is it ever acceptable to call your child a failure and disappointment?

[TheArmadillo]

talking teen/adult not tiny one.

Under what circumstances would/could it be considered acceptable?

SHould it ever be?

You dont have to break her heart, you can work towards having the confidence to stand firm - the 'broken record' trick helps to do this.

You know, we may all have to cope alone sometime, so build up the tools now.

thanks all for talking to me. It wasn't the response I expected.

I am used to being told I am lucky to have a mum like mine. That she gives me so mucha nd supports me so much. But I don't appreciate it. I envy those who are free. Who can make their own choices - even if they do fuck it up.

okay first things first...have you ever heard the saying if you are told something often enough you will start to believe it? thats what is going on here.

go back to docs and tell him everything. demand that you get further treatment, as an adult you dont permisson from your mum. she doesnt even need to know

go to a solicitor re the house and ask council about council housing and would you be entitled considering you own a share in a house. do you really need a car? if not give ot back to her and tell her you would rather save for your own car.

stop phoning her. tell her that you think it is time you stood on your own two feet and relied on her less. insist on this and dont listen to any of the rubbish that will follow.

if she wants to see ds, fine, i dont agree with stopping gps seeing thier gcs. but she is not to change his clothes regardless of whether she likes them or not he is your dc not hers. and make it clear that he will never be living there and niether will you.

do something constructive to build your confidence i.e. pt college/evening course/open uni

believe me you are not a failure. if you have a job and own part of a house you are doing better than me and i dont consider myself a failure.

and the most important is please please stop listening to her. she sounds like she is having difficulty in letting you go as an adult, but that is her problem not yours and you shouldnt suffer because of it.

This is a really situation Armadillo and says much, much more about your mother than it does about you. I agree with others that have suggested you try councelling. Are there any low cost organisations in your area? Sometimes psychotherapy students offer cheaper sessions as they need to do a certain amount as part of their courses.
I'm glad you've got a supportive DP and hope you find some way of getting untangled from your mum. I know that you love her but what she said to you is so wrong.

Armadillo, have you had a look at the toxic parent threads? Your mother is clearly an extremely nasty piece of work who needs to make you feel inadequate and dependent for some reason of her own.

But you can break out of her control. It will be hard, because you've had a lifetime of conditioning, but it can be done.

Just ask yourself whether you would ever even begin to dream of treating ds the way she treats you. Of course you wouldn't. No loving mother in her right mind would.

I think kinder's and dittany's posts are very helpful - you really should think about doing some of the stuff they suggest.

Thanks for all your advice it has helped.

Am going to bed now and will phone drs in morning.

Have tax credits appl - hopefully that will give us a bit more money. And I can start planning from there.

Making mistakes, taking responsibility and learning from errors is part of being an adult. No you are not 'lucky' to have a mum like her, she is an emotional vempire. Sorry if that sounds harsh but she has sucked you dry and not allowed you to develop. Awful.

You will be ok if you decide to work on the future - you can survive perfectly fine, be calm but firm keep repeating stock phrases and back this up with decisive action.

Goodnight Armadillo. Glad that you have found some support here and that it has given you a different view of the situation. Yes, it all sounds hunkydory, to have a mum who takes care of everything, but you have the right to your own life.

I haven't read any of the responses but I just have to say that you have to break free from this. None of it is your fault. Your controlling and unreasonable mother has manufactured this situation because she needs you to be dependant on her and needs to put you down to make herself feel better. She does not care about your happiness, only hers. If she cared she would have got help for your depression when you were 9 instead of being furious?!!! A natural and caring reaction would have been for her to be worried and get you help asap. No matter how bad it seems you can get out of this, be free and be a happy, grown up, independant family of your own. My own mother is very similar, I saw this very young as she was very conrolling with my older brothers, I took the first chance I got and moved out at 19 to go to university. I tried to keep the relationship with her going but she became too unreasonable so we haven't spoken for 3 years and she no longer knows where I live. You only get one life, live it how you want to!

Dear Armadillo - I hope you read this in the morning when you wake up - you say your mum loves you but it sounds like she has systematically taken you apart from quite a young age and made sure that you have no idea of your self-worth - this is not a loving action.

