My Mother and I

This post will be about my experience with my family, and I am open to opinions about what kind of family they are. I have no "normal" basis to go on, no reference, no way to tell what's right and what's wrong despite my eagerness to find such. I don't know what it's like to live without prejudice because of my "talent" [put in quotations for reasons you'll see in this post], criticism at every turn, and outright viciousness toward me for trying to obtain my own sense of success/self worth. No, I'm not over-exaggerating, but I wish I was.
My life is a far cry from that of someone who was beaten physically on the daily, but it wasn't all rainbows and roses. It was actually somewhere in the middle; a life that looked perfect to everyone else, but was utter hell when there was no one around. This is my experience, and my experience alone, so please do not lump me in with others. I promise you, every detail is as traumatic to me as something would be to someone else who experienced worse. I remember helping my mom fix bottles and change diapers when I was a kid, and I do remember having resentment because I didn't feel like all of the attention was on me. In that aspect, I was selfish. My mom gave birth to twins and triplets within two years of each set, my dad was constantly working, and I had spent the first five years of my life alone with my mom. We'd grown really close, and I was really close with my dad. It was nice. As I got a little older, my older brother started coming around in the summer and that's when things started taking a turn, at least from what I remember.
He came up with a "game" that he couldn't ever tell me the name of, and it was always played at night. He was in his teens, and I was under 8. He never really made me feel "unsafe" like you think sexual abuse would. Sure, I thought it was weird, but I didn't know any better because my mom had never talked with me about anything like what he was doing [touching, laying on top, etc.]. I remember her telling me once or twice that I wasn't supposed to let anyone touch me in places that only a doctor could touch, and I was confused about what that meant. When my mom walked in on him laying on top of me [no, there was no defiling/penetration/etc], it was extremely terrifying. I instantly believed I had done something bad, so I told her what happened. I told her what I understood. I even remember the words I used. "He told me we should play a game, and then he got on top of me." Obviously, she came to the assumption that I would think any parent would have - he had taken my virginity by force, and assaulted me. I was rushed to the city hospital, examined, and I didn't see my brother for three years. I became withdrawn in school because I was constantly being rushed around to talk to different men and women, having to recount the same incident over and over again. I remember being put on medication for ADHD and ADD, going through several medications because my mother didn't see an improvement fast enough, and taking me to therapist after therapist. Finally, I remember an instance where I had just finished an appointment with my therapist, who I'd grown very friendly with and talked with pretty much everything about that she asked me to talk about. She never asked me about the things that happened to me, which made me grow closer to her. My mother was discussing my progress with the therapist, when she turned to me.
"You won't get any better unless you talk to her and tell her what is going on," she demanded, obviously upset about something that I really didn't understand. I clammed up, feeling like I'd done something wrong again. I didn't know what she meant because I had told her everything. We'd become friends. I remember that after that appointment, I didn't see that therapist again because my mom "didn't see a point if there was no progress in my behavior". It was around this time that I developed a temper and started rebelling, though I don't have any real memory on my reasons why. I've tried recovering them, and I just can't. I didn't see what my mother thought was wrong. Why was I always making her upset? It was to the point that when I started writing lyrics and drawing anime characters that I loved, she came to hate anime [made me throw out all of the drawings I'd made, including those given to me by friends] and told me flat out that my lyrics sucked at one point when I showed her an original song in excitement. I didn't understand. She'd become so bitter suddenly, and I didn't understand. That's when I noticed that the "friends" I had in school weren't truly my friends - they hung out with me in pity. But what did they pity? I wasn't overweight, I wasn't being beaten up, and I did well in school. I truly didn't understand. I was naïve, absolutely. It was easy for them to trick me into doing things that made me embarrass myself without realizing it - but I'll get into that in a second.
