and reason with her. Sometimes she would rant for days. I had too much responsibility for her, I remember feeling responsible for calming her down, responsible for stopping her from harming herself, responsible for keeping my parents marriage together, responsible for being the perfect daughter etc. I can't even face up to how I feel about my Dad leaving me to deal with her or why he did next to nothing about this. I think he didn't know what to do. I almost need my relationship with my Dad to be simple and okay - currently it's not what's on my mind but I'm just addressing it as I know people reading this will be thinking "and what about Dad?", not unreasonably.

Mum said some very cruel things to me when she felt I was disloyal along the lines I'm cruel, I'm selfish, I'm a schemer etc. She never did this in a cold or calculating way, but when at the height of her emotional crises. I now realise, more like a toddler saying mean things to their mum. Nevertheless I was a child and she was my mum - so these comments have quite literally played on my mind for years and I believe caused me many emotional problems over the years.

Things like Christmas I always found v stressful because of her drama. I would hate the holidays and found refuge in school. At times I'd fantasise she would go away, or die, so I wouldn't have to deal with all her raging and screaming. Her issues... Spoiled a lot of my childhood. There were some good times too, family games, shared interests. I've always been of central importance in her life, really her only friend so the one thing I'd say is never felt "unloved" but maybe unseen.

Anyway, 2 things happened - I grew up and moved out at uni and never moved back. She also got older and just, got less crazy? It's like the screaming, mad side of her burned out; but the dependent, helpless and weak side is all that's left. She doesn't even really do anything bad or offensive anymore which leaves me feeling so unreasonable.

After I had my first baby it triggered this huge reflection in me about motherhood and I went through a phase of very very consumed with going over old memories, bitter resentment and almost hatred.

But all along I have always also pitied her. I never confronted her, I know it would be pointless and she would be pathetic about it and I would just wind up feeling ashamed. Even though I've made her sound so awful I couldn't bear to break her heart. She can be sweet and caring, almost suffocatingly so at times. She's always been very interested in me, provided for me and I believe she does love me very much, she just can't be more than who she is. I now believe she has done her very best for me, she didn't do it on purpose and I pity her very deeply - but it doesn't change that she hurt me or that I can't, I guess, respect her? Love her as I should? But I do love her also! I'm so confused.

I'm so outrageously jealous of people who just have capable mothers who actually mother them, not the other way round. Because of my young children I go to groups etc and I meet the other grandmother's and the envy I feel is something else. I just want a mum who sees and understands me and isn't all about her own issues. Even the way she is with my children sometimes gives me the creeps, I can't explain why. It's like she loves them but she wants to feed off them. And I work with a lot of brilliant women in their 50s, 60s etc and so often I think God I just wish you were my mum.

Well, now she is frail, she is suffering. It's a mix of physical health problems and her choosing (not quite the right word) to deal with them in the least constructive way possible. As in - something becomes uncomfortable she stops doing it or even trying to do it. She has become preoccupied with her pointless and consuming daily health-adjacent rituals. She restricts her eating and is thin and frail partly as a result of this also. She has no life, doesn't leave the house. Functionally this is obviously terrible and it's like she's 90 years old.

I feel like I've already cared enough for a lifetime and all that's left is resentment? I resent her for being old and weak, yet again not the mother or grandmother I long for. But it's not her fault she's ill and she is suffering! I don't want her to suffer.

My fit and healthy Dad too busy caring for her to be involved in my life or enjoy his retirement. I have this awful admission that sometimes I fantasise about her death. This makes me feel like an awful person, like all the worst things she said to me when I was a child are completely true. I am cruel, I am disloyal and selfish. I fear that one day, possibly one day soon, she will die and the guilt and conflict I'll feel is going to completely fuck me up. And there is much I do love about her, I do love her and I won't appreciate how much I do, until she's gone and it's too late.

