Mommy Dearest

[blind_otter]

I need to get this off my chest before I can work well again today.

 

Many of you know that my relationship with my Mother is chilly at best. She was physically abusive when I was younger, and when I grew up we had a battle of wills. I won, I guess. But it was a pyrrhic victory. I suffered great losses in order to win against her.

 

I had lunch with her. It was awful. It's so icy and polite. Like two work colleagues who dislike each other but have to associate with one another. I tried to kiss her on the cheek when I was leaving and she turned her face away. It hurts, even now. I convince myself that I don't want anything from her. That I don't need her approval and I won't beg for her to love me anymore. She loves me as best she can, and it's sad that this is the best she can do.

 

I won't try to kiss her again. I won't subject myself to her rejection any more. As usual, I will reject her FIRST. Before she can hurt me any more.

 

She doesn't know anything about me or my life any more, and it kills her because she used to have control over every single thing I did, even the clothes I wore. And I know I do this on purpose, I reject her to hurt her. It's retribution, and it's childish. I do it on purpose to make her feel bad because she can't show me love in any way but through money.

 

She told me that she disowned me and wrote me out of the will. I told her it's her money and she can do what she wants and I don't care about her money. That I'll still come see Dad, and hang out with my sisters, and even her. That her money isn't and never was what I wanted.

 

Her reaction was to get angry with me. She thinks I say this to hurt her. But I don't want her money. In her head this translates into "I don't want YOU."

 

But there's nothing I can do. I mean in a way, I puposefully reacted calmly, the way I did, to infuriate her. I was insulted that she wrote me out of the will. Not because I want her money -- but because she did it out of spite, and f***ing hell. She beat ME with a broomstick. She punched ME in the face. I never raised a hand to defend myself.

 

I will never understand how she manages to make me feel guilty for what she does. It's her life, her choice. I have clear consequences in place for her. When she acts like a child, I distance myself, then she has more temper tantrums and does even CRAZIER stuff to piss me off, and I distance myself further.

 

Why can't she realize that eventually, I won't even be around to be her whipping boy any more? Why can't she see that she is driving me away?

 

And what can I do besides distance myself from her? It hurts my whole family - the silent battle of wills between my mother and I. Why does everything have to be about a power struggle?

[lindya]

She told me that she disowned me and wrote me out of the will. I told her it's her money and she can do what she wants and I don't care about her money. That I'll still come see Dad, and hang out with my sisters, and even her. That her money isn't and never was what I wanted.

 

Her reaction was to get angry with me. She thinks I say this to hurt her. But I don't want her money. In her head this translates into "I don't want YOU."

 

But there's nothing I can do. I mean in a way, I puposefully reacted calmly, the way I did, to infuriate her. I was insulted that she wrote me out of the will. Not because I want her money -- but because she did it out of spite, and f***ing hell. She beat ME with a broomstick. She punched ME in the face. I never raised a hand to defend myself.

 

I will never understand how she manages to make me feel guilty for what she does. It's her life, her choice. I have clear consequences in place for her. When she acts like a child, I distance myself, then she has more temper tantrums and does even CRAZIER stuff to piss me off, and I distance myself further.

 

Why can't she realize that eventually, I won't even be around to be her whipping boy any more? Why can't she see that she is driving me away?

 

And what can I do besides distance myself from her? It hurts my whole family - the silent battle of wills between my mother and I. Why does everything have to be about a power struggle?

 

It totally does sound like a power struggle. Particularly given the frustration from her that the threat to write you out of her will didn't have the effect she was hoping for. You wonder, though, just what effect she was looking for. Have you asked her why she did that? It just horrifies me how people can't simply sit down and tell you they're upset; they have to make these dramatic and hurtful gestures in order to make whatever point it is they're trying to make.

[blind_otter]

It is appalling. Worse is when I catch myself reacting like her, to other people. The other day I was upset with someone and I had this impulse to call them and say exactly what I knew would make them feel absolutely low. I didn't, remembering how my Mother does this, but it sickens me that the impulse even occurred to me.

 

I remember when I was quite young -- too young to be in school -- my mother would do things like have a sit down b!tch session with my older sisters about me, knowing I was in earshot. She would purposefully raise her voice when she was saying anything scathing about me, her 4 year old daughter. Like I was even old enough to understand what her tactic was, exactly. She acts like a teenager sometimes. Well, often.