Whenever I started to complain about school, my mom started getting more annoyed and insinuated that maybe I shouldn't watch so much anime. Maybe I shouldn't wear black. Maybe I shouldn't wear makeup. It was always something I was doing, and never the other kids' fault. It was even to the point that, without explaining anything, she took the very duster coat that she'd given me behind my back and sold it just because I had worn it to school with an all-black outfit and makeup. I found out a few years later that it was because some teachers complained I looked like the kid from the Columbine shooting and it "scared them" because at that point, I was known for having a "temper problem" [in other words, I stood up to kids that bullied me constantly a lot of the time and did in fact have outbursts of screaming anger when they continued to the point I would break down]. Finally, I just went quiet. I had a small circle of friends that came and went, and it seemed that any time I got close to someone they moved away or couldn't be my friend anymore. I stopped caring about school, because I was tired of the constant expectation that I would have straight A's or I would be severely punished. I stopped caring about myself, and began cutting after my first boyfriend dumped me. Whenever my mom saw the cuts, she'd always berate me or insult me for doing it instead of asking what was wrong. At one point, she actually went to the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and made a motion of how I was "supposed" to cut my wrists if I wanted to die. She then slammed it on the counter and left the room. It was effective; I never cut again, but I also learned never to come to my mother for anything unless she forced me to.
Any boyfriend I had was instantly "not good for me" and she forbade me to be around them except for the boys /she/ had in mind - like my first ex, who I'll call Barry. He never seemed to have any interest in dating me or going on dates with me, always told me how sexually frustrated I made him, and when I finally gave in and we tried to have sex? He couldn't get it in and j***ed off in the corner. I then learned that he had gone to his mother and said I'd forced myself on him, using pictures he'd asked me to send him as proof. I was banned from seeing him by his mother, and my mother blamed me for it too.
Funny enough, she also began to blame me for what happened with my brother, and saw me as the reason she couldn't see her firstborn son in three years. She actually forced me to apologize when we saw him again, and continued to say that "what happened was consensual, I wanted it as much as he did" and "it was my fault she didn't get to see him for three years". At that point, she'd made me believe it was my fault because I didn't know any better. I was as naïve as ever, and remained that way even into adulthood. My first real "mistake" that "changed the way she saw me" I guess you could say is that I got pregnant from a man she set me up with at 17. She'd invited an old student of hers over, who had happened to go to the same school as me but was four years my senior when I was in Jr. High. We got to talking and I felt what I thought was an attraction, so we took things further. I was the type to genuinely believe that sex equaled love, and that by giving him sex was to admit that I loved him in some way when in fact, I didn't have that kind of long-term feeling toward him at all.
Prior to meeting him, I was in fact talking with someone who lived in another state and was planning to move in with him once I turned 18. Of course, since he was someone I met online and someone my mom didn't pick out for me, she disapproved [long story short, she had a reason to dislike him in the long run because he turned out to be misogynistic and abusive but continues to use him as a basis for disliking my current husband] and told me I would never be allowed to see him as long as I lived under her roof. Being someone with no car [all the cars my father owned and promised to me eventually were promised to my siblings who weren't even old enough to learn to drive], no income [my mother didn't like me having a job] and no means of transportation [I had no friends and we lived in the country, a good ways from either neighboring town, and she was the only one home most of the time], I couldn't go against her and had just accepted that I would never be able to be with the one I liked. So I chose to try with the one she picked for me, and I ended up getting pregnant.
The day I went to the doctor and found out I was pregnant, I was shocked to my core and scared out of my wits. I was more scared of what my mother would do, and what my father would do as he had a bad habit of screaming at me when I did something he didn't like. On the drive home my mother gave me the silent treatment, which I was used to over many years of it being an intimidation tactic that worked on me very well, but what was on my mind was the fact that I was aching very badly in my abdomen. I went to the bathroom as soon as I got home, and there was blood. Like, a period amount of bright red blood. There were clumps of tissue, and I was in tremendous pain. I did not go to the hospital that night, because my mom assured me it was normal for me to bleed and cramp. The treatment I had was to lay down and let the pain settle on its own. Three weeks later, I saw nothing in my ultrasound. I didn't even know what a baby would look like in an ultrasound, but instinctly I knew something was missing. There was nothing but an empty bubble. When the doctor told me I'd miscarried and explained fully what it meant, I cried so much and blamed myself. My mom took over the caring role and comforted me for that day while my boyfriend at the time simply ended the relationship. The man she picked for me ended the relationship that day, and she didn't bat an eye. I was crying over him leaving and the loss of my child, a loss I still feel today and cry over. Two days after miscarriage, I was told I needed to "move on" by my mother.
