Home→Forums→Relationships→I think im starting to hate my mother
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February 26, 2018 at 1:00 pm #194825ellaParticipant
Hello everyone. So, to create a timeline i’m going to overview events that have happened between me and my mom and how they affected me.
To begin with, my uncle hated me. He was always saying bad things about me to my mother when i was a little girl and my mom never stood up for me. Once, i behaved really really bad(it was my fault i know it) and he said in front of everyone that if someone sold me in Marrakech no one would pay even two dogs (i dont know if this makes sense, sorry im not english). My mom stayed silent. Years after that i asked her why she never said anything and she told me that she didnt want to argue in front of my grandmother.
Okay, now in high school. I was bullied. Two guys of my class were calling me frog, even on the internet (not directly to me but i knew it was me). My friends started ignoring me and i ended up with no friends. My mom has had depression several times and i cant remember if she was suffering one at that time but no one stood up for me, even if i told them that people were laughing at me and i was alone and crying all the time. I forgive my dad because he admitted he was wrong. But she says that bullying makes people strong and that suff. During that time where i was being bullied, i told my parents that i wanted to go to another school and they said that it was hard to change during the school year, i said it was okay that i could go to another school next year. They told me again that it was difficult. It wasnt. The only thing they had to do was to search for information. So i stayed in that school until i decided to leave for the last two years. So adolescence was pretty hard. When i went to another high school, i had a rough time and my parents took me to a therapist. I was sad all the time but i ended up overcoming it. First year of college was the worst year i’ve ever had. I started developing OCD, i wasnt happy with my career and my boyfriend broke up with me. With another therapist (the first one was horrible), i overcame it all again.
So now i am happy but i still have my days because i have a tendency to be a little depressed sometimes. When that happens, my mom throws it all on my face. She says that i made them suffer a lot during those years where i had a bad time and that im never happy. She makes me feel really bad when she does that. She thinks she is always right and you cant talk with her because she never looks at you or simply doesnt answer so things only make up when you say you’re sorry and you admit you’re wrong even if you were right. She always brings up the fact that she had a rough childhood and that i shoul be thankful for everything i have to make me feel bad.
During these months, when i go home during the weekends, she barely talks to me. When i talk to her, she barely listens to me, she looks at her phone or plays candy crush. She never hugs me. I have problems of self steem and she always thinks that my problems arent real.
The time she told me that bullying is to make people strong i said enough. I said all the things i think about her, that she is selfish, that se likes to bring up her childhood to say that other people cant have problems and she is the only one entitled to feel bad, that she never hugs me or talks to me without me talking to her first. I ended up saying that from that day i didnt have a mother. Maybe i was angry and i shouldnt have said that but she answered that i had poison on my mouth and we havent spoke since that. I ignore her and she ignores me.
I feel bad because my dad is also suffering to see us fighting but i just cant anymore. I cant say she’s the worst mother of all time but she never stood up for me.
I also feel bad because i dont know if im entitled to feel bad. I could forgive her if she admitted she was wrong but she said that she’s not gonna say she’s sorry and is not going to change.
I feel very sad and feel like crying all the time.
February 26, 2018 at 1:56 pm #194839MarkParticipantElla,
Good for you for being able to overcome a lot of your difficulties. That is huge for anyone to do. I hope you feel good about yourself for that.
It sounds like your mom is self-absorbed (aka selfish), disassociated, and is incapable of empathy, and does not have any emotional awareness.
Also good for you for your willingness to forgive her. She is unwilling to do anything about her own pain, dysfunction and crippled emotional life. Because of that, her impact on your life has been hard. I can see why you want her to admit the pain she inflicted on you before you can forgive her.
You may be better off just to acknowledge that she is crippled like someone with a bad leg but instead she is someone with a bad upbringing. She only knows how to deal with life from her own life. So do you need to forgive her for that? I would just acknowledge that despite her bad mothering, she behaved the only way she knows how.
I assume that you are living with both your parents and that you cannot move out yet?
Of course you are entitled to feel bad. Every emotion is legitimate. You must feel beaten down when you are around her. Feeling bad would be a normal response in such circumstances.
I would recommend continue to see a therapist so that you can have the tools to withstand such a negative emotional onslaught by your mother while you are living with her.
Take care,
MarkFebruary 26, 2018 at 2:05 pm #194843ellaParticipantHello Mark and thanks for answering. I just want her to admit her mistakes and i would forgive her. I do not like being angry with her but i just cant anymore.
My dad is great and i feel bad about him too beacuse i know he is in pain. During the week i live near my college, and every weekend i go to my home town to see my pets and my family.
I dont know if i love my mom. I know she isnt the worst mom in the world, and she has good things (she’s generous) but we never really got along since i was a teenager.
I really want to go to my therapist again, who is also my mom’s therapist. (I went to a therapist because of my OCD and she went because depression, actually i recommended her my therapist).
Let’s see if the storm passes, but im tired of being the one who always makes the first step to fix things.
February 26, 2018 at 2:14 pm #194845MarkParticipantella,
I sincerely doubt that your mother will admit to any of her mistakes so I would not hold your breath. You may want to just forget about forgiving her and just work on understanding her pain, i.e. how she got to be the person she is now. Perhaps sitting down with her and hearing her story on how her parents were? That may help for you know how she was formed.
Another suggestion is you and her can both sit down with the therapist so help iron out your issues.