 

I used to ask her why she did the things she does. I don't any more. Part of the distancing tactic -- I figure, if I ask her at all it will on some level validate her behavior in her head.

 

I wish I could sit down and explain to her exactly why I avoid her all the time. Honestly at this point I lie to her all the time. Lies flow out of my mouth like breath when I speak to her. I lie to make her feel better. To not have to deal with the s***storms. To humor her, basically.

 

The whole will thing is now becoming funny to me. You know how I deal with stuff, mostly I get depressed and then make it into a big joke. It's like a sitcom. She tries to get a rise out of me from cutting me off, I giggle and say, suit yourself.

 

She doesn't understand the concept of leisure travel. AFAIK, she believes one should toil endlessly until they die.

 

Whatever tickles your pickle, I suppose.

[blind_otter]

Sometimes I wonder if the fact that I reject her so much reflects somehow in some emotional distance I have within myself and my inability to feel strong positive emotions.

[lindya]

Sometimes I wonder if the fact that I reject her so much reflects somehow in some emotional distance I have within myself and my inability to feel strong positive emotions.

 

Did you study object relations theory at Uni? It just seems incredibly relevant to your situation.

[blind_otter]

I barely remember. Something about Freud. Wikipeding currently.

[blind_otter]

Well that explains a lot. Anna Freud vs. Melanie Klien, deathmatch 1905. Or whatever.

 

ego-self exists only in relation to other objects, which may be external or internal. The internal objects are internalized versions of external objects, primarily formed from early interactions with the parents. There are three fundamental "affects" that can exist between the self and the other - attachment, frustration, and rejection. These affects are universal emotional states that are major building blocks of the personality.

 

you may be onto something, lovely. thanks for the tip. I shall be to the bookstore later.

[blind_otter]

This is very interesting. Especially in light of Lonestar's thread about Trauma Bonding and stockholm syndrome.

 

In a way, the torture victim's own body is rendered his worse enemy. It is corporeal agony that compels the sufferer to mutate, his identity to fragment, his ideals and principles to crumble. The body becomes an accomplice of the tormentor, an uninterruptible channel of communication, a treasonous, poisoned territory.

 

A sense of cohesive self-identity depends crucially on the familiar and the continuous. By attacking both one's biological body and one's "social body", the victim's psyche is strained to the point of dissociation.

[lindya]

Another book which you've maybe read - though it's years old now - is "Families and how to survive them." A surprise pairing of John Cleese and Robyn Skinner - and though it's light reading, it's good with plenty of humour. Consists mainly of dialogues between Cleese and Skinner. Here's a review I found

 

As a psychologist I would say that this definitely is one of the best book on family relationships and child social development for non-professionals. Although the book is in a format of self-help easy-read, the content is very well well-grounded in author's professional experience and scientific ideas. The authors using the dialogue between experiences psychotherapist and an layperson explain how families influence children and what problems might arise and how to avoid them. While reading, I got several exciting insights about my own life

 

I know you've a professional background in psychology, so in some ways it would be going over old ground...but perhaps the light context of it will make it easier for you to read in "you" mode rather than in detached psychologist mode.

[blind_otter]

Thanks much for the recomendation. I love John Cleese anyways.

 

There is some infor regarding borderline personality disorder, which I was once diagnosed with. Among many things. Later I had a therapist who scrapped all the various things I was diagnosed with (from clinical depression, to bipolar mood disorder, to borderline personality disoder, general anxiety disoder, once I got a narcissistic P.D. from a therapist I didn't get along with who thought I was arrogant because I would argue with her) - and she said that I just have PTSD, which can mimic all those issues.

 

Meh. Thanks for the help, lind. I needed someone to reflect back to me for clarity.

[lindya]

Thanks much for the recomendation. I love John Cleese anyways.

 

There is some infor regarding borderline personality disorder, which I was once diagnosed with. Among many things. Later I had a therapist who scrapped all the various things I was diagnosed with (from clinical depression, to bipolar mood disorder, to borderline personality disoder, general anxiety disoder, once I got a narcissistic P.D. from a therapist I didn't get along with who thought I was arrogant because I would argue with her) - and she said that I just have PTSD, which can mimic all those issues.