For some reason, I finally left home and went to live with the man that I originally wanted to be with. His family did not permit me to sleep in the same house as him as they were Mormon and could not allow us to sleep together [they had a sleeping bag and a living room upstairs that they refused to allow me to use instead], so he dropped me off at a homeless shelter where I stayed for a month. I didn't seem to realize what he was doing, to be honest, and when I look back I think "I was such an idiot". And I was. But I wasn't taught about any of these things. I just didn't know. We both packed up after a month of this going on and left for my home state to live with my parents due to hardship, but my mother had us moved to the house in town that my dad had inherited from his recently passed father. I didn't find out why until a couple of years later, and that reason was that she couldn't stand him.
I found out that I was pregnant again, and after several debates about it we moved to another state where part of his family lived. Everything was fun and full of life...until I had my daughter. My husband expected me to take care of his needs on top of my daughter's, his mother started restricting and limiting us to a certain amount of food even though I was breastfeeding and eventually cut us off completely, forcing us to get government assistance as I couldn't work and he refused to. As she got older, I started getting resentful and angry toward my husband and that anger manifested when I took care of my daughter. I would yell at her to be quiet, realize what I'd done and hug her tightly and cuddle her to make her feel safe again. When I realized it was a pattern that I was having trouble changing, I went to my husband for help. He and his family insisted I get emergent mental health treatment in an inpatient facility. I did so several times, leaving her alone with him and his family for a week each time I went in. When I noticed that my mother-in-law was starting to straight out take her out of my arms or out of her crib in the morning and bring her to their room and shut the door, I became very concerned. Then I saw her hit my daughter in the head with a packet of cleaning sponges that she'd been playing with, just because she was playing with them. I snapped, grabbed her out of the room and called my family who came to get me within 24 hours. I cut my husband out of my life, who I later found out wasn't my legal husband because the paperwork had never been filed properly, and lived with my family. When the pattern of me snapping occasionally and yelling at my daughter/pulling my own hair out/rocking back and forth as I held her as she cried became noticeable to my family, they immediately took her from me as I expected them to do and custody was taken from me.
NOTE: I do not regret them doing so in that instance, but I did for a long while and blamed them for taking my child. I realized that I was indeed in the wrong, and what they did was best for my child.
I came to terms with it and had moved past it, and I was enjoying life - something a lot of people had a hard time coming to terms with, especially my mother. I had friends, I had a good job, and had moved in with a nice couple that were needing a house cleaner when they were at work. I eventually had to leave my job due to episodes of fainting and seizures at my desk, and was told to seek disability. I did so, and was denied, and due to this I was kicked out of the house that I lived in because I couldn't pay them rent on top of cleaning. I had emotional difficulty speaking with the father of my child and speaking to my daughter, because it reminded me of my failure as a parent, and decided it would be best for her and myself if I did not get involved in her life. Of course I wanted to be involved, more than anything, but I thought of her needs. Living with the knowledge that the person her father had married was not her real mother would confuse her and cause problems, much like it did when I found out my dad wasn't my real dad. [I do not have contact with my birthfather for personal reasons]. I wanted her to live a happy, normal life, and I wanted myself to be able to move on from losing her. My mother often berated my choice, saying that "if I loved her I would stay in contact" and that "my daughter doesn't even really know me anymore". While I tried to explain my reasons, it was always met with a variation of the same response. She refused to accept it was a good thing, much like everyone else I'd tried to talk to about it - even therapists. They always claimed I could get my daughter back if I just "tried harder". What they didn't and still don't understand is that I accepted the decision made for me because I knew that they were right. I had the potential to become abusive, as evidenced by my actions, and I was unfit to parent.
