Hello, I'll try to keep this as brief as I can and even then it'll be long. I've cried writing this so please no picking at my spelling and grammar errors. I'm dyslexic and not as articulate as I'd like to be.
I also want to say before you do read I'm going to mention DV/SA/Child abuse, so please don't read anymore if this heavy stuff will upset you.
deep breath
My mother is in many ways wonderful, not the most empathic person but I love her.
My upbringing was however awful from years of extreme DV from my father, she was literally his daily punchbag, he verbally/mentally/sexually abused her and I almost saw her die at his hands from being strangled. He was verbally very abusive to me, but also sexually at times. He also had a friend from the pub who would sexually abuse me up until I was about 5. They were all alcoholics and this man would create fights between them to take me to bed. The worst memory I have is him asking me to season a dinner my mother made him, I kept asking, "enough?" And he said he'd tell me when. Once the chips had been drowned in salt and vinegar he called my dad into the living room and explained I'd purposely destroyed his meal, my father started kicking and punching my poor mother in a frenzy, so this monster could look like a hero by taking me to bed.
He'd also start fights when I wasn't there, I believe this sick bastard enjoyed watching my poor mother be beaten. Once he laughed and said, "how embarrassing" to her when she had a broken cheekbone and nose. He died when I was still too young to disclose what he did, but weirdly he went on to have a daughter he named my name, creepy fuck.
After years of abuse I finally decided in my teens after a ferocious attack on me from my father I was leaving. I had seen so much violence, begged her to leave since I was able to talk, I just couldn't do it anymore.
Now this is where it becomes hard between mum and I. I had survivors guilt my beatings weren't as severe as hers etc, but also, she would gaslight me throughout childhood saying she had to stay because I needed a dad.
I'd pray for him to die. I'd fantasise about killing him. If my mother would try and sleep in my bed for safety with me he would drag her out and beat and rape her.
He'd spit at or on us both. But still she was adamant it was me who needed a dad. When I was in my preteens I found our PC was riddled with child abuse images, one in particular I still get flashbacks seeing. I remember snooping how it was on there and He'd specifically searched a phrase that would bring up CSA images.
He'd threaten to kill us. He'd kick the living fuck out of our poor lovely dog.
But my whole life I was told by my mother I was the reason she was not leaving.
Sadly, we even had places to go. She just wouldn't leave. I understand the fear, but she also didn't want to be without him. She still maintains they had good times. I just must have not been privy to those since every good time I can remember then turned to them drinking and mother getting beaten up or worse.
Once I left at 14 after years of unexplained hospital admissions, years of things such as being ND missed, years of being made to lie and gaslit etc, years of living in poverty whilst they drank and smoked excessively. Years of being made to look on the outside like I was simply this weird, stupid, withdrawn idiot, it took me until I had my first DC at 19 to even remotely recover.
I got a job and a home, my mother stayed with her parents who she frankly terrified with her moodiness and unpleasant behaviour and entitlement towards their home and food etc, she never paid a penny towards a bill.
During my early years of motherhood she was cruel to me, basically projecting I was a shit mum, telling me constantly "I was just behaving like a sister". I had a fucking mortgage, full time job, I paid for childcare, we had days out, we baked, cooked, played, we had clean and calm surroundings, my DS is the loveliest kid I've ever known. I worked my arse off to get us living in an area with outstanding schools, for a single mother who left school at 13, with ND and trauma, I did fucking good. Messed up along the way, got into debts etc, but my boy is the loveliest person I know. She Once told her friends, "if I didn't like how she was looking after DGS, I'd take him off her and she'd not see him again", I was there. I've never been hurt so badly, so you're telling me you'd remove my son because you don't like my parenting when you'd let random men from your abusive alcoholic boyfriend put your toddler to bed? OK mum. Thanks.
Recent years the trauma of her life with him has set in and she became so dependent on me, but in a cruel way. She'd piss all over my boundaries and cry hysterically they'd been put in place.
I'd taken on a role of carer for my DGM, her mother, who lived with us 24/7. This included toileting her, helping her dress, every meal/snack/drink for her.
She wasn't an easy woman but I loved her and she wasn't someone who belonged in a nursing home, she was too rude to people, truth be told.
During this time I also had 2 children under 3 and it was the first lockdown, my DH still worked most days as a keyworker.
