mother's internal rejection of a child

i am wandering is there somekind of specified psychological term for a mother who is phisically there but internally, she rejects her child. let's be specific: she tought that something is seriously wrong with her child altough the ultrasound was ok, after the child is born she doesn't like to 'white' features of a child because they don't resemble her own, later she uses physical violence over the child who did not do anything wrong, from early childhood she is telling her child that something is seriously wrong with her often using the term 'mentally challenged (the child, who is now a grown up was a straight a student), she is rediculing her child, humiliating in front of other people, she is obssesed with that child altough she has a younger daughter (calling members af a wider familly and inventing bizarre stories about the child and trying to persuade them that the child is the main problem in her life), she is perpetuately repeating that the child is the cause of all of her problems to the child and everybody else, never bought a chocolate to the child or anything else, like a toy, during the entire childhood, never cooked a meal a child likes and doesn't even know her favourite meal, to resume never shown any sign of affection or pride over the child, consinstently, during the whole childhood or even talk to her except insulting, yelling, 'tide up your room' kind of things and communication through beating.
it was a middle class familly, with biologocal mother and father, both with masters degree, bad marriage. mother sometimes tries to hit father, he never hits back.
is there a name for mother syndrome of that type? is there a literature i can read about, preferably on- line? i mean, serious literature, not some cheap psychology.

no replies, at all? english is not my first language, i'm sorry if there are difficulties in reading the post. i presumed that a professional psychologist will see the post and answer. have i asked at the wrong place?

Just called emotional abuse. Maybe they would pull it under some type of narcissistic personality disorder.

Does the mother have a problem with the child's father ?? That seems to be an issue in many cases, often accompanied by physical abuse. They want to hit the father, cannot so beat the child.

Possibly jealousy. Dissatisfaction with their own life.

I am afraid that we don't get the psychology profession offering too many insights on abusive mothers. Shame they could be busy cataloging them for the next decade.

Remember the term child abuse did not exist until around 1980 when emotional abuse was recognized. Until then you almost had to break bones to be called abusive.

mother tortures the father too. father is passive, non- abusive, does not really intervene in her abuse of the child, but he is vey nice to the child, he loves the child (first daughter) more than the other one (his flaw). he is ashamed of mother's behaviour and tries to hide it from the world. he is to afraid to really intervene.
mother is a bit jelaous on her first daughter because of faher's affection. sometimes hits her because she had a quarell with the father as revenge towards him.
mother had some expectations of the marriage she did not get (travelling around the world). she is psychologicaly abusive towards the father and sometime tries to hit him, he is not abusive, avoids conflict, passive.
mother is, in my opinion, emotionally immature (like being 12 and a bit autistic), without the capacity of loving anyone (except for romantic immature love she had for the father when they married).

I don't know if there is a specific term other than emotional abuse. It is possible the mother may have a mental illness. The problem is, for anyone to know that, they would need to know what is going on in the mother's mind when she was behaving that way. For example, if she did it because she heard voices she may have some sort of psychiatric illness. It could be some sort of personality disorder like Borderline Personality Disorder or NPD. Or it could be rooted in paranoia. It could be she was raised that way and thinks that's how it's done. There are too many things it could be to guess.

For anyone to diagnose the mother (and no one here can do that) you would need to know what she is thinking and feeling, why she is behaving that way. If you want the opinion of a professional, this isn't the place to look, sorry.