When I met the man who I am legally married to now, my immediate course of action was to replace the child I had lost. I had completely forgotten why I lost custody the first time, and was desperate to have a second chance at being a mother. I believed I was stable, and despite his attempts at reasoning with me, I was adamant. He agreed to have a child with me, and I became pregnant.
We moved from one abusive household to another, and then from that household to another where the building was so condemned it was considered illegal to live in.
When we finally got out of that house and into one that we were renting ourselves, I gave birth to our beautiful baby girl. I unfortunately developed a spinal headache due to a problem with the epidural and was in extreme bed-ridden pain for three weeks, so caring for her was hard but I gave it everything. I was calm, collected, and loving even when she was at her most difficult - even when I stopped breastfeeding and had to change formulas multiple times due to her sensitivities. I got frustrated a couple of times, of course, but I never yelled or got out of control because I had a wonderful support system - my husband helped me frequently, as did our friends who lived with us to help pay the rent. We even passed the six month CPS investigation with flying colors that followed her birth [caused by someone reporting that I claimed I was homeless, but I later found out it was due to something I said in therapy in confidence]. We had been through everything, I thought, and we could survive. I could do this, I thought, until we hit financial hell.
We ended up having to move out because it turned out our "friend" was so far behind on his finances that he /couldn't/ pay the rent or the bills. The reason? He'd neglected his previous bills that the people we lived with before bullied him into paying for, and "that came first". We ended up moving yet again to my home state, and lived with my parents. They bought us a trailer to live in outside, and that's honestly where things became at their worst. My outbursts came back because I didn't have such a welcoming environment. My mom hated my husband [still does], and her only reason was "his actions and words", even though he really wasn't doing anything wrong. She claimed he said things that I know he didn't say because I was standing right there in the middle of them, began claiming that the only reason he'd get a job is because she forced him [it took him a long time to find a job because our neighboring town is unreasonably scrupulous on who they hire and the only place that took him was a crappy gas station whose management broke the law anyway], and began asking questions behind his back like "does he help with the baby?" or "why does he play those games?"
While it's true that my husband is an avid video game addict and I myself a developer, it's NOT true that he neglected his daughter. We both are guilty of getting caught up in what we're doing, we BOTH did not play with her as much as we should have, BUT we did not completely neglect her. We met every need she had. Food, clothing, bathing, and attention. Maybe not as much attention as we should have, but we did give it as often as we could. With my husband having to rush off to work at the edge of night and only coming back in the morning, he'd have to sleep during the day but often wouldn't in order to help me. There were days where he'd collapse in exhaustion and not wake up until he had to go to work again, leaving me exhausted and resentful. I started siding with my mother and blaming him for everything.
We eventually separated when my mother blew one situation completely out of proportion, and I was upset for entirely different reasons that she picked up on and manipulated me into talking about. In my frustration, I ended things and cut off all contact. My mother kicked him out of the house, and he moved after a month to another state.
It became very lonely after that. My mother and I were on good terms at last, sure, but I was completely alone inside. I would zone into my phone when my daughter played, and it came to the point where I met only her basic needs and started to withdraw into myself instead of giving her the attention she needed. I realized I was doing this during a conversation with my mother one night, where she explained to me what I was doing and that she felt it would be best if I gave her custody.
In my attempt to think of my daughter's needs, I agreed to it completely.
Not long after this discussion, my husband was able to reach me [though it was completely by accident] through an app on my phone that I'd recently joined. We were finally able to talk without my mother being over my shoulder, so I finally got the chance to apologize for all the things I'd done and said to him, and for ending things. I told him I missed him because I genuinely did, and that I still loved him very much. We ended up reconciling, much to my relief, but my mother was not happy.