Can anyone relate? I literally can't afford to go to therapy right now I'm broke but I also don't even know what I would seek to get out of it. I can't change who she is. I had come to peace thinking "this is what she's like, I accept that she is herself traumatised and tried her best" and then something triggers me (I have been triggered by a friend losing their mother unexpectedly and them being really devastated because she's so wonderful / so important to them etc and I'm thinking - Jesus Christ what am I going to say at my mother's funeral?).

Aggh! Sorry this is such a confused ramble

I can see your point but I think she had no reference for how to be a good mother, and was so out of control of her own emotions. Choice doesn't seem like the right word. I think they raging, shouting and cruel words - yes she could and should have chosen not to subject her child to that. She would know how that feels. Her rage and feelings of entitlement overwhelmed her instinct to protect and nurture me. (She was protective and nurturing at other times).

But the over reliance on me and using me as a therapist - I don't think she had the reference to understand that's not how to parent. I think she is v emotionally immature / personality disordered as you say. I think I outgrew her emotionally when I was still a child and became her parent in a sense.

Her own mother was not a good parent either so it’s hardly surprising that her child ie your mother went onto behave similarly towards you. Your mother had a choice when it came to you and she did not choose to receive the necessary help. Using you as a therapist was shocking and placed a huge and unnecessary burden on you.

Her emotional development likely stalled or otherwise stopped around the age of six.

Do you know what I think?

I think you are spending all your time thinking (and yes, obsessing) over your mother, her behaviour then and now, the way she treated you, and how you wish she was the mother you always wanted her to be. You say almost nothing about your dad - it's almost as though there is no room in your emotions for him at all.

Perhaps it is time to redress the balance, and start to focus on your dad more.

I can relate on so many levels, your not alone. I'm now 40 and chosen to go VLC. She's toxic and I just don't have the energy, I have small children and like you by having my children, especially my daughter made me look at her for what she is. I'm not exposing children to her behaviour. Like you I feel enormous envy for people that have normal loving mothers. Thankfully I have a wonderful MIL.
My mother checked out of parenting long ago, she did some awful things while growing up but as far as she's concerned she did her best so I have nothing to complain about. I beg to differ, you don't side with you DH (my step parent) when your daughter tells you he has been abusing you. FFS!
The last straw was my last birthday whixh she ruined due to her vile tongue. I kicked her out of my house and have barely spoken since. Apparently she's hurt I'm ignoring her 🙄 well couldn't give a monkeys, I doubt I will be upset when she dies and hope it's sooner rather than later so I can be free.
My sibling is of course the golden child, can do know wrong although he's pretty toxic and his children are suffering as a result, i also don't see him much.
You reap what you sow.
Be kind to yourself and do what you have to do to protect yourself and your children.

I can relate to some of this. In my growing up years, my dad was very difficult, alternately angry, moody, irrational and many other things too. It left its imprint on me and today I'm a chronic people pleaser and will walk 100 miles out of my way to avoid conflict.

But in the last 10 years or so my dad finally got help. It was a bit of trial and error but when he got the right mix of meds for depression and anxiety, I truly believe the 'real' him emerged. Our relationship now is brilliant and it's hard to believe he is the same person.

I'm not a professional but it sounds as though you bore the brunt of your mum's complex (presumably untreated?) mental health issues and yet despite it all, you know that the 'real' her loves you.

Long term I think it's only counselling which will help you process your feelings toward her but it helped enormously to remind myself that 'two things can be true at the same time'. In your scenario your mum is deeply complex, has caused damage to you and gave you a difficult childhood but the other truth is that you love her and she loves you. Those two things can definitely co-exist.

One other thing is that counselling/therapy doesn't necessarily have to be long term. Sometimes just six sessions (online) can help you process and understand things so much better. At least that was the case for me because the questions my counsellor asked then led me to read different books and a lot of it fell into place in-between sessions. Obviously it's a different experience for everyone but if cost is putting you off, it might not have to be a process that lasts many months.

I hope you're able to find some peace.

