I hate my mother. I cant take it anymore

[MinnieMude]

Hello ,
I really dont know where to begin.
I have always had a rubbish relationship with my mother, I have 3 younger brothers, it has always felt like she hates me, she was quite abusive towards me when I was young, I know I was no saint, and apparently I was a difficult child according to her. She has always had a seriously bad temper, if I did something 'naughty' as a child/teen I never got a mild smack like my brothers, she would slap me across the face, push my head against the wall, bang my chest, once when I was 7 or 8 she chased me (i cant even remember what Im did to deserve it) and when she caught me she grabbed me by the throat with her arm and tried strangling me, Mum and dad devorced, I have a great relationship with my dad, I used to tell him about her....She used to push my face into my food, and throw my food into my face, there are so many things....
Im 27 now with two girls and a husband, I havent spoken to her for 7 months after a row we had at my house, she was telling me I have problems, to which I replied and said I did because of her, I mentioned some of the things she used to do to me to her and she told me I was lying and I was making it all up, I was so so so upset, I was a mess, hysterical, and raised a fist to her and told her I never want to see her again, I never hit her, I wouldnt have, I was just so so angry with her telling me I was making the past up.
Im very very close to my brothers, but they refuse to get involved, I dont blame them...
I was on Facebook last night chatting to my brothers (he lives with my mother)..and he said, Oh mum says hi... Then I had a phone call from her, she was horrible on the phone, still telling me that I was making all the abuse she gave me up!
I dont want her to not lose contact with my dds and arranged for her to see my eldest before christmas, I thought I was doing the grown up thing, and I arranged it all, she told me on the phone, that when she dropped my DD off, my husband, who answered the door to her, was cold and took my daughter and closed the door, this wasnt true, I heard my DH, he was very pleasent and asked if everything went ok, and she was the one who left in a hurry....
She has told all of my family about our arguement and none of them speak to me, only say hi, we live in a small town, and I often see my family, but I can see that they feel awkward speaking to me....
Oh, and she never sent my DD a birthday card, she was 5 just after chrismas....
Im making my self ill, Im so angry and upset, ive taken to the bottle , im already on anti depressants,...My husband is a very good listener, but he never knows what to say.my husband works away all the time tho.
Is it me??....im such a mess, Im lost...I have no 'close friends' to talk to, I hate her, why is she like this to me, she is always on facebook saying how much she loves her 'boys' my brothers...
I wish she would vanish.

Sorry to read the sadness in your post

The people in life who should love and protect us can sometimes be so cruel. Unfortunately you cannot control your mother's behaviour; only your own.

Please don't drink with AD's, alcohol may numb the pain for a while but the problems are still the same the next day. Don't end up in a downward spiral.

You need to protect yourself from her abuse, she will not admit to any wrong doing so please don't be hard on yourself - don't play the game with her.

I am surprised that you allow her access to your dc's; be careful with this. If she capable of such venom when trying to turn other relatives against you, be prepared for her to perhaps give her "version" of events when they are older.

I would suggest some counselling and maybe even consider moving so that you are not so close to some relatives???

You will get past this; just don't play the game with her anymore.

Having a mother that treats you the way yours has is extrememly damaging. It damages your self-esteem, your trust in others, your relationships, everything. I would be willing to bet a fair amount of cash that the root cause of your being depressed is down to the way your mother abused you.

It's not you, it's her. Telling you that you're making it all up is normal behaviour for an abusive parent when they are confronted with what they have done.

I would agree with goodadvice about going for counselling - it helped me hugely with my mother ishoos!

If you want to check out the 'stately homes' threads on mumsnet, they are full of people like you and me who are trying to figure out there parents and the situations they find themselves in.

FWIW, I think your mother is unlikely to change, you may be faced with 'okaying' her behaviour to keep the peace, or cutting contact right down (difficult for you I know) or even completely.

Good luck and keep posting.

not normally one to peddle 'the book' but Toxic Parents would help you see that her behaviour is quite a common form of emotional abuse.

you would be wise to try to arrange counselling for yourself and try to focus on yourself and your life instead of dwelling on hers.

counselling will help you do that as it's very hard to break the cycle alone.

and don't let her see your kids. fuck what anyone thinks.

I agree with the other two posters and I just want to add that don't feel guilty about limiting (or cutting) your children's contact with this woman. I think its your duty to keep her away from them. It'S not a choice, it's out of your hands so to speak. If she showed remorse then that would be different.