I had been discussing moving out of state for a few days after the discussion of custody, as I had assumed that the matter was decided. I knew how my mother did things, and I knew she had no intention of allowing me to keep my daughter. When I told her I wanted to give her custody, I told her that I realized I was not fit to be a mother. That I was mentally ill and that it affected my ability to be a good parent to her, and that I didn't want her to be around "someone like me" as I put it. While at first she seemed understanding, it became very clear that she was against the idea - or at least with my presentation of the idea, even though she was the one who brought it up in the first place. She began asking questions like "are you sure this is what you want to do?" and "are you sure you want this?" and I was confused, because my thought was "does she remember bringing it up to me in the first place? This was her idea, and now she's acting like this?" When I finally did ask her about why she seemed against it, she didn't seem to even recall bringing it up.
Convenient, at least that's what I thought. I was used to this, after all. Any time she said or did anything that I would bring up later on in life, she'd never remember doing/saying it and would often say that my memory was wrong or that it didn't happen in the first place. This discussion and back-and-forth questioning went on for weeks until I finally told her my decision: I was moving in with my husband, and I was giving my mother custody as she suggested because I realized I was not fit to be a parent. Not because I was "shirking responsibility", not because I "didn't want to be a parent", but because I knew that history was starting to repeat itself and I did not want her life to be ruined because of me.
That didn't go over well, as you can imagine. I was called selfish by the entire family, told that I would never get my daughter back if I went through with this, and I eventually accepted both as facts. Yes, I was selfish because I wanted her to have a better life. I knew I would never get custody of my daughter back, because I was declared unfit in a previous trial and I knew that if I kept in contact, my daughter would grow up confused and hurt. No, I don't trust my mother with my daughter, but I had no other option. My husband and I are both financially unstable, and do not live in our own home - nor can we bring our child to this home because of certain circumstances that I will not elaborate on. We will not become stable anytime soon unless we very luckily find work, and somehow manage to score a vehicle and home of our own. We both have consented to give my parents custody of our daughter for our daughter's well being. My family is well-resourced, middle class and lives in an area where she will have more opportunities than we as parents could ever give her. That, and I did not want our daughter to live with us and risk enduring the same financial struggle we are, nor did I want to risk putting my daughter through what I did with my first. I recognized the pattern of behavior that was wrong of me, and I took the steps I knew to end that pattern and cycle. I should be relieved, happy at the very most, that I did all that I could for my children in the long run, even if people disagree with my choices. Right?
Wrong.
As a result of my decisions, I suffer from extreme depression, suicidal thoughts, self-withdrawal from activities I enjoy and people I care about including my husband, paranoia that I will be arrested for child abandonment in case my mother becomes vindictive, and anxiety every time I speak to her. I try my best to keep my distance, but the guilt I feel in not speaking to my mother takes over a lot of the time and it usually ends with the same result. We always end up having the same discussion, with her saying variations of the same things. "You know how I feel about this situation." "I'm supposed to be outgrowing my child years". "What you did was selfish".
I attend my first therapy session this coming Monday, and I don't know what to expect. I'm debating whether or not to tell them everything, or just stuffing it back inside and pretending I'm just having some mild depression. I've been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, with major depression and anxiety. I genuinely don't know what to think of myself anymore, but I do know this;
I'm probably the worst human being there is.
I made many obvious mistakes that I could have avoided if I'd just taken things slower.
I got pregnant knowing I shouldn't have a kid, but didn't think about it because all I wanted was to be a mother again. Selfish, the worst kind of selfish.
I repeated a behavior that got my first child taken from me. Stupid.
I recognized that behavior and took steps to end it, but was still regarded as selfish in the long run.
All my life, I've been considered ungrateful, selfish, attention-seeking, and worse by my family. I've believed it all my life, too. I don't really know what the response is going to be toward my post, or if I'll even get a response. Who knows; it could go unread because it's not interesting enough. Either way...I honestly had to speak up. I'm tired of not understanding, not knowing what's the truth - whether I'm being abused or not, whether I'm in the wrong or in the right, and you know what? I'll never know because everyone's opinion is going to be different. In hindsight, I do recognize a lot of my mistakes and have tried endlessly to fix them. Some of them I don't even realize I made at first, but when I remember it devastates me. How I /could/ have called the hospital when I miscarried to ask them what was going on, how I /could/ have simply spoken out against my first "husband's" abuse and the abuse his family put me through, how I /could/ have simply prevented getting pregnant in the first place, or even got an abortion to avoid the situation I'm in like my mother suggested every time I got pregnant.