I have a similar mother to you and some of the same feelings, but, in my case, the behaviour still persists so am no longer in contact with her as I couldn't cope with it any longer (the catalyst to doing this was her starting on my children).

I've also wondered about autism in my mother, but I think that it isn't. An autistic person may struggle with social cues or communication but if you say (for example) to them that they said something that upset you and explained why, IME they would be super apologetic and try not to do it again. Which is the huge difference between my mother and yours.

I think the wishing your mother dead is more wishing that she wasn't in your life as you don't want to have to cope with her behaviour and the feelings it causes. It's absolutely clear from your post that you bear no malice towards her - you are not a horrible person.

Nothing wrong with you at all - you want rid of the burden of her, that's completely rational I would say. I was a similar therapist as a child. In my 30's she had an affair and then the affair partner went back to his wife and I spent night after night with her sobbing about it - just expected to comfort her and she didn't consider she was being unfaithful to my dad which may have made me slightly conflicted.

I have similar thoughts about my mums funeral, what will i do when I have all these people coming up to me (she is involved in a group where they all think she is wonderful) and saying how fab she is. Well i will say yes she was good at the thing you are describing and will leave the unsaid thing hanging in the air! I've started to do it now to be honest, it's quite liberating.

I had similar confused feelings about my mother. The circumstances were slightly different but your eloquent post describes my feelings exactly.

I much older and my mother is now dead (old age). I was never able to reconcile my mixed feelings about her.

When she died I only felt intense guilt for a very short time, and I’ll be honest that with her death a lot of my mixed emotions evaporated. It’s still there, but it’s gone on the back burner.

Like you, I’ve always felt I was missing a mother even when she was alive.

However, I think my experience as a child has made me a much better mum to my child and the sort of mum I had wanted now my Dd is an adult.

I was lucky and could afford therapy though by then it was mainly about my unhappiness in my marriage that we talked. One time I was in a really bad emotional state at my appointment. My therapist said “Ok, tell me what’s been happening this week?” So I did and she replied that the way I was feeling was totally appropriate to what I had been experiencing.

So reading your post, I would say everything you are feeling sounds completely normal and justifiable considering what you have been through.

I would suggest you look up Parentification. It’s a well known thing and comes with a whole list of recognised problems.

If you can’t afford therapy, I would suggest two things. Look up books, online articles about parentification and similar things associated with neglectful and (in your case) abusive childhoods. Try to look up articles written by people who have medical qualifications and a career in psychology/counselling/therapy.

Secondly, see if you can find a good friend or two who you can safely vent and moan to.

I found with therapy it allowed me to talk with someone to get all these thoughtss and feelings whirling around inside my mind outside my head and body. My head and body would feel lighter and better after a session. Although often events would happen during the following week that meant it was often a repeat process at the next session.

what you will be missing is the trained therapists responses, these often are helping you to name your feelings and responses and help you to identify your triggers and what you can do to counter them.

Id suggest to replace this, read far and wide as much as you can. You also need sympathetic and wise friends who allow you to vent, and validate your feelings. Unless they are trained in someway, they need to refrain from telling you what they would do, but just let you offload.

I have a couple of friends who I’ve asked this of.

I also have similar ruminating thoughts about the way my ex treated me in our long marriage. I just want these thoughts to go away so I can concentrate on my future. I am ruining my future by dwelling constantly in the past. I don’t see this as a failure on my part, but as a simple reaction to years of abuse.

I self referred my self to the NHS service iTalk. I had a telephone assessment and I am now on a waiting list for CBT.

Please take care of yourself. You are not a bad person. You have been treated badly as both a child and an adult. The feelings and strong emotions you have are completely normal and it would be very unusual for you not to be affected, so please don’t beat yourself up.

You need to find a way to accept your past and accept that even as an adult your parents will not be able to offer what you need. You also need to work out if you can come to terms with being supportive of her/him/both as they age, or if you could manage emotionally with the guilt if you step back from them.