My own mother denies all the abuse she dealt me (similar to yours), but then strangely sometimes does a mental backflip (like yours did) and said whatever she did was well-deserved, proving she does remember. So if the smacks and punches were apparently well-deserved I cannot let her near my children in case she decides they "deserve" abuse too.
She will pull any stunts she can with you children. SOrry to sound so negative. I'm not bitter, just sad, I suppose, and I want to use my experience to help other women. Your depression will get a lot better if you limit contact with your mother (as mine did).

cut contact - delete from facebook.

if possible move house

Hi, Minnie. I'm really sorry to hear about how vile your mother was to you, and that she continues to victimise you even now you're a mother yourself. It must be truly horrible for you to keep on going through this whenever you meet or speak. Tough on your brothers, too. Mine told me he always felt bad that he couldn't protect me - that's a harsh thing for a young boy to feel ...

It's great that your husband is supportive about this, though a shame he needs to be! Is he away for long periods? Any chance you could all move further away from your mother?

There are things you can do to blunt the effect she has on you. Not alcohol, by the way! You really do need to put a hard limit on that, before it gets a hold of you and makes things worse. You can learn techniques to make yourself feel neutral around her, no matter what she says (I know! It's great!!) and, if you can manage to get yourself a qualified counsellor/therapist, you can get working to fix any emotional damage she may have left you with.

You might want to take a look at these books:
Toxic Parents by Susan Forward - the classic text
When You & Your Mother Can't be Friends by Victoria Secunda - helping you deal with it
Born To Win by Muriel James - control your communications
Guided Mindfulness Meditation (Audiobook) - increase your calmness & emotional strength

If you feel like venting about your childhood and related issues, the perfect thread is right here in this forum - Stately Homes

Take care. Good luck.

i agree that in a way it's out of your hands.

similarly, when i recently brought up childhood abuse, my mother denied to everyone in the family that i had told her what had happened (happend at 10 and told her in early teens), at the time she told me i was making it up and i was ordered never to mention it again.

well i mentioned it again.

and she not only denied that my dad could possibly have done any of the things i alleged, she also denied that i told her in the first place!

everyone has believed her it seems, probably because it's easier for them to stay on the sidelines and not have to get their hands dirty.

we had a private conversation not long before i stopped seeing her and when the subject of my dad's inappropriate behaviour came up she said- 'well what do you want me to do... leave him?' as if that would be asking too much.

crazy. i know she knows, she knows i know but on it goes.. the charade.

your mother is keeping her own guilt at arms length by denying you any justice or acknowledgement... in admitting the abuse, she'd have to confront her behaviour and i doubt she could handle it.

the only way to move forward is to sidestep her and her silent allies. your brothers are complicit in her abuse and she knows it. she gets her strength from her position in the family- they are letting her get away with this behaviour. that's the part they play in this sick drama. be aware of that and look after yourself and your own.

If your mother beat you during your childhood and has shown no remorse, please do not send your small children to stay with her without you or your husband supervising. They're not safe with her.

She doesn´t deserve to see you or your children imo.

I think it's time to stop dwelling on your mother and live your life without her, and if need be your brothers. if you have started drinking heavily get help for this. Don't use your mother as an excuse for drinking or depression. As an adult you are now in control of what you drink and how much you think about your mother and contact her.
Stop the drinking, disengage from your mum totally, find supportive people and stop going over your childhood. See a cognitive therapist if you can't let go.
It sounds like you had an unpleasant childhood but you don't have to let her ruin your adult life by becoming a depressed alcoholic.
Stop dwelling on her.

No to the word unpleasant, I think that that word actually downplays what has happened. MinnieMude's childhood was an abusive one and this poor child now woman (and survivor of childhood abuse) was her Mother's scapegoat for all her ills. Minnie still carries around all the effects of this abuse to this day. She will have to go over her childhood with a therapist to begin to counter the effects of this now; it cannot be solved just by solely disengaging from the toxic mother.

I would agree with all the earlier responses; there should be no further contact between you and her and this lady should certainly not be seeing her grandchildren under any circumstances. You are not responsible for her emotionally damaged life and it is not your fault that this happened to you. The two people who were supposed to protect you let you down abjectly. I would not entirely let your Dad off the hook either because he seemingly knew what was going on. He also played a role within that abusive and dysfunctional family unit at the time.

Minnie - do read the books that were recommended to you and find a good counsellor to work with. Counsellors though are like shoes, you need to find one that fits. BACP have a list of counsellors and they will not charge the earth. Also NHS counselling has a very long waiting list, you need to start talking asap.

Thank you everyone. I would love to move, if only that was is easier said than done,
I am finding the Stately Homes Thread very useful, thank you.