 

Meh. Thanks for the help, lind. I needed someone to reflect back to me for clarity.

 

You're welcome. It's all good practice for when we open our special recovery centre/health spa for the lovelorn.

 

Re the therapist who diagnosed narcissism because you challenged her opinions....WTF do therapists expect? It's human nature to challenge another person's assessment of you....especially if you have relevant knowledge.

[blind_otter]

I guess it is just an impossible thing - I want a family. I have no idea what that actually means. But I still want one.

 

She was a quack, anyways. I caught her doodling an elephant once while she was encouraging me to re-experience the trauma of my first rape. Thanks a pants full. That really helped with the trust issues.

[Guest]

It is hard, when dealing with parents, to see them objectively. But were this to have been an LS posters rather than your mother, you would immediately recognize that she has issues of her own. Were she a stranger, you could remain detached and understand that she probably needs a hefty dose of therapy herself in order to relate well. It's just the family connection that makes it so much harder to take.

 

In the best of all possible worlds, you would learn to detach to the point where you could regard her with as much objectivity as you do other mortals. Aim for that point.

 

It's hard accepting that one will never have the Norman Rockwell image family. One of the biggest (and most wretched) chores of adulthood; accepting that life will not go the way you want it to.

[blind_otter]

Guest - thank you. Very much.

 

I've been irritable and mildly bummed since my encounter yesterday. Instead of projecting onto others, my common coping mechanism, I turned inward and examined not only how she acts towards me, but how I react, and my place in my family dynamic.

 

I was reading up on the Object Relations Theory and it was quite interesting. I can easily compartmentalize my feelings. I think from a young age I felt extremely contradictory emotions for mother. She is a profoundly sad person.

 

The adult part of me understands her and has compassion. There is still a big part of me that's angry from long ago because I know she is not capable of giving the loving tenderness and security that children need/want. My Dad is great, but he was so old when I was born, he was in his 50s. Tired. More like an emotionally distant and kindly grandfather.

 

Dad is so sick, but he was so happy to see me yesterday. I love him and I'll continue to visit and be around him. It's just hard. They don't know that it takes days for me to get back to a point where I feel OK about my family. They just think I avoid them and have no idea why.

 

My older sisters are still subsumed by the relational patterns of our family. They are passive and accepting and my family tends to attack me primarly when I do things they don't understand/believe in.

[Mz. Pixie]

Bot-

 

Yeah, it's painful. You're right- she did that to try to get a reaction out of you. She may or may not be telling you the truth- who knows?? She definitely wanted attention and kept picking until she hit a sore spot.

 

Good for you for acting like it didn't bother you to be treated like that.

 

You know she's not right in the head, but it is still hard to overlook it when they do things like this.

 

I'd create a little distance there, for a bit. If she contacted me I'd be pleasant but otherwise I'd try to keep some space until she began to act a bit more nicely. Sooner or later she'll probably contact you.

 

By the way, in no way do I think you're borderline. You just have what they call "fleas" from the PTSD and dealing with your wacko mom.

 

Another thing, like with my mom- I never let her give me anything because it always came with a huge emotional price. Say your mom left you in the will can't you just hear her after her death, "Ungrateful girl, and I left her all that money too"

[blind_otter]

Another thing, like with my mom- I never let her give me anything because it always came with a huge emotional price. Say your mom left you in the will can't you just hear her after her death, "Ungrateful girl, and I left her all that money too"

 

I can imagine the clause in the will:

 

$250,000 to my youngest daughter, paid in full after 25 years of being haunted by my evil harpy of a ghost.

 

I cannot for the life of me understand how my older sisters exist under her thumb. I know one of them has a greedy H who is waiting for my Dad to die b/c he wants $$ from my folks. The other one is as flaccid as a limp weiner. She just rolls over and bares her belly whenever my Mother starts acting up.

 

And I get to be the bad guy. I know my role. I help the rest of my family pull together in unity over me being "the bad guy who hurts Mom's feelings".

 

I can be that, though.

