Help with my daughter (24)

[mumhelpwithdaughter]

Hoping you can help me with my daughter (she is 24). I have been to talk to someone as my daughter asked me to, after we last spoke. This person has suggested I talk to my daughter to explain why I feel the way I do but agreed an email to my daughter would be OK. This is mainly because I really can't face trying telling my daughter and watch her face have no expression like last time. Last time, I told her to come home to see me and I cried and told her that I need her to tell me that she loves me. She said she did, but I told her that really I know she hates me.

The person I spoke with agreed that how I feel is fairly normal but made worse due to a couple things.

I have always totally understood that my daughter has her own life now but it seems that she has forgotten I need to feel part of it too.

She might find it hard to imagine but I was 24 years old once, except I was also married with my own house (my daughter lives in a houseshare near her boyfriend, about an hour away from us, where she is doing teacher training).

However I have told my daughter that I never forgot I still had a mum who loved me dearly, as I do my daughter and I continued to visit her, sometimes unannounced, to hug, tell her I loved her and that I still needed her.

Since my daughter left to start university she has never come back unannounced/as a surprise. The first couple of years she left I hoped she might pop home unannounced on Mother's Day but never did. Once I remember her dad said he was just popping out to check the boat and thought he was really going to pick her up from the station - but no. I tried calling her every day at uni, sometimes she didn’t answer so I called her boyfriend instead which she said was intrusive. She wouldn’t give me a copy of her timetable or put an app on her phone so I could see where she was.

Then recently when she bought her car I thought this would be the time she started to pop back home to say hi. Guess she has been too busy.

I have tried sending her lots of messages (emails and texts) in the mornings before work telling her I love her and I need her to let me in.

The lady said that sometimes it takes something drastic for children to suddenly remember one day their parents might not be there. She was speaking from experience as she put off visiting her mum for only a few days. Tragically her mum was knocked down by a lorry and she never saw her again. I have told my daughter this in an email.

I am not going to beg her but I need her to understand that I need to be part of her new and changing life.

@Edingril im guessing you have no lived experience of a toxic mother?

If you’re anything like this in real life no wonder your dd needs to be away, just to be able to breathe! I feel stifled just reading that OP.

Sorry I didn’t see it’s a reverse (on a train).

Thanks @BunnyLake sorry for the reverse. It feels stifling in real life too.

Thanks @Edingril, yes it’s very disorientating when you first start to be able to see how unhealthy your parents/family are and how far from normal your upbringing was, so I appreciate that it probably does sound mad. I certainly feel at times like I’m going mad.

OP your mum is an abusive narcissist. It's about control and power. Not love for her.

I'm so sorry you never knew motherly love. For yourself, get some counselling. Her behaviour is toxic and damaging.

You sound remarkable really, given what you've been through.

Fortunately the internet gives access to loads of resources now, podcasts, you tube channels etc for you to gain some insights into the family dynamic. You are not alone.

You're overbearing and needy. Kids hate that (as do most people). Find things to do - hobbies, work, days/evenings out, friends, etc. If you back off and stop being like you are, she MIGHT visit you.

Mum of 2 adult children - I never did any of the things you say you've done, and my kids still see me

Did your mother ever really see you? Cherish you? really love you?

I think you got unlucky and got a mother with more issues than a whole crate of Kleenex.

Really, read Toxic Parents. You've lived with her as your parent but now you're starting to try to make sense of her behaviour because honestly, something in you is shouting that her behaviour isn't right or healthy.

I hope that you and your sister have a good bond and can talk about this because parents as unkind, even cruel, as this can have a bad effect on sibling bonds.

I hope that you have some kind and steady and sane older women in your life to at least let you glimpse what a normal loving family is. It's possible that if/when you have children yourself, all this will come into a rather sharp focus and you will be shocked at how unkind she is.

And yes, she's insanely smothering. You need to keep your distance so that she doesn't suck you dry.

Wow, thank you so much for this post.