I'm sure she loves you in some way but the way she has treated you is not loving at all, far from it. Parents should encourage their children to be independent, not destroy their abilities to be so.

I wonder whether your ma had her own problems with depression etc when she was younger and saw that you were following in her pattern; or whether some other member of her family had depression and she had to cope with it. It is amazing that she refused to allow you to be treated and I would guess that, if she has always been this down on you and negative towards you that she may well have contributed to your depressed state!

You are a worthwhile human - you have a DP, a lovely DS, a job (so what if it's not hugely exciting/well-paid - at least you're not taking handouts without giving something back!).

My own mum, God love her, used to put me down a lot in my teens - but it turned out that she was jealous of my opportunities that she never had and that her own self-confidence was terribly low (you don't realise this when you're a teen, only later). I ended up with depressingly low self-confidence and almost became a depressive too. I don't know what saved me but I used to have days at a time in a black hole where no one could reach me.

your mum is definitely an emotional/energy vampire (or leech if you prefer) - try to imagine that you really are an armadillo with armour-plating when you have to see her or talk to her, and that her poison arrows cannot pierce your armoour so she cannot suck your energy away.

I hope this is of some help to you - and don't let anyone tell you how lucky you are to have someone like her controlling your life - they don't know the full story.

hugs to you

This sounds very similar to my own situation, except more overt.

I'm currently working through Toxic Parents by Susan Forward and finding it useful, though I'll need to re-read it more slowly. It might be a good starting point for you.

I can totally understand you saying that she loves you and is trying to do the best for you and would be heartbroken if she knew how you felt - this is something I'm struggling with. One thing that helps is to think about whether you would treat your own child like this - it really helps shift things into focus.

Hi Armadillo,

Re your comments:-

"I know she hasn't done this deliberately and I know she only wants to look after me and protect me".

I would actually argue that she knew exactly what she was doing and is thus deliberate in intent; she put all her own past failings onto you instead of dealing with her own issues. No my friend she just wants to control you and rule over you - this is not done out of wanting to look after you. Controlling is abusive behaviour. Your Mother has a very warped version of what love is. And as for why she gets on so well with your sister - its because your sister has completely subsumed herself to her mother's will and can thus do no wrong. Your Mother has failed both her and you completely.

There is hope for you though in terms of breaking free - you haven't quite done that because you realise that things are not right and are also posting here.

"That's mostly why it's so ahrd to break free - to hurt her, to basically tell her she has done wrong. She would be heartbroken and I still love her and don't want to be responsible for that".

When has your Mother ever taken any proper responsibility for you?. Never is my answer.
Your Mother won't listen to you re telling her what she has done wrong (she will instead go on the attack) and she will never apologise to you for her actions. These people never take any responsibility for their actions but are more than happy to give you a laundry list of your own supposed shortcomings in response.

She has hurt you more than enough and it will take years for you to get over such ill treatment; the legacy of toxic parents runs deep. You may still love her but this woman only gave birth to you. What she has done since is not loving. I don't think she will be heartbroken as much as angry because you have finally stood up to her and told her where to go.

You did not mention your Dad - where is he in all this?. Many such men act as bystanders and go along with the family dysfunction for a quite life. They do nothing to curtail such behaviours shown by these toxic women.

Would suggest you read "Toxic Parents" and look at the "well we took you to Stately Homes" thread on these pages.

Armadillo,

Your sister will perhaps never change but you can because you know that you've been both mistreated and abused at the hands of a toxic mother. She has not had that realisation and perhaps never will.

Look seriouly into how you can wrest financial and emotional control from your Mother. By controlling you she is also controlling your partner and your son.

People in toxic families tend to play out defined roles - there is the bystander, there is the scapegoat to name but two. You are the scapegoat for all their ills.

I would also suggest counselling for your own self - BACP have a list of counsellors and they don't charge a fortune either.

I hope that you have had a good night's sleep, Armadillo and feel strengthened by everyone's advice. Seeing your doctor is a first step-I think that micca 25 has some good points.
Telling a DC that they are a disappointment is dreadful-a parent shouldn't have mapped out expectations in the first place. Calling them a failure is equally bad. You can be disappointed in their choices but it is better to be supportive if they want to change.
You mustn't blame yourself, your mother didn't get into her situation becauseof the child you were, it suited her to take control and have a dependent child. The only difference with your sister was that your sister didn't let her.
Parents on here who control every aspect of their DC's lives should take note-this is how it can end up!