I will admit I never managed to do that and it was eating me up - and then my mother died - and for me that solved most of my difficult feelings of confusion, resentment and guilt.

I could have written this. Shit, isn't it?

A lot of that resonates with me including 'couldn't deal with my stuff' and being her therapists, and holiday memories being how upset or angry she has got and walking on eggshells, but also knowing she loves and cares about me so much. And her health anxiety and staying at home too much.

I think therapy would be really helpful - perhaps your health visitor or baby group cannsignpost you to new mums support or your gp can put you in the waiting list.

I had similarly inappropriate “mothering”.
She was and is cruel and selfish.

I have reluctantly cut her off. She is a horrible person and I would have run a mile from her if we were not related.

She preys on the weak a vulnerable for her own gain. It’s disgusting.
She angers and makes me sick.
I couldn’t keep doing this to myself anymore.

There is very little good in her and I never want to hear from her again.

I still feel guilty.
Sometimes I worry about her and pity her.
I feel as though I’ve been cruel to abandon her.
I too feel the burden of our relationship has been like an albatross around my neck.
It’s all so fucked up.

I hope one day I can mostly forget about her, or at least no longer care.

I’m so sorry, I’ve no advice, I can only deeply sympathise and offer you a hug. 💐

What has helped marginally is to treat myself how an ideal mother would treat me when I’m hurt, sad, or afraid… I do nice things for myself and take care of myself… then I realise nobody can meet my needs as perfectly as I can… I’m doing a good job, and everything is alright and will be alright.
I’m old enough and independent enough not to need her anymore.

It is possible for someone to be Autistic and narcissistic. Whether she is Autistic I'm not sure but she is absolutely NPD. And I believe the only reason she is now better behaved is because she has to be. I have NPD family members. Behaviour improves only when something is needed or the power dynamic has shifted. When you're on your ass, god help you.

Your feelings of guilt are almost textbook responses to the dynamic of NPD relationships. You I imagine are more empathic and that's why you care. NPDs usually put the empathic other in the relationship into therapy! Because they care and feel on their own behalf but also that of the NPD who doesn't give a shit. Every single feeling, even wishing death is 100% valid.

I really recommend the InSight podcasts by Katie McKenna and Helen Villiers to give you more insight (pun intended) into this sort of toxic family dynamics.

I hear you. Our mums are quite similar although where your mum would have big outbursts mine would fall further into self-pity and martyrdom. I was ungrateful, I made her feel like a bad mum, I looked at her like she was scum, I treated her like a skivvy, I acted like I was better than her and on and on. It was exhausting listening to those tirades.

I was definitely her therapist and she would wind me up so she we would then go on winding each other up. As I got older I would just tell her to stop talking. What hurts when I look back is that she didn’t care she was opening up wounds for me as long as I could provide her with what she needed.

No-one fucks you up like your parents as the saying goes. I’ve been in therapy three or four times now. It isn’t really worth it until you can financially commit for the long haul.

Going through similar realisations which have been percolating er since I had kids. Went to a counsellor for an unrelated issue and after several awkward sessions where I didn’t feel I had anything to say, it suddenly started emerging along with a load of suppressed memories of anger, bullying, alcoholism, humiliation, being maudlin and expecting me to be sympathetic as a child- all that good stuff.

it took ages to stop including endless caveats about her also being a great
mum (because she could be) and I couldn’t let go of that because it made me feel like a terrible person. It feels like this is where you’re at now. It’s extra hurtful and confusing when they’re also capable of being kind because it makes you think you drove them to it when they turned on you. At least if they were always bad you could say ‘yeah, that’s on them’. Maybe-I dunno.

at some point you may be able to drop the allowances you make for her (even if they’re justifiable) and say that it was objectively shit parenting which has affected you. At that point the anger may bubble up-it did for me and it’s hard to put a cork back in now but hey, it’s a process as they say.