[brightskies]

Many of you know that my relationship with my Mother is chilly at best. She was physically abusive when I was younger, and when I grew up we had a battle of wills. I won, I guess. But it was a pyrrhic victory. I suffered great losses in order to win against her.

 

She doesn't know anything about me or my life any more, and it kills her because she used to have control over every single thing I did, even the clothes I wore. And I know I do this on purpose, I reject her to hurt her. It's retribution, and it's childish. I do it on purpose to make her feel bad because she can't show me love in any way but through money.

 

But there's nothing I can do. I mean in a way, I puposefully reacted calmly, the way I did, to infuriate her. I was insulted that she wrote me out of the will. Not because I want her money -- but because she did it out of spite, and f***ing hell. She beat ME with a broomstick. She punched ME in the face. I never raised a hand to defend myself.

 

Otter,

 

From your other threads I knew that you had an abusive childhood, but I didn't know to what extent until now. You were the youngest of three kids? Did your other sisters go through the same kind of abuse? It seems like your mother singled you out. Why? You're incredibly strong to survive all that. To some extent I can relate a bit, as I had trouble with my mother growing up, but it was more verbal/mental/emotional.

 

To this day I still don't understand my mom, but somehow, lately, I feel a bit more compassion vs. constant anger and hatred. Therapy helped a bit. And the fact that I live far away now. She's still emotionally distant and difficult, but she doesn't frighten me the same way she did when I was small. And like your mother, mine could only show me affection through buying things or money.

 

Where were your sisters when this was happening? And I know that your father was often ill when your were young, was he indisposed at the time this was going on? It just seems like you had no one to turn to. So much senseless pain inflicted on you likely because your mother had issues of her own that she didn't work through. Was anyone else in the family aware of what was going on?

 

Sometimes, I wonder how parenting isn't a licensed/certified profession that requires long years of study, practice, and difficult testing, like being a doctor or an architect. It's an incredibly difficult, serious "job." And the consequences of healthy or unhealthy parenting are so lasting and far-reaching.

[climbergirl]

It is appalling. Worse is when I catch myself reacting like her, to other people. The other day I was upset with someone and I had this impulse to call them and say exactly what I knew would make them feel absolutely low. I didn't, remembering how my Mother does this, but it sickens me that the impulse even occurred to me.

 

I remember when I was quite young -- too young to be in school -- my mother would do things like have a sit down b!tch session with my older sisters about me, knowing I was in earshot. She would purposefully raise her voice when she was saying anything scathing about me, her 4 year old daughter. Like I was even old enough to understand what her tactic was, exactly. She acts like a teenager sometimes. Well, often.

 

I used to ask her why she did the things she does. I don't any more. Part of the distancing tactic -- I figure, if I ask her at all it will on some level validate her behavior in her head.

 

I wish I could sit down and explain to her exactly why I avoid her all the time. Honestly at this point I lie to her all the time. Lies flow out of my mouth like breath when I speak to her. I lie to make her feel better. To not have to deal with the s***storms. To humor her, basically.

 

The whole will thing is now becoming funny to me. You know how I deal with stuff, mostly I get depressed and then make it into a big joke. It's like a sitcom. She tries to get a rise out of me from cutting me off, I giggle and say, suit yourself.

 

She doesn't understand the concept of leisure travel. AFAIK, she believes one should toil endlessly until they die.

 

Whatever tickles your pickle, I suppose.

 

I was just going to read your post, hopefully to give me some sort of insight about my relationship with my mother. But the part I bold typed really stuck with me. My mother use to beat me with a hot wheels track, hit me in the face, call me names, blahblahblah etc........but nothing compared to an incident quite like yours where she and my sister took verbal 'pot shots' at me (although, unlike my mother, my sister felt guilty years later). It seemed like that episode really put me outside the family box. Years later in counselling.....that was the one thing that made me cry uncontrollably.

 

Yes, lies feel better because I realized that no 'negotiation' will fly with her. I resolve it by saying to myself that she CAN'T admit because it would be way too painful to own up. And I've become a way better mother because of the mistreatment. Yes, that is how I resolved it. But it still hurts. I get jealous when I see mothers/daughters together in a 'normal/healthy' way. And sometimes makes me question what I did to not deserve that unconditional love that they receive but I don't.