She was never happy for me, not once, until she saw my daughters. That was the only time I ever really put a smile on her face, and even then it wasn't toward me. If being angry about that makes me selfish, then I guess that's what I am. But the one thing I've always wanted is for my mother and father to stop being so critical of me, to accept me for the things I enjoy and to praise me for my successes even if they're small ones. To be happy for me as I reach my own happiness...but I know they never will. To those that will tell me that they will someday, trust me...you're wrong. I appreciate the optimism, but you're very wrong.
I have people that have asked me to consider cutting my mother out of my life, but there are reasons why I just can't do that - or, rather, I feel like I can't.
1: She has my daughter, and therefore is the only one who will contact me about her wellbeing.
2: She is raising my daughter, so I should be more grateful.
3: I will most certainly lose all support from the rest of my family if I do so, including my grandparents who I feel very bonded with.
4: I have made far more mistakes than I have made positive milestones in my life, and she can ruin my life with them.
5: She is very well resourced, meaning she can easily get the court to side with her and charge me with some form of child abandonment crime or child support requirement, which I cannot pay due to lack of income, which would in turn land me in jail - something I am deathly afraid of to the point I would in fact take drastic measures to avoid happening. I am VERY afraid of her influence, because she is extremely good at manipulating people into believing her. I have seen it for myself, and she has done so to me many times.
6: She's my mother and I do love her very much. I just can't tolerate her behavior toward me and my husband.
In closing, your opinion is your opinion - but please try not to be hateful toward me. To be honest, I wouldn't blame you if you were, but I at least ask you to try not to be. I'm getting these things off my chest because this is the relationship I've had with my mother for my entire life, and I needed to bring it to light even if it means putting myself in a negative light as well with my past actions. To be honest, at this point, I don't care what others think about me. The only one that matters and gets to me is that of the opinions of my husband and my mother...though the relationship with my mother is difficult to the extreme for me, I still crave her approval even though I know I'll never get it.
I don't deserve happiness in her eyes, and maybe she's right. Maybe you can help me sort this out, but I don't know anymore. Thanks for reading...this will probably be my only post, unless I find that someone comments something that pushes me to respond.

You're a very thoughtful, intelligent, caring and sweet person, despite all the problems you've experienced on your own and with your mother over your lifetime. You speak your history and there's nothing wrong with that. Parents unfortunately project expectations onto their children when they themselves didn't meet their own goals in life. Please understand that you have only this one life to live, don't live it according to someone else's standards. Do you want your child to grow up with her grandmother's expectations of her?

"Do you want your child to grow up with her grandmother's expectations of her?"

A truer quote could not be spoken, and thus why I've been berating myself for the decision of leaving her with my mother. I /don't/ want my daughter to grow up with the pain that I've been through, and I am afraid for her. The thing is, I don't know what else to do. As far as myself, I've made my bed and I have to sleep in it so to speak - but all that encompasses my mind is "how is my daughter going to make it through my mother's expectations?" The answer is, I don't know, and I don't like not knowing - but she's my daughter. If she's like me, she'll come through stronger. I have a feeling she will find out quicker than I did that my mother is not who she portrays herself to be, and I as her mother will need to sit back, shut up and not intervene unless it is essential to her survival [ie an abusive situation where her life is threatened, or something similar].
I guess what I'm saying is this; my daughter will survive, but only if I give her a chance to. My mother may or may not follow the same pattern of behavior she did before, so I need to give her a final chance to prove me wrong. As much as I worry, it will only destroy me internally and make me regret leaving home for good. As selfish as thinking of my own safety seems to me, I have to do it. If that makes sense. To be honest I'm having a lot of self conflict about this.