The only time to myself I had in 7 days over 24 hours was a Saturday morning. DH wasn't at work, so he'd get up and sort breakfast for gran and our DC, allowing me to have some sleep, (I was still night feeding our youngest) or have a bath and just relax. My mother truly begrudged me this, now I see this reads as silly, but please understand we have a very odd relationship. Mother had DH's number obviously and her mother's, but instead would call me 7 plus times, as she felt I was taking the piss out of DH on a Saturday morning. If I didn't pick up she'd pop round and create murder until I was out of the bath and dressed.
This became so unfair that during one of her doctors appointments I attended with her I began to cry, saying I could do 6 and a half days a week, night or day, but i just wanted some time not to be making drinks or breakfast (I obviously would get up and take my gran the toilet and get her washed and dressed prior to going off for a soak and podcast, that wasn't ever an issue!) Anyway, her doctor said to her, "DM, your DD is caring for 3 DC and your DM, why on earth are you sabotaging the one break a week she gets? Why is it so upsetting for you that she has 2 hours of time to paint her nails?" And mother cried, "nobody would have given me this time!" And stormed out. I apologised to doctor and left, she rang me a day later to say, "oversharingnamechanged, you can take a horse to the lake, but you can't force it to drink". My DM also took away consent after this for me to discuss anything with her doctor again.
Up until my gran died, she hounded me on the weekend mornings, once she died I stopped giving a fuck and just didn't even bother. Of course once I stopped caring or wanting that time to myself, she never rang me.
My mother will cry nobody has ever done anything for her. Let me tell you this.
Her dinner service, cutlery, utensils, tea towels, drink canisters, microwave, kettle, toaster, sofa, curtains, TV, TV unit, sideboard, nest of tables, nice bedding, mattress, rugs, multiple cars, plants, picture frames and mirrors, I have bought for her, she's chosen, I've paid. Things such as towels etc too, not as birthday or Christmas gifts, just because I want to make her happy. I know I've been stupid, but please remember, when your formative years are badly ingrained images of your mother's face hanging off, you don't really ever want to see your dm upset or want for anything. She once cried at me in our local supermarket when she was out of work she had no money to eat, so I took her for a food shop, once there she cried like a toddler she didn't need "fucking food" and just wanted gin, tonic and cigarettes. She even threw out the trolley a loaf of bread I'd put in, saying at least get that so you can have toast, but she refused and said she'd rather a cheap bottle of wine instead.
I was so embarrassed I caved.
Don't get me wrong, when she's had money she's been more than generous to me also, truly she has.
After my grandmother died, I lost a baby, it was quite complicated and I required surgery. There was one day my friend took our DC out for us so DH and I could cry and just process the shit that had happened. Plus the surgery had been quite painful so we'd planned to just have a cuddle, have some lunch, be together on the rare few hours we had child free.
I rang her prior, to explain that we were spending a day to just grieve. So just text if there are any issues and I'd get back to her, but please no ringing.
So she showed up, I'd been crying heavily and was in my bed, she walked in, came into my room and I said, "please, not today, its just for us". So she went downstairs in a mood, made herself a cup of tea and started moaning about me to DH, saying how unwelcome I made her feel and how she'd lost a DGC and I was being selfish. Now DH does love her and he treats her so well and he wouldn't ever snap at her because of her past with my father, but even he struggled to keep his cool. She really just can't accept boundaries.
Anyway, fast forward and its last Xmas, she had been desperately wanting a particular breed of dog, we discussed in depth why a pensioner dog would be easier or at least a smaller breed. No, she had a tantrum and I caved, got her the large breed she wanted. I also bought her a massive crate to train this puppy with and tons of other things. She off the bat let this puppy just go wild, unfortunately never used the crate or training techniques etc, so she has an oversized dog that she cannot control. This is relevant later on.
So come Christmas last year, she fell out with me. She refused to come for Xmas and it absolutely destroyed me. I've cooked her Xmas Dinner since I was 18 and for my gran, so I really struggled but I also said after that, after asking her repeatedly to change her mind and be spoken to like shit, that I'd not be ever again putting myself in this position and from now on Xmas was mine and my dh and our DC. She texted me on boxing day, "hi love, can you send DH with some roasties pls?" No acknowledgement of what she'd done, just wanting food.
