My Mom *TW*

Sept.1 was my mom's birthday. Today is Sept. 3 and I didn't call her, nor did I send her a card for her birthday. Why? I simply don't want to do any of that. I feel so upset that I'm forced to send her a card and well wishes I don't really mean or that I have to call her when I don't even want to talk to her.

It's been just over a year that I have distanced myself like this from her. I went to my therapist and over 5 years, I came to the conclusion that this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to not have her in my life as much as possible. My sister and both brothers and my husband are all supportive in my decision. Besides my mom being a big trigger for the bipolar, she is still abusive. She has not changed and I sincerely believe she never will. I do this to protect myself, my heart, my mind, my soul, all of me.

Some things that happened in our lives, hers and mine, are such a distant memory. (I am 41 now)But there are somethings that stand out to me and instead of questioning myself if I was exaggerating, I now say to myself, "that is just not right." I am a mother now, I have 3 daughters, 10, 13, 16. As a mom I know that her behavior could not be deemed as "right." I have a mother's heart and frankly, she didn't. She still doesn't. Maybe she is incapable of having one. I don't know the answer to that question, but it doesn't matter, I know my rights as a child of hers and as a human being.

As you may imagine, this is only introducing how my mom was so abusive towards me and my brothers' and sister. There are so many stories to tell and share about that. I did run away with the bus ticket paid by my dad's second wife, to another state. I was 18 at that time. I had just had my first bipolar manic episode. So, my dad (who was in prison at that time) had arranged for me to stay at his half-brother's house with him and his family. That was my aunt and my 3 cousins. Later when I returned to my mom's house I was experiencing a depressive episode and I felt so broken and so depressed. I really really needed a mom at that time. I didn't seek her out because I was so used to her reactions that I didn't bother. Also what is really sad is that I brought with me my savings of $500 (that used to be worth more back then) and I asked if I could stay with them and that here was my money to pay my portion so I didn't have to feel like I was a burden. She actually looked like she felt bad and said, no, keep it.

Ever since I've turned 19 years old I left home, and was helped along the way, by a good friend of mine, whom we've been friends ever since that time. She gave me refuge and shelter. I joined the military and then 5 years later, I got out of the military, married a few months later and have only worked outside the home once. The reason for not working was that I am a stay at home mom.

It took courage to post this and it also took me to my past where it leaves me feeling emotionally upset over memories of some events that took place.

I felt like adding some few things from the first post.

My mom got pregnant at 14 years of age and just as she turned 15, she had my sister 2 weeks later. She was 15 when she became a mother. She had me at 17 years. I don't have bad memories of her when I was little. I don't have any memories at all. This is just me going by some book I read that when you don't have memories as a child that you were not allowed to be yourself. But I don't know if that is true, nor where I could even find that info. again. It doesn't matter. Once I became 14 years old, after a few years of having been divorced, she changed, she was always angry at my dad and she thought the worst of anyone. She wouldn't let me join any school events, wouldn't allow people into our home, wouldn't let us use the phone to call our friends. She was in total control. It got worse after that. She started constantly criticizing every little move I made. If I didn't do what she wanted I would hear about it. She would hit me and slap me but it wasn't all the time. I didn't get to be myself as a teen. It seems my teen years never existed. Once she saw that I was putting makeup on and she made me take it off by accusing me of having a boyfriend. She would allow my sister to have a boyfriend but I was locked up at home, only able to go to the library, which was within walking distance. There are so many other stories and some I forgot about, but thinking about them brings me down. Emotionally, it still affects me.

By the way she was pushing me to the edge as a teen and I was 18 years old and once when she was going to hit me, I somehow stopped her arm and I hit her instead and said if you hit me again, I'll hit you back. She backed away and she never touched me again after that. I left the house soon after that incident and she went looking for me. She has never forgiven me for. Her words "I will never forgive you for that" stand out to me. She has never shown she is really sorry for any bad treatment of me, because even when I moved to another state with family without telling her, she supposedly had to be on sleeping pills because of her worrying about me. That news made me feel like she cared about me, but it's hard to believe when she acts the way she does. When I returned she was the same person. An abusive person. She won't get help like seeing a therapist. I had a boyfriend for a short time, just less a month, and only because it was behind her back. Her answer to anything I wanted to do was "no." I was involved in some sports but since I didn't have her approval, I had to walk to and from school to get to participate.