I wouldn’t have said I felt cherished, no. We were loved in material ways (vast amounts of Christmas presents, but they would be thrown in the bin if we were ‘bad’). I definitely didn’t feel seen, and actually I still don’t feel as though I really know what my own personality/likes/passions are. I feel a bit of a shell of a person, to be honest.

You’re totally right that something in me is finally going ‘no, this can’t be right’. We’ve had to placate her and walk on eggshells for so long.

I don’t really have anyone else now in terms of older role models/mother figures (my grandparents have passed away now or live some distance away), and my dad has never stood up for us either. It does feel quite lonely, but I’ll make my own way and make my own family, I suppose?

thank you again

Christmas presents thrown in the bin if you behaved in a way she didn't like?

Bloody hell, she's cruel.

About making your own family - for different reasons I had to observe how other people parented, take the best bits and try to use them myself. It can be a good idea to take a parenting course or two as well, although you can't go far wrong with love, stability, good boundaries and age-appropriate truth.

The parenting patterns laid down in childhood can go deep, so you might find your mother's way of handling things lurking just under the surface in stressful moments. But you -can- do things differently, and the fact that you're starting to really think about your mother's behaviour means you won't parent the same way as her.

take care. You deserved a lot better than the way she behaved.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, so she’d buy us £100s of presents each Christmas and as we opened them say things like ‘oh I don’t know what that is/what that does’, so it’s not as though she bought things with us particularly in mind, if that makes sense (I know that sounds ungrateful, but it was overwhelming being presented with piles and piles of presents with nowhere to put them once they were unwrapped). I asked one year to please have fewer presents and she said ‘but I want to get you gadgets’.

Then if we stepped out of line, they’d go in the bin, and my dad would get them out and hide them in the garage. Stepping out of line could mean not playing how she wanted us to play, being slower than she would have liked, being untidy (but there was nowhere to put anything because the house was full).

I have a vivid memory of being about 7-8 and sitting with my sister playing on the floor and for some reason mum threatening to give us away to the Barnardo’s charity man who’d just knocked on the door, and we were crying with fear.

Thank you for raising the point about my mum’s parenting being just under the surface - it’s something I’m really conscious of. I’m reading lots at the moment about child development and attachment and psychology which I hope will be helpful, and I’ll definitely look into parenting courses as well

She clearly has underlying disorder or psychological issues. You cannot cure her. You can just set your boundaries. Limit contact to set times. Don't engage with her requests or rants. Smile and wave. That s nice. Gotta go now.
Have a look at "depression fallout" .

She sounds very needy and suffocating. Sone families have an intimate knowledge of what other family members are up to, but others don’t.

Do what you feel comfortable with, and no more.

I have a vivid memory of being about 7-8 and sitting with my sister playing on the floor and for some reason mum threatening to give us away to the Barnardo’s charity man who’d just knocked on the door, and we were crying with fear.

Lovely, your mum is way worse than I think at this moment you realise. Sorry if that's patronizing, but from a few things you've said there are some huge red flags waving wildly.

At this point it may feel like "was it really that bad" sometimes, but from an experienced outside perspective, on the basis of what you said, yes it was. At some point it might be really helpful to get a few sessions with a therapist, in order to gain some perspective and also to help you process some emotions. It seems to me there was quite a few moments of fear in your childhood.

Some trained help at the right time can make a difference by allowing someone to 'give things a place' and heal, if you can find a counsellor you can click with.

Jesus don’t go to counselling with her, she’s not going to suddenly say oh I realise now my behaviour is wrong. Google and read about enmeshment, parentification and emotional incest and get therapy for yourself. Read children of emotionally immature parents. Go to counselling for yourself , detach , grey rock - if you do visit observe like a science experiment and make a note when she behaves like you’ve come to expect. Emotionally detach, you are not responsible for her happiness or her moods.

that may have triggered me a bit but selfish / damaging emotionally immature parents are lethal. There should be a fitness to procreate test.

I wonder how she will behave when you have a family? Sheesh

Thank you for your replies. Yes, it definitely seems like she has a disorder or is unwell in some way - I think she has been for many years (maybe all her life? I don’t know?), but nobody helped her or us and she didn’t help herself as an adult either.

