my mom is nuts, help?

[sierra22]

alright, here is my dilema it may be too familiar and boring to hold your attention but i need to let it out:

 

i did a search on psychologically abusive parents and found this site so i decided to post my problem. im 16 year old male, and im turning 17 in 9 days. my sister just turned 20. my mom was always a great mom when my parents were together, we had kind of an ideal family. but my dad got into alcohol very heavily and had relations with other women while my parents were still married (according to my mom at least, but my dad did come home at 4 a.m. many nights so i believe this to be true). they began to fight a lot over this, my mom wanted to hold the relationship together but my dad just wanted freedom from her. so he finally decided to get a divorce after about 2 years of pretending to be happy at work functions and christmas parties. that was when i was about 10.

since then my life has been pretty hellish with my mom. my sister and i think she has bi-polar disease because she has constant mood swings and she can be very violent. she is constantly messing with my mind and recently i've seen the consequences of this--how it is making me mentally unstable. for instance, my sister and i were overweight about 2-3 years after my parents seperation. i think it was caused by our overeating to compensate for depression. our mom would always tell us how fat we were and we needed to get off our asses and do something. after a while of hearing this, we would begin to work out/ try to lose weight. then when my sister began to see results, my mom began to tell her "You have gone crazy. I think it's because you are starving yourself and lack of food". im just paraphrasing that, she would say it while she would be drunk and on a rampage so it was a lot more violent than that. but thats just the way she would think, nothing ever pleased her. i could go on a lot more, but i can already see this post is exceeding the attention span of many, including myself so ill get to the point.

 

i honestly think my mom has some severe OCD because if a dish is left in the sink overnight or something of that nature, she really gets violent and yells a whole lot. so just tonight her and i had a 'fight' because i left the george forman grill on the counter for like 1 hour after i cooked some dinner. so she began to yell at me how i never clean anything up. i told her ok i would clean after i went to the bathroom to take a leak. and while i was in there i could hear here calling me a "mother ****er" and stuff and i said ' i love you too'. then she got really mad and that's when i snapped, which has happened sporadically in recent months. i yell over her so she cant be heard and so i can actually get my point across. i told her i like it when she is away from home because then i dont have to put up with her. i let out a lot of my feelings towards her and it obviously upsetted her. she then said 'i get your point im a bad mother' and i wanted to tell her only when she goes crazy over the smallest things but i thought it would come out the wrong way so i said nothing.

its been about 4 hours since we have spoken, the last thing that was said was when she was going out to smoke she said that i make her crazy and slammed the door. i opened up the door and said ' im not the reason you're crazy' and closed it. so that's pretty much it. dunno if we will talk but i can't imagine her not speaking to me on my birthday because she still tries to retain the role of a good mother when she doesn't have the violent mood swings.

 

any advice on how to handle this situation? oh yeah, she tried to kick me out of the house to move in with my dad. i wouldnt give her his number though and she kind of gave up on that.

 

my dad isnt a bad father and i would rather live with him but currently he's living with my grandfather because of some current DUI charges against him. so he needs money for a lawyer.

 

 

theres also another thing i want to say but i think the post is too long already so if theres good feedback ill post it later ......thanks for taking the time to read this

[d'Arthez]

I am not certain what you are asking, to be honest. Yes your mom's behavior does not come across as normal. And yes, some of the behaviors you describe suggest your mom may be suffering from a serious psychological disorder. Yet the question is, does she see it that way, and does she want to address these issues? I doubt it can be forced on her . And to be honest I see little indication to suggest that your mom to sees it that way.

 

Perhaps she has a hard time with dealing with the stress since the divorce. Making her more sensitive and overreactive to setbacks, and the slightest annyoances. Which may result in your mom giving a lot of negative feedback to her children, and in inconstructive ways. And but little positive feedback.

 

As long as that is the case, the idea of moving out is a good one for your own mental health. And then you need to look at the options, and decide if they seem better to you than the current situation. And don't forget you are a minor, which may bring a lot of legal complications (I am no expert on that though).

 

Has your father worked on his (assumed) alcohol problem? How often do you see him?

[sierra22]

yeah my dad had a DUI and now hes in AA and other counseling programs and he has been sober for a good 5 months now. and im not sure if im asking anything or not, i may have just tried to make my post sound like a question but really i just needed to let it off my chest because what she does really gets to me. i see my dad twice a week, sometimes less now since of my job. it schedules me on the weekday that we used to see each other, so we end up only seeing each other on saturday or sunday now.

 

and in my moms mind, nothing she does is wrong. what she does is take her stress out on me. whenever im not at school or work im at home, i very very rarely spend time with friends. and my sister is a full time student and works full time so she is rarely home. so my mom takes all of her job stress out on me, and now her mom has cancer which is also apparently my fault. and she also always tells me that im just like my dad, a 'loser', and i treat her exactly the way my dad did.

[a4a]

Sierra,

 

This sounds way way too familiar to me.

 

You are quite lucky that you realize where this is coming from and to realize it is not your fault.

 

This will have an effect on the rest of your life. Use your head now and hold out and ignore as much as you can.

 

Do not let this push you into making poor decisions that will effect you for the rest of your life. Use your energy to make your life the best it can be and learn not to repeat the cycle of your mothers behavior. Start working for your future now. Make plans to get yourself into a stable position so you can be free of this.

 

You cannot blame your mother for this..... it is a waste of time. Instead work towards making your dreams and desires into reality.

 

a4a

[ReluctantRomeo]

You need to talk to someone outside the family. Soon. A school counsellor, a family therapist or whatever.

 

Although in some ways your mum's behaviour is understandable, in other ways it is quite selfish. Whatever, it risks screwing you up.

 

Maintaining your own psychological equilibrium should be your main priority right now. External professional help is probably the best way to achieve this.

[Clair]

The only way is to move out, as soon as possible while you are still mentally healthy. If not, you will be messed up for the rest of your life. This is what happened with me and my two brothers.