As an adult, the verbal and emotional abuse continue. My life here is not really fully detailed of the abuse she inflicted on me but that's because it seems so long ago and now as an adult, she is still abusive with every word, glance and put down she makes. I just couldn't take it anymore. I can't be around that. And it's directed at me. Put downs, constant criticisms, her being jealous and saying mean things, I get anxiety when I'm around her. She triggers me sometimes to have either a manic or a depressive episode. I am no longer in contact with her. I only see her on certain events. Writing this has me feeling down. It's affected me emotionally a little bit but I'll be ok. So that is all I wanted to write on this because I would have to search deep in my memory to remember what all happened. My ending words are that I believe this, that my mom is a "hopeless case," of ever changing. And it is just my own belief from what I've experienced. Thanks for listening.

Wow. I am so sorry for you. No one should go through this crap.

***********Trigger Warning*******

I can feel a lot of what you write. The bit about hating your father, I have found here, surprisingly common. Funny thing is one child may not be hated but the other may in some way remind her of him. They cannot abuse him the way they want, but they can with the child.

I have been lucky with my wife. She came from an abusive father, so has been quite helpful. my youngest son has been a saint in dealing with her. (We had to manage her going into a home). I see her only twice a year. She monolgues for twenty minutes and then I offer my excuse and leave. We play a game of normal families. There is a small inheritance there, which came from her father and my father (she never did anything) and I want to pass it onto my boys.

I feel nothing for her. I was at my wife's mothers funeral, sunglasses, misty eyes and tears, and I found myself thinking, "why are they so upset.... it is not like you have lost a pet or anything". I really thought it. Why would anyone cry for a mother. I feel nothing, or I try to. Anything I may feel, is not positive for my life.

Parents need to earn the child's love but they don't. We give it unconditionally. We are hardwired that way. I remember after being stripped and beaten severely with a cane, welts etc, bawling ,my eyes out and saying continually as I sat on the floor crying, (I had involuntarily fallen of the bed during the beating) "I love you" . I said it again and again as if that could stop her. I must have been around 11 when I realized she felt nothing at all for me and it was a matter of surviving. Say what you need, do what you need. Get it done and avoid the pain. Luckily for me my brother at this stage turned into a monster. She had broken him and he turned into something quite terrible. Yep broke my nose and made my life hell. But found he was way more predictable. Broke her nose a hell of a lot worse.

Quietgirl, many similar elements between your story & mine, except it was my father. Constant criticism, no activities permitted at school, walking to-from school to conceal having friends or doing anything fun, physical confrontation at 18 that backed him down, leaving home at 19. My saving grace was that my mother was pretty much the opposite, but her confidence had been beaten down as well, as he was equally critical of her.

Don't know what else to say, except that it is possible to mostly leave that behind you. This will sound terrible, but it was easier for me as my father died not long after I left home. You wondered about if your mother could ever change, my dad tried to make amends in the last week of his life, when he knew it was over. It has always stuck with me that if he could do it then, what a waste to have not done it before, or even throughout his life. But it's been a guiding principle for me, don't wait for the end to be nice.

Looking back on it, I''m sure he was mentally ill, but that wasn't something that was recognized or talked about at the time. So I try to be more aware now, and less critical of his memory. I find it helps if I can step out of my own issues for a moment, and think about him without blaming him. That gets easier with time, but it will always be true that there are unwanted aspects of me that he developed.

Terry, as always I don't think I can even imagine what it was like for you, growing up with your mother. But as before, it's a tribute to you that you're here helping others every day.

Avatar, thanks for the kind words. This place has been my saving grace. Has improved my trigger thresholds enormously.

You say mental illness. Do you mean mentally ill as not aware of what he was doing, or extreme personality disorder.

My mother was bi-polar, with traces of schizophrenia, she was always very aware, and driven by her own needs.

Acted insane by all standards, but always knew what she did.

Terry, I think my father was aware, just couldn't stop himself. I don't actually know how to classify his behavior. From what I understand from people that knew him when younger, he wasn't always like that.

It appears that he suffered a number of setbacks in life that prevented him from pursuing things he wanted to do. He was extremely intelligent and had opportunities, but always there was something in the way, and his family was not at all supportive. He then seems to gradually have become increasingly bitter and angry, until he strongly resented everyone around him. So I would say probably depression & anger played a major role.