What upsets me also is that she works with girls my age and younger in a beauty salon, and she spends all her time with them, and I have noticed on Facebook that they all call her their second Mum, and she goes out for meals and out for drinks, all the time with them, not for work do's but they are her best friends, and they go over her house on the weekends, Im not jealous, well, maybe I dont know, but why was she never like this with me,...When I had my 2nd DD, she never came over to give me a hand when DH worked away, but if I popped to the shops to get milk or whatever I would see her having coffees with the young girls from her work, shes 50 and she hangs around with girls that are around the age of 19 - 25. Why was she never like this with me? If only couselling wasnt so expensive....She even logged into my brothers Facebook (ive blocked her) and left a public message telling me to 'be a big girl' this was after the phone call, wtf is that suppose to mean?

My mother used me as a slave when I was young. I was the eldest of 5 children. She is very obese and was unable to very much physically, I developed appendicitus one day and spent the whole day in bed writhing in agony, when she came home about 5 I got slapped for not doing any cleaning, I was about 11 or 12 at the time.

There are so many things she used to do, tried to split me and my husband up when we first met, threatened to tell him I was seeing someone else (he was in the army at the time and came down on the weekends) I have had hell with her.

I cannot bring myself to be affectionate towards her any more and am just numb, she sees my DD as she is the only grandchild.

I go down to see her out of duty now and have no feeling for her whatsoever, I concentrate on my husband and daughter as they have always loved me.

Either get some counselling or just shut her out, try not to get emotianally involved. Hard I know but they never change.

Minnie, I feel so sorry for you as I can understand your pain.

My biological mother was exactly like yours, best friends of her young colleagues of the beauty salon she worked. The truth is she appears to be their second Mum but she is not, she is a narcissist that is feeding of them.

She has never been your mum or your parent as she never acted like one. There is a huge difference between a mother and a mum, I am sure you do understand as you have kids yourself.

It is she who has a problem and she has to take responsibility for her issues but I think she will never do this since she is a narcissist.

There is counselling available on the NHS, please visit your GP to enquire about this.

I just get irritable now if my mother phones or texts me. Shame is that she has got weaker due to illness over time and is harmless now but the damage is done so to speak.

If you mother is still hurting you then just try to shut her out.

Rejection is hurtful for anyone but someone like her who keeps hurting you is only going to make you worse in the longrun.

I know this may sound rather childish, But I really want to hurt her emotionally??, i know this is erratic, but she seems so happy all the time, I even bumped into her the other day and the first thing she said my coat looked like something my granmother would wear??...she will never say anything nice to me...it seems she is completely not bothered that im very upset, I just want to say something that will hit a nerve with her, maybe make her realise how upset i am...my own mother bullies me...I cant make friends because im insecure..I was bullied in school, when I told her she said I was over exaggerating, I wanted to move form to be with a close friend and she refused to take the matter further,
Im sorry Im going on and on, but I really dont have anyone to talk to, .

Minnie, she is not happy. Nasty behaviour always comes from fear, though the fear may be deeply buried.

Please do read some of the books - it helps just to know you aren't alone and you're not "wrong"!

Of course you deserve friends, and to be loved & respected. Posting here was probably your first step towards a better life for you - keep taking small steps, you're worth an effort.

Minnie, I just also wanted to express some empathy. My mum was very abusive to me as a child, doing similar things that your mum did and beyond. I never confront her about it unless she has one of her periodic screaming fits at me down the phone, but am amazed that when she is well (she is bipolar) she aks me if I think she was a good, loving mother.
Until my children were born I just put up with it, but since they were born my anger at her has grown immensely. I can't imagine how anyone could do such things to their own children if they loved them as much as I love mine. However, like you I have tried to keep things pleasant for the "sake" of my children. They see her and adore her (she gives them unrestricted access to both chocolate and television!). She has never ever been with them the way she was with me, and if I ever felt she was getting close to it they would not see her.
We did have a huge bust-up like you, but TBH I found the fact that we were "estranged" meant that I had to deal with the emotional fall-out of that. I felt guilty/angry/frustrated all of the time. So I did a slightly odd thing - I phoned and asked if she wanted to come to DD's school play. Now we are "talking", but all that means is that we are civil to each other's face and I don't have to think about her/deal with all the emotional crap the rest of the time.
And (and this is hard for other people to understand, but perhaps you might) I just look forward to the day she is no longer around at all.
Counselling is a fantastic idea, but might be worth thinking about "reconciling" on the surface only, removing her from facebook, and having things on your terms (ie talk on the telephone when you want to etc etc).