she has a psychiatrist, and i talked to her psychiatrist (she doesn't have a private one, but a health care one where conversation with the patient lasts for about 10 minutes). her psychiatrist didn't figure out anything, not even that she is paranoid and my mother tought that the comic in local newspapers are being made as a joke on account of our familly). i came here in search for possibly better expert and in order to emphasize a quite rare phenomen, an aspect of her behaviour that i thought it could be interested for someone regarding child abuse and also important for me. i'll try again, this time with more details. in my personal life i am working in quite rigourous science, so i am precise and able to achieve a distance in elaborating a topic.
I am abused child from the topic as you have probably figured out.
I was long waited, declaratively wanted child (they were actively trying for 5 years before i was concieved).
My mother is diagnosed with schichoaffective disorder. She was first diagnosed and hospitalised when i was at the university, living in another city. But she behave as described above, since i was born (she was 30 at that time) or at least, since i can recall.
I wanted to emphasize the 'absolute' lack of affection towards me and that is what, i think, it's quite rare.
She has never shown any kind of affection or even mere symphaty towards me during the whole childhood. She has literally never bought me chocolate or an ice cream (of course, she had money for that). Some people would complain that their mothers never talked to them, my mother never even had a 'small talk' with me. And now i am being scientifically accurate: she has never made a verbal act towards me that was not an order or an insult.
I am not psychologist, but i think that most abusers (even serious phisycal abusers or phaedophiles) are sometimes kind to their victims.
I am interested to look at more cases like this, how common they are, the causes, etc. And the victimology.
I never experienced mother's love, not for one second in my life. I don't miss it cause i don't even know what its's like. Of course, that fact was a part of construction of a person i am today, and of course, it affected me. But, i don't want her love and never did. I did not love her either (at least since i became aware of my exystence). When she walked into a room i felt indifference or fear. (well, a lot of fear, for example, i was often caughing, she forbade me to caugh in her presence and if i did, she would accuse me that i am deliberately caughing in order to provoke her, so every moment of her presence was a risk).
Her lack of feelings was consistent, absolute. Her screaming, beating seemed more like a 'diagnose': uncontroled, irrational. Her humiliating me and insulting was a constant, organised around same ideas of me being 'retarded'. I was literally a straight a student, i won three school competitions: in maths, phisycs and chemistry when i was fourteen and without any effort. I never studied until i came to the university. I was just active on classes, listening, understanding and remembering every information i heard. I was attending two high schools: one profiled for maths, science and programming (altough we have studied everything, education in my country is quite ambitious) and music high school with piano as a major (but i have given that up when i was 17.).
She did not show any affection to my sister too, but she abused her a lot less, she mostly just ignored her.
Of course, it was not personal, she started thinking that something is seriously wrong with me while pregnancy and she was telling me that all the time. I do resemble my father since i was a baby (pale, 'nordic' type) while my mother is dark south mediterranean type of look, she was also mentioning that int the negative context, but i think it's pheripheral).
But, she was obssessed with blaming me for all her troubles in life, not directly me (we never had a conversation), but phoning relatives or anybody willing to talk to her and saying that she has enormous problems with me. My father ones told me, that she is talking about me like i am somekind of an drug addict (while i was in high school). I did not even drink, i was one oft he best student in my class, i never answered back to her because i was too scared and more importantly, did not have a feeling i have any relationship with her or that she is a rational being. But, i had a boyfriend and she used that sometimes as an excuse to making me look bad.
My sister had to study, she was also on the top of her class, but without my occassional 'exceptional' succes. She never called her retarded.
In my opinion, my mother projected her own self loading on me, i just came first and she needed an object.
When i grew up, my mother was sometimes actually talking to me. She told me some things about her mother, my grandmother and it seems she was quite a monster. My grandmother and grandfather divorced when my motehr was 4 years old and her father didn't stay in contact, so she grew up with a single abusive parent.
My mother was professionally succesful, she worked as a computer programmer since mid eighties, she has masters in chemical engineering. She never shown any pride of those facts, well close to none. She even became a chief programmer in her department, and considering the fact that she hated everyone there and thinking that all of them are plotting against her (so, probably they didn't like her very much), it means she was pretty good at her job.
If i would try to talk about all of her problems (paranoia, ocpd, need for absolute control, agressivity, violence etc.) it would take a hundred pages.it's interested, considering she is STEM type intelligent that her paranoia and obssesion with control are extremely detailed and elaborated, it's worse than Kafka novel and being subordinated to that would make a 'normal' person insane in a matter of seconds, but i am, well, acustomed. I am not sure what are the consenquences for my mental health and if they can be repaired.
I am working on an MA thesis in mathematics, the theoretical field. My talent exceeded both my mothers and my fathers who were both quallity STEM engineers.

I thought that it might be you, in your posts. I am really sorry. That must have been very difficult for you. And you, well you should be very proud of you for being strong enough to get through that and to do so well.

It is hard to understand how anyone could be that way. I've known people with schizoaffective disorder and they don't behave like that. But I knew a lady who had it and when she got very sick she used to behave very strangely. And she had some very odd beliefs too. I can't go into too many details online but there were times when her children weren't safe. She thought she was protecting them from something evil. But she was putting them at risk of harm instead.

It's possible if your mother was ill when you were born that this has affected the way she feels about you. Sometimes having a baby can make women mentally unwell. But I would only be guessing.

Sadly if you read some of the posts on the forum you will find many people have suffered similar abuse from parents. Many of them go on to develop mental illness themselves as a result. Which is why their stories appear on the forum - perhaps in this part or the sub-forums for personality disorders. You also read very sad stories on the news where children have been killed by a parent after years of cruelty and abuse. I don't know how common it is though. But the way she has treated you is exceptionally cruel. You might never really understand why though. Only she can answer that question for you. Sadly intelligent people can inflict just as much cruelty as those that aren't.

I wouldn't know where to direct you for information about your mother. This is just a peer support forum so there aren't any professional psychologists or psychiatrists here. I do think you need to look after yourself, and make sure you are ok. It would be hard to come through what you have unscathed. You many never fully understand why she did what she did, but now you should try, if you can, to focus on you and building a good and happy life for yourself. If you find you are struggling then maybe talking to a professional about all of this might help.

I am really saddened by your story and so sorry for what you've had to go through. I really do wish you well.

Remember Ronni wrote:

You also read very sad stories on the news where children have been killed by a parent after years of cruelty and abuse. I don't know how common it is though.

sorry to hijack but I beleive the number killed maybe 20-100 times what is reported. In the Australian state of Queensland we have a rather sad case of a little boy who died from peritonitis from a ruptured colon, who was left unconscious after the beating for three days in his cot to die. The amazing thing about this case was that there was a recording device in the house, that the police have found that captures the sound of conversations. How that little boy was talked to and described beggars belief. The interest in this case had one paper reviewing records. In a state of less than 4 million people there was 55 deaths of children known to child services that were unresolved, accidents or accidental poisoning. Now that is the ones reported, the people in welfare, the bottom feeders. The smart ones don't get caught.

We've had a few nasty cases like that in the UK of late. And I read about this horrible case in the US where this poor little boy was kept locked in a cage unable to even sit or use the bathroom. The only reason he ate was because his siblings smuggled in food for him. It is hard to believe that anyone could treat a child like that, least of all their parents. I used to be a lawyer, and I did a lot of child protection work for about 10 years and some of the cases I dealt with were just heartbreaking.

Hi anastasiaromanov,
What you went through as a child and as a teen was very wrong. Acknowledge that it was not correct or a fair treatment from a parent. It was not treatment of love. I believe that is very important, which is, to know and believe the truth that you were wronged by your own mother. I also think that you can help yourself by trying to see a therapist and seek answers to your questions. I wish I knew of any literature to help you try to understand a situation such as yours, but unfortunately I do not.

I am deeply sorry that you have gone through such terrible treatment from your own mother. You are deserving of all that is good in this world. And you are given a chance to seek it at this time. I wish you so much good in life.