Quietgirl mentioned jealously as a motive for her mother, I too had a strong sense of that, and I think that's why he went out of his way to limit our opportunities. In a sense he acted like an anti-parent, he held us down/back instead of trying to boost us up.

Neither my mother or father had any wealth, but the difference was night & day. My mother said she was sorry she couldn't help out, but fully supported us otherwise. We knew we had to work & figure it out for ourselves, but it always seemed possible. My father would actively try to block us, tell us we were too stupid, wasting our time, etc. No idea or plan for the future was ever good or worthwhile.

The best I've been able to figure out, after many years of thought, is that some people have such a high level of internal criticism, that eventually it has to be redirected outwards, or the person ends their life. I think what he did to us, was also done to him by his father & grandfather, only they were much more successful. So I think his internal life was hell, and that's what drove his external behavior. Many of the things he said to us, may have been things he thought about himself. I think possibly if he had had treatment, some of his troubles could have been addressed.

The fact that he could stop the behavior at the end, makes me believe that. However my mother wasn't convinced, she thought he was just trying to ease his own passing, and didn't really do it for us. That was uncharacteristically uncharitable of her, but I don't know what all happened between them before I was old enough to be aware, so I can't judge. I have no doubt he made her life miserable.

With your mother, she did have treatment but didn't seem to help. It's hard to know what happens when behavior becomes insane. As you said, she knew that it was, and perhaps chose that or preferred it. Values are somehow reversed, what's good is bad and what's bad is somehow good. The result is a much more extreme form of anti-parent, to the point that your life was at daily risk. I don't know how you got through it, but am glad you did.

Anyway, sorry Quietgirl, didn't mean to hijack your thread. A lot of your experience resonates with mine, so maybe it will help to see that you aren't alone. Anti-parents do exist, and we all have to deal with them as best we can, which means we struggle at times. But it does get better.

I wanted to answer today to Terry and to avatar123, but I had a car accident and I've not been feeling well. It was minor, but it just shook me up emotionally. I'll come back to this post.

Quiet look after yourself. Car accidents are nasty things on many levels. Hope everyone is okay.

Avatar, two people very similar stories. Mum took huge pains to try and sabotage us. Worked much better with my brother. She encouraged him to aim high and study for Dentistry. Then every year when he was doing exams, she would gradually start to work on him, he would explode there would be a huge fight, and then off he would go, to his exam all on edge and crash and burn, be made to feel that he had caused the fight, be repentant and then ask for her help financially (beg) to support him while he tried again. He sat for the entrance exam seven years in a row. So yep she was great in supporting him financially, but each year she was very devious in trying to make him fail. She would then confront my father and blame him for my brothers failure. "It was all his fault. "

She had help at times but always just jerked them around, said the right things etc.

She was MBP so was always in her mind the smartest person in the room. (and she was extremely intelligent, but crippled with laziness)

Quietgirl, I'm really sorry about your auto accident and hope you are ok. It does shake you up, I know from experience. I look forward to your response when you're feeling better.

Terry, thanks for sharing. The similarities continue, I too have a brother who was more seriously affected than the rest of us. We've noted that his personality took after my father, whereas the rest of us are more like my mother. That partly led to our generational theory, fathers passing the extremely critical behavior down to their similar sons. People who knew my grandfather said he was just the same. My brother is not, though, he has not been like that with his kids. But the extreme criticism has surfaced in the form of other related problems. He was eldest so perhaps he took the brunt of it.

For your mother to sabotage her children like that is pretty evil, I can understand why you feel as you do. If you imply that someone is a failure, then arrange circumstances so they do fail, thus proving to them (in their own minds) that they are failures, that's totally messing with their pysche, with nothing but bad intent. The adult knows better but the child does not know not to believe what they're being shown & told, so they have no defense. It's the antithesis of how any adult should treat any child, much less a parent. I'm truly sorry that you had to go through that, nobody ever should. It sounds like that cycle continued well into adulthood, at least for your brother. Maybe he was unable to break away from the need for her approval, which could never be given.

You mentioned you realized this at 11, I was about 13 or 14. Maybe early awareness allows you to survive. I remember being extremely angry and not knowing what to do with it. I used to walk home several miles from school because it gave me a chance to go through the cycle of rage and walk it off before I had to face him. You didn't want to be the catalyst that sets him off, as then everyone suffers, so you just kept your head down. Until 19, though, I still kept thinking I could fix it or that he would get better. In retrospect that was pretty naive, the optimism of youth.