I was just broken.
A few months ago she said she was going to put her unruly dog in kennels so she could come here for this coming Christmas. I explained after last year, I'm not hosting again. We'd visit Xmas day if she wanted, I'd even make her dinner up and her usual Xmas hamper, but it wasn't going to be the "stay the week and let me spoil you" event. She cried and said she understood why I was saying this, but since then has simply ignored it by asking, "So are we having turkey this year or shall we change it?" So she hasn't fully accepted that I will not be hosting.
This seems so silly and I can only apologise if you've read this so far.
Now, I understandably don't ask for child care or really for much. However I had an appointment last week which required just DH and I, no DC. His family are far away and being summer hols, no friends had the time. Often our oldest DC can step in if it's a ten minute shop or something but it was going to be almost 3 hours and it's his holiday too.
Last time my DC went to my mums her dog playfully bit my DC and really scared him, we've never sent them again without either DH or I there. I asked her if she could mind my youngest DC for 3 hours tops, but specified that the muzzle on the dog wasn't negotiable. She agreed to keep DDog muzzled.
For what was only in the end just over 2 hours, it wasn't a problem, and the dog can still drink etc or alternatively go in her cage.
I do love her DDog, she's just large and untrained and very playfully snappy.
So DH picked up our DC, but the dog wasn't muzzled and had been snapping at DC's fingers. Again, as large as the DDog is, she's still a pup and it's not aggressive, but she does have food aggression and I've seen her properly snap. I'm not comfortable with DDog being unmuzzled around my small DC.
DC came home, they'd had a lovely day but the dog hurt his finger.
I texted DM thanking her for having the DC, told her they had a lovely time but they won't be coming again, as she'd said the muzzle would be kept on. I asked her for space as I knew I'd get text abuse, so she replied with her, "take care" which is code for I'm being exiled.
The next day after I'd had some space I rang her, told her a funny story involving DC, then said I wasn't being horrible with not sending the kids again without DH or I, anyway, she started screaming and swearing at me, and after everything, after ever last opportunity to not be awful to me. I just told her I want NC. She said fine.
And the guilt already, (she only has me, no friends etc) but she couldn't keep my DC safe. Not for less than 3 hours. She kept screaming "nothing fucking happened!", but I honestly don't think it was her choice to take that risk. She's said repeatedly she doesn't know about the dog snapping my DC's fingers, but that's proving surely she can't be paying enough attention to not have a muzzle on her dog?
Anyway I've blocked her from everything, she's been blocked off whatsapp for years, if I was online she'd call me, jokingly "oh you're online!" But I do have other people I talk to there and it was stopping me having friendships with others because I'd be too anxious to open a bloody message in case she called me. I have another novel in me about her behaviour towards me having friends, but if I've painted a picture for you here, you'll probably have guessed she doesn't like me having friendships. One of her favourite lines is, "if you paid the same attention to your DC as you do your friends" which is grossly unfair but has been something she's weaponised to make me feel guilty as a mum.
She has been cruel and grabby with her own no ex- friends and I'm deeply embarrassed by how she's treated them.
But now, I'm in hell with guilt and sadness. She doesn't have anyone but me.
I will mentally torture myself over this.
I also should add I'm due a baby in a month or so and she's been crying at me 24/7 daily over her awful life, I asked her a few months ago, (my pregnancy is very high risk for both baby and I) could she just kindly just let me have a bit of time to get through my scary pregnancy without making unnecessary (and it always is) unnecessary drama for me to sort.
It's always me being spoken to like shit, to then be told I'm abusive to her like my dad was, I bully her with my boundaries and it's unfair of me to ask for space from calls when she has nobody else.
Every therapist I've had has told me it's an unsustainable relationship, her doctors have, she was horrible to my grandmother. But yet to me she's my hero, the woman who dealt with so much but still worked several jobs and kept my clothes clean etc.
The lying, gaslighting, shouting at me, using me for money and anything else, it's just been my whole life.
But I really think the guilt of not checking she's okay is so crippling I might need more bloody counselling over it.
If you even read this, thank you. If you're NC with your own DM and can give me advice, thank you.
Another anxious apology for length on this post. This was as brief as I could make it and I've left out huge massive details.