My dad wanted my sister to kind of mediate the situation between him and my mum and he said ‘it’s a problem that goes back more than 25 years’ - but my sister is only 20, so she asked how that was anything to do with her? Both my mum and my dad see it as our (mine and my sister’s) responsibility to placate them and reassure them and hold their big emotions etc, but that’s at the expense of our own wellbeing.

My dad told me that he thinks he and my sister are ‘quite well-adjusted’ - implying that my mum and I aren’t, just by dint of it being me that she has the problem with. And the irony is that my sister said she learned not to cry in front of mum from the age of 5 or 6, because of how angry it made mum. That’s not well-adjusted at all, is it? And neither is throwing your children under the bus for a quiet life, rather than standing up for them in the face of your wife’s (abusive?) behaviour.

thank you all for reading

Hi Alice, this is a reverse post (sorry) and I’m the daughter posting about my mum and her behaviour. I don’t want to be involved in the series but I’ll watch with interest when it comes out. Thanks

OP, so sorry you have had an abusive mother, you sound a lovely young woman and l would be proud to have you as my daughter.
Please do not go to joint counselling with her, l echo what previous posters have advised, get some counselling for yourself and keep contact with her to a minimum. Your Dad is almost as bad as he has enabled her for a quiet life and l would stay very low contact with both of them.
If your sister still lives at home l would also encourage her to get away as fast as she can and also go low contact.
Do not be drawn back into your mother's dramas, it's not your job, or your sisters to placate and reassure your parents.

I have a 24 year old son
Your DM is expecting you to provide emotional support and has no right to manipulate you like this
Most Mums, myself included, are proud to see their adult DC thrive as they forge their own path in life, and not live their life vicariously through a DC.
I don't think you should go to therapy with her, as I believe she will always think her feelings are more valid than yours
Go LC, on your terms not hers and distance yourself from her Self obsessed nature.

It’s so lovely to hear you’re proud of your son. It’s interesting because it made me think of a boss I had a few years back who said ‘isn’t she even slightly proud of you?’ for uni/work etc, and also my nan telling me she didn’t think mum felt proud of me at all.

She told me that she knew I’d failed my Oxbridge interview on purpose and that she had she spent all day at work crying about it and then she openly spent the evening crying in bed about it. When I went to a different (still top 10) uni, I asked my dad if he was still proud of me and he seemed really shocked and said of course, but I really didn’t think they were.

When I started teacher training, mum said ‘we all know you’ll be a headteacher in no time’, but I don’t want to be a headteacher and have never mentioned anything of the sort. I just want to do my job and live my life and be happy and independent.

Thank you, this is so kind 💐

Yes, I’m really coming to see that my dad was/is pretty much as bad as she was/is. I can’t imagine seeing my children treated the way she treated us and just standing by for 20+ years, telling them they’re ‘too sensitive’.

I am so sorry for your childhood and I suspect your Father was afraid to go against your Mother
Despite this, you have achieved huge amounts and I, a stranger on the internet, admire you

That’s so kind - I don’t think I’ve done anything admirable, I’m kind of stuck in this limbo of knowing what she’s done or having this growing realisation and horror of it, but not doing anything about it. But thank you, that’s really kind.

Yes, I think he was and is scared of her too, maybe because of his own upbringing and violent dad? I think he had a peacekeeping role there to protect my nan, and he’s carried on the same patterns in his own marriage, but they stopped serving him and they certainly didn’t serve us as his children.

@DucklingSwimmingInstructress, sorry to bump the thread again, but when you say she’s worse than I realise at the moment, could you say a bit more about that? Is it kind of that I’m just starting to pull the thread and the knitting is all going to unravel into a mess…?

Thank you for saying that you really think it was that bad, that’s really validating. The rest of my family are very invested in keeping quiet and covering it up. My nan asked if my boyfriend’s mum knew what my mum is like and when I said she didn’t know everything, nan said ‘good’. It’s not good to keep keeping this secret though, is it?