 

Your post upset me.......... I wish I had an answer..., but I've realized I/you can't change them or how they feel about us. And I wish I could say that it changes as we get older (I'm 37) and it does to some degree, but probably not to the extent that we want/need......We do the best that we can with what is dealt to us......and (hopefully)in a positive way.

 

I'm sorry B_O--I know I haven't been any help. But I truly empathize.

[tinktronik]

I'm sorry BO , I know what this is like .To be honest the best descision I made for myself was to scrap my family dynamic and find myself outside of that dynamic.

It still disturbes me whenever I hear from my mother , I always wonder , "wow ,what picture of me she must carry around in her head " Its not me shes picturing in there at all.It almost scares me , to be honest. I find that I begin to obsess about her still picturing that other me that lives in her head , it saddens me.It makes me want to rage at her "look at me! LOOK AT ME!, look at all I've achieved ! I'm not who you think I am, I'm not how you charecterize me, Why can't you see?"

I realize that she waits around for that rage she created so that she can point her finger and say "yes you are , look at you right now, your just like me." I tremble at the thought .

Perhaps my mother has the need to charecterize me this way to make herself feel justified in her coldness,her meanness,so that shes no worse than anyone else , especially not me.

Out of my siblings I was singled out the most with the abuse, I would imagine it was because I KNEW she was not right , and I was the strongest ,the one who knew that Mommies weren't supposed to act that way.Abuse and degradation is a way to knock someone down , hoping that they'll land on your level.

Perhaps this is part of your dynamic as well?Just sharing and a thought.

[brightskies]

Out of my siblings I was singled out the most with the abuse, I would imagine it was because I KNEW she was not right, and I was the strongest, the one who knew that Mommies weren't supposed to act that way. Abuse and degradation is a way to knock someone down, hoping that they'll land on your level.

 

Interesting thought. My mother knocked heads with me the most. I wasn't sure why. Other than maybe I was the most willful, stubborn, and precocious of the lot. But now that you mention that, yeah, it makes sense. I could SEE her, and maybe she didn't like that. Although do you ever think, that in some weird twisted way, she still loved you somehow? Barring complete sociopaths, can a parent be so malicious as to have absolutely zero love for his or her own child? Even if it comes out all wrong?

[tinktronik]

Interesting thought. My mother knocked heads with me the most. I wasn't sure why. Other than maybe I was the most willful, stubborn, and precocious of the lot. But now that you mention that, yeah, it makes sense. I could SEE her, and maybe she didn't like that. Although do you ever think, that in some weird twisted way, she still loved you somehow? Barring complete sociopaths, can a parent be so malicious as to have absolutely zero love for his or her own child? Even if it comes out all wrong?

I don't doubt that she "loved " me or "loves" me , her love is needy and takes ,its abusive just like her and her kind of love frightens and repulses me personally ,the question is do you want the kind of love that is offered .. Abusers often don't have the same qualifiers of love as others (within a reasonable perspective) ,but then everyone has their own version of what it means to love.

[brightskies]

I don't doubt that she "loved " me or "loves" me , her love is needy and takes ,its abusive just like her and her kind of love frightens and repulses me personally ,the question is do you want the kind of love that is offered .. Abusers often don't have the same qualifiers of love as others (within a reasonable perspective) ,but then everyone has their own version of what it means to love.

 

Yes. And it doesn't change the fact that it's damaging to the abused. It sucks that anyone has to go through this. But it really sucks that kids have to go through this, especially when they're little, have nowhere to run, don't know how to deal with it or how protect themselves. And it's such a betrayal because it's coming from the very person/people who should be protective.

[HokeyReligions]

I will never understand how she manages to make me feel guilty for what she does.

 

I heard a comment once that summed it up pretty well. The reasons our parents can always push our buttons is because they installed them.

 

I thought about that a lot and it has made a bit of a difference in my own relationship with my mother. I didn't have the abuse you had, but my mom wasn't the best mother either and even now that she is so sick and I care for her - she still pushes those buttons sometimes.

 

I'm sorry that your relationship with your mother is so bad. It hurts no matter what because we expect our parents to love us and we expect ourselves to love our parents and when its expressed in such a negative manner it hurts.