Hi Katherine,

I have had a similar problem with my Mum. The only difference is she is still with us.
It’s hard for me to type this all out, but for a long time my Mum has been critical, not just to me, but my Dad as well & sometimes others, but mainly us because we all live together (I started a post a while ago in relation to this which you may find helpful reading others comments).

What I found is that.. hurt people hurt people. That’s how patterns get passed on, generation after generation. I learnt to meet anger with sympathy, contempt with compassion, cruelty with kindness, grimaces with smiles, to forgive & forget about finding fault as love is the weapon of the future. I’m not sure about you but every time my Mum criticizes me or is negative towards me I used to react to this – so she would say “why are you doing that??” & I’d be like ” because….” & get angry at her for even questioning me, this would then lead on to an exchange of words & nothing would get solved. When I realised that she was actually a ‘hurt person’ I tried to look at her criticisms with sympathy & compassion & soon I actually felt sorry for her ‘poor you, you’re hurting so much you don’t even realise it’ then I went in to ‘people saving mode’ thinking I could save her, I can help her, I can make her see her ways. Never worked, never does, you can’t change people, only your response or yourself. So now, when this arises, I simply keep my cool, nod & agree or even just listen most of the time, or I’ve walked away.. I’ve managed to get the nack of just brushing it off. I then went through a stage where I would feel bad for this, like I wasn’t good enough in my attempts to make her happy. Like I wasn’t enough as her daughter.

Growing up, did you ever feel like you weren’t enough? Has this moved forward into your adult life, that you feel that her jibes were aimed directly at you? Because to be fair, they probably weren’t.
Basically, I think what I’m getting at is you never know what happens behind closed doors in peoples lives & how they deal differently with different things, & unfortunately sometimes we & others can become a bit of an emotional body bag. My Nan & Grandad passed away (Mums Mum & Dad) & this is when my Mums criticism started, all her unresolved hurt & grief was expressed through negativity & unfortunately I was one of those who were the punch bag. But rather than think – ‘must be me, must be my fault’, I’d think ‘poor you for suffering so much’.

You should check out the book “The Dance of Anger” by Harriet Lerner, it may help you better understand. Also, if this becomes too much for you, in terms of unresolved questions & feelings, it may be worth looking into seeing a Counsellor 🙂