I won’t trot out the familiar poem on this subject but yeah-solidarity to you and everyone on this thread with similar stories.

ive just finished an excellent book ‘Adult children of emotionally immature parents’ by Lindsay Gibson. It helped to explain a lot about my childhood and the impact it has had upon me an adult. My situation was also similar to yours.

@Mummyissues I think much of the difficulty in this situation comes from the feelings of guilt if you put yourself first. It's very easy for friends to say, just go low contact, have nothing to do with her, but then the guilt eats you up. Like you, my mum is also now very frail. She's in her 80s, deaf and possibly going down the dementia route, so it's very hard to reconcile this frail little woman with the raging banshee that has tormented my life for the last 50-odd years. I too have had awful feelings of wishing she would just die, especially as my dad gets older. She relies on him totally, and if he goes first, I'm first in the firing line to deal with her, which doesn't bear thinking about. I think half the battle is accepting that your feelings of anger and resentment towards her have validity - at the end of the day, she was a terrible parent - but that you still have feelings of love as well. The two don't marry up, hence the confusion. It's a total mind-fuck, but I've found the more I talk about it and allow myself to feel the whole range of emotions she stirs up in me, the more I understand the situation I'm in and am able deal with it.

My mum no longer behaves badly so now so I am left with a sort of cordial, superficial relationship. She hasn't been cruel or guilt tripped me in years. It's not necessary to grey rock.

Strangely I think you do need to grey rock. She has moved from abuse to fawning behavior. Underneath you still recognize it as manipulation, just a different tactic. I felt a lot better when I stopped being pulled in by my mother’s ‘normal’ behaviour and understood that she was still the same damaged person she always was just with more fake niceness and neediness.
It helped that I started viewing her as a toddler who needed me to put in boundaries. I couldn’t try to renegotiate our relationship based on a shared understanding or a changing dynamic between adults. I had to treat her like a demanding toddler who wanted to eat sweets all day and stay at the park, I needed to be the one who said enough for today.
When I realised that thinking like a child was all she was genuinely capable of things became a lot easier and I stopped trying to make her happy. I still see her but I never expect her to be satisfied.
And I also know what you mean by feeling like she feeds off people. It’s stomach churning. Luckily most kids seem to pick up on it. My kid can only handle my mum in small doses but isn’t sure why.

@Happyinarcon Yes yes yes to the toddler comparison! I often describe my mother to friends as being like an especially difficult toddler. I treat her as such, but sadly my father, who dotes on her every need to try and keep tantrums at bay, doesn't.

This is such a wonderful outcome to read. I think that's what so many of us worry about.

My child is 13 yet I'm dependant on help as I have serious worsening health. Child is therefore exposed to some weirdness and I always prey I've done enough so far to mitigate any of it. Unfortunately my health is worsening and I won't be able to protect them entirely from some of it should I not be here any longer. Ex is fortunately very involved.

perhaps you just need to let her get on with it then. Sounds a bit cold I know but it’s some advice my ex therapist gave to me about my own despair in trying to fix my mother.

Oh I feel for you Attilla!

This post reads like my childhood - inexplicable rage, constant victimhood, child like helplessness. DF was physically abusive too, which somehow always turned out to be my fault. Absolutely no point addressing the past - she conveniently forgets her own behaviour.

DM has been diagnosed with CPTSD and I truly, truly believe she has a personality disorder. I'm VLC now. She is constantly in crisis and I just want to have a peaceful life without needing to worry about her being attacked / bullied / losing her house / having a car crash / another roommate moving out every other day.

I've found I get more deeply angry and disappointed the closer I get to having my own children. I am outrageously jealous of other mother daughter relationships - especially where as you said, it involves any semblance of 'mothering' or support. It's very noble of you to keep in touch and facilitate a relationship with your children - you should be really proud of your ability to be a stable and constant force in keeping your family together. You didn't have that growing up so it is all the more impressive.

I'm not sure I have it in me!