Armadillo- are you and your mother joint owners of your house? What was the plan is either of you wanted out?

You MUST see a solicitor or a financial expert.

The simplest option is for the house to be sold- then you can split any profits if there are any. If you are renting now, then what is the difference with renting privately? I think you are refusing to see that there are other options- it might mean a huge change such as moving tot he other end of the country for example, but you have to believe that there are options which you have not perhaps thought about. Where is your partner in all of this? What does he think?

What can both you and your partner do to improve your income over the next 5 years- can you re-train or anything like that?

Morning Armadillo. Just wanted to wish you strength at the docs today, let us know how you get on.
Hope you had a good night's sleep and feel this morning is the start of a new way of life for you

Armadillo - so sorry to hear all this.
V briefly though, if you have no joy at Dr's re: counselling OR AD's I'd consider changing doctors. Yr GP shouldn't imo be prescribing homeopathic AD's!

Everyone has said v sensible things about your mother and her psychopathology. But none of that will be useful to you until you can get yourself to a position where you can ACT.

Your mother has used this untreated depression - which has dogged you since you were nine - to help her control you.

On some level she is aware that it keeps you powerless, and that is why she let you down so badly by refusing to have you treated then, and makes it difficult for you to do so now, even though you are an adult.

So deal with that, and with luck you will see a crucial shift in the power balance of your relationship with her, as you become able to protect yourself from her need to control you.

It seems like your MN name,Armadillo,has been chosen for good reasons. You need a hard shell to deal with your mother. I'm sorry and hope you'll find the advice here useful.

Armadillo, so sorry you're having to deal with all this. I can only second the other posts.
Your mother is a bully.
She must also be pretty unhappy in her own life in order to have to project her unhappiness onto you

I may say "I am disappointed that you chose to do XXX" but then would always tell them that I loved them too

I dont quite understand how your mother thinks criticising you will help you at all..surely the people who do best in life are those whose parents are supportive not those who are constantly critical?

You say she is/has got worse how old is she? Could she be menopausal - my mum was an absolute bitch when she went though the menopause and I kept my visits as short as possible.

I also thought I read that the children of depressives are more likely to suffer from depression themselves - do you think perhaps she is depressed too?

You really should get treatment or find ways of handling your depression. Mine kicks in if I am very tired - I try to avoid too many late nights and I find (much as I loathe it) that exercise helps me to at least stay on top of it to the extent where I can do the school run and deal with people.

I think the more you let her bully you the more she will - could you teach yourself some assertiveness techniques? You cant change her but you can change how you deal with her.

My mum isnt the most supportive in the world and I have always viewed myself as the least favourite of her children but she knows now what she can and cannot get away with saying to me (I can tell when she I about to say something to me and catches herself when she thinks better of it)

Ok - I am reading all these - just taking me a while to take on board what they are saying.

Thank you all very much for your support and advice.

Well I didn't get to the drs today as I was too busy fighting with ds getting ds ready for preschool. I also have no way of getting there atm (it is close to my parents and miles from me - and I hate their anthrosophic approach as well as other stuff). I have however been to the drs down the road (which dp is at) and picked up the registration forms for there.

I have realised I have wrong tax credits form so they are sending me new one and at least I have all info ready to just send it straight off when it arrives.

I have lost ds passport and birth certificate and can't do dr registration till I find them - but will start searching soon.

I also realised non of my major documents (passport driving licence etc) are in my home address - they are in my parents as they've always stopped me getting them changed. I am trying to get them sorted at mo. As a baby first step - but can't do passport as on holiday in couple of weeks and have lost driving licence.

I keep having to fight urge to bury head in sand atmo.

Need to discuss financial stuff with dp (who is lovely and tells me how wonderful I am 100 times a day ).

My dad is around - he is bullied to the point where he has given up on life. Ds is his lifeline. We aren't close for various reasons (mostly cos he used to smack us a lot when we were kids and I was scared of him).