Mark
February 27, 2018 at 1:40 am #194939greenshadeParticipantI’m sorry Ella, I can understand what it is like to want your mom to love you and be warm and affectionate, but receive only anger and criticism. It seems you are currently in a cycle of her getting angry, and you trying to calm the situation. Since she doesn’t seem to have a problem with the cycle, you will have to be the one to break it. In order to break the cycle, I would suggest focusing on relationships other than the one with your mom. Maybe stay back and find activities near your school on weekends you are low instead of going back home. Focus on your mental/emotional health. If she is angry, let her be angry, distance yourself emotionally and physically if need be instead of trying to fix the situation. Let her know that her words cause you distress, but when you are both calm and in a way that doesn’t cause her to feel threatened. At the same time, when she is generous (or when you feel affectionate towards her) express that affection with the realization that she may not give affection in return.
Invest your energy and emotion in yourself and in other healthier relationships. I am sorry, but sometimes are most fulfilling relationships are not with our closest family as much as we might wish they be.
Take care,
m
February 27, 2018 at 8:18 am #194943DogMommaParticipantHi! Having gone through something very similar with my own mother, I thought I’d throw in my two cents worth. Your mother is not going to change – sorry, but it took me years of therapy to realize that. My mother blames her childhood as well so I’ve heard that excuse over and over. This past summer we had a huge blow up – foolishly, I had taken her in to live with me and it only lasted less than two months. As I was telling my friends the various ugly things she said to me they said I should have held up a mirror to her because, essentially, all the things she brought up were things she believes about herself.
Unfortunately, we live in a society that worships the mother role but not all mothers are great ones. This is my first time posting so I’m not sure if I can leave a link to an article but I’m going to try.
If you can’t copy and paste the link just do a search on “Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers” by Darlene Lancer
I’d love to be able to tell you that things will get better. Your mother and mothers like ours seem to lack that connectivity that we all crave in our family life. Once I gave up all expectations of being loved and accepted by my mother I was slowly able to move on. It will take time but remember you are worth the energy you put into your own healing and eventual happiness.
February 27, 2018 at 9:38 am #195009AnonymousGuestDear ella:
It is not true that bullying makes the bullied strong, farthest from the truth. Not even close. Bullying hurts, harms and weakens those bullied, every single time.
Your mother didn’t stand up for you when your uncle bullied you, when peers in school bullied you, didn’t protect you from the school bullying by transferring you to another school, never admits she is wrong, blames you for giving being bullied (“She says that I made them suffer a lot during those years where I had a bad time”), tells you how her childhood was rough and how lucky you are, that is, sending you the clear message that indeed your problems aren’t real, aren’t valid, that she has the.. right to feel hurt, not you.
She has treated you with lack of empathy, communicating to you that she is entitled to empathy, not you.
I think it is fine that you told your mother the truth, that is, that she is selfish and so on
I wouldn’t reconnect with her, if I was you, so that your father doesn’t feel bad. It is a good thing that unlike your mother he admits that sometimes he is wrong. But he too did not protect you from being bullied and he did not protect you… from your own mother. So if he is uncomfortable about the no contact with your mother, his discomfort is only a consequence of his own neglect of you.
You wrote that your mother is generous, well, not with her empathy, giving you none of that.
Maybe she was generous to you with food and clothes and toys? Thing is, no one develops anxiety, OCD and a need for psychotherapy for not getting a whole lot of, or expensive food, clothes and toys. People develop anxiety and suffer for not getting empathy, for not being loved.
… for not being loved, I just wrote. You wrote in your second post: “I don’t know if I love my mom”- I say, it is okay. It is mutual then, isn’t it?
anita
February 27, 2018 at 10:47 am #195033ellaParticipantThanks to everyone who answered me. It makes me feel a little bit better to know that i am entitled to be angry at her.
To anita: i think its fun because both my dad and i are now realising how my mother is. He loves her, and is not uncomfortable with the thing that i am angry at her. In fact he agrees with me. Maybe he did some tings wrong but in general he has been a better parent than her. Thats why i show no anger at him. He has his flaws, so has everyone, but in general my arguments with him didnt affect me as much as the ones with my mother because he always tried to fix up things. Also, a fun thing is that if my dad stands at my side, my mom will resent him (i think this is very manipulative) and said that he is always trying to make her look like the bad one in front of me. The other day, as he was taking me to college, he told me that he agrees with me and that she ignores him too sometimes by playing candy crush. My dad wants us to fix things and i understand him.
About all the anxiety and the OCD i developed, do you think my mom had something to do with? When i was a teenager i already thought sometimes i hated her. I never really thought my mom was the bomb like other girls do. Sure, shes fun, but when she laughs in front of everyone and your friends and brings up things from the past which i regret, its not fun. When i was 17 i was a very quiet girl, i never told anything about my love life, so she ended up taking my phone and tried to see what was there. She was so silly that she blocked it and i knew she tried to see it.
Thanks again. I’ll be back when my boyfriend leaves because he just arrived.
February 27, 2018 at 11:10 am #195035AnonymousGuestDear ella:
You are welcome.
You wrote that your mother “said that (your father) is always trying to make her look like the bad one in front of me”- I think she is doing a good job at it (looking like the bad one) all by herself.
I do understand that in comparison to her, your father is indeed great. It is such a good thing when a parent admits wrongs. (My goodness, my mother never admitted wrongdoing!) and for otherwise validating you (as in saying he agrees with you)
(You mentioned Marakesh, morocco earlier, is that where you are from? If so I would like to share something with you)
Yes, I think a lot of your anxiety was caused by the ways your mother treated you. She should have protected you from your uncle, from the bullies in school and … from herself.
anita
February 27, 2018 at 11:15 am #195041ellaParticipantTo anita: no, im not from Marrakech. Im european but i dont know why my uncle said that. He was saying someh like if they sold me there and things like that.
Thanks again, this site is really helpful.
February 27, 2018 at 11:26 am #195049AnonymousGuestYou are welome, ella. Post again anytime you’d like.
anita
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