MinnieMude im so so sorry for everything youve suffered at tha hands of your mother.
Its perfectly understandable that you are hurt, and confused by her actions , her "mothering" of younger work mates ect.
Of course you would want to hurt her emotionally, in retaliation(not that you would of course) . Its sort of wishing she would understand what it feels like ,realise whats she`s done , stop and appoligies.
Even if you could hurt her, she will never admit what she has done!.
Not to make it worse , but you were probably an easy victim for the bullies at school.Caused by being bullied by your mother. She has a lot to answer for.
The best "revenge" you could have is to enjoy life with your lovely , supportive DH and your beautiful children, without her.
You already have the wonderful loving family you have always wanted and needed.

Clemmete , omg , i actually think about when my mother is no longer around too (well , both parents actually).
Good point about being (sort of) accepting of the situation , until your own kids were born. You really dont understand how wrong it all was untill you see your own little kids.Never in a million years will i understand.

oh, thank you clemette and drloves8.......i just cant understand how a mother would want to be so cruel an horrid to their own flesh and blood, I love my kids so much, I wouldnt even spank them if they were a little naughty, I love them and I wouldnt lay a finger on them, Why would a person like my mother be so vicious towards me...why does she hate me so much, ....im not ugly, im not unpleasent to people, I have respect for everyone, why does she hate me so much... im such a mess

It's not you. It's her. She picked you for no reason, to dump all her own insecurities, worries, anger and frustrations on. If she were to try and explain why you, she'd come out with something that makes no sense (my mum was jealous of me - as soon as I was born!) But it makes "a kind of sense" to her so there is no point arguing with it, iyswim.

It's horribly unfair and totally unreasonable. It's awful that people's lives are blighted by this kind of thing: the victimisation of children
It's horrid, too, that your dad didn't protect you.
It is very, very hard, Minnie. You have every right to be angry. Your childhood was spoiled, and you didn't get the nurturing, supportive upbringing that every child deserves. What she did was horrible. Feel angry!!

You can improve things for yourself, though. Really, you can. Talk about it, let your feelings out, keep a diary if it helps. Read the books. Find a counsellor. Be kind to yourself.

Wishing you well.

ps: I was thrilled when my dad died

Minnie, she is a mess. The best thing you can do to get revenge is to bring your children up in a loving, supportive environment so they will never feel about you the way you feel about her.
If you think about it logically, there are too many victims of abusive parenting for it to be our own fault.
The fact that you are a nice, pleasant, respectful person is a credit to your strength of character - she could have made you horrible as well. She failed. When my mum is manic she admits that she wanted me to be like her (argumentative, a drinker, bitchy about all people, revelling in her lack of education, hating all men, except her precious son). The fact that I am happily married, successful and have genuine friends makes her even more angry towards me. Tough. I have what I have despite her and she can't take it away from me. You have what you have in spite of her and she can't stand it, but that's tough to her too.

my mum was always threatened by my apparent confidence (from the age of about 2 )
my confidence reminded her of my father, who comes from a very outspoken call-a-spade-a-spade kinda family. the abuse i suffered was nowhere near what you had, and i'm really sorry you had to deal with such horrible nasty abuse and hate from the one person who should have treated you with unconditional love and kindness.
she was always lovely towards dc, and still can be. but history is repeating in the sense that she finds his confidence and ability to see reason a threat to her manipulative ways and can be quite out of order to him. she wouldn't dare lay a finger on him, she knows full well i would batter her. but she has tries to be devious and manipulative with him, it doesnt work as ive brought him up to be the exact opposite and she resents that. please be careful with your dcs, is what i was trying to say in a roundabout way (i lose my english skills when talking about her!)
and please seek out counselling. getting counselling was one of the biggest and best things i ever did for myself. i was lucky to have a counsellor who nudged me (quite firmly) towards unravelling all the bullshit and abuse. this has been fundamental for me. i no longer get distraught and hurt, and lose control. i take the piss out of any attempt to bullshit me, she doesnt get very far.
and with other family members it has helped as i no longer need to seek their support, i dont need it, her behaviour and attitude is her problem, not mine. all i asked of my brother was for him to acknowledge that although our mother is the same person we both had a different mother (in the way that we were treated), and he did accept that.
after all the crpa ive had from her over the years, i am no longer affected by her problems. i now have real confidence, which pisses her off no end
sorry for the ramble, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, but you need to see her for the surprisingly powerless, insecure, inadequate person that she is.