kudzujean

My father died from alcoholism when I was a little kid. My siblings and I were raised by my mother, who had become very sick from living with active alcoholism for about ten years.

When I was even way into my 20's, my mother wouldn't believe things I said. This really hurt my feelings and made me angry. I wasn't a chronic liar, either. She wouldn't believe me--but she'd turn around and believe a neighbor or friend.

I think one reason is she was SO used to minimizing and denying things, and the not believing was part of it.

For example, one thing she didn't believe me about. She asked me if some friends of our family, the Joneses, had a wind chime. I said they did because they in fact did. Some time later, she asked one of the Joneses!!!
There were many other examples like that.

Anyone else experience this?

EveningRose

YES!!!!

Since moving back to my home state ten years ago, it's slowly dawned on me that my mother thinks I'm a liar, and in fact, I never have been, but have rather been honest to a fault, saying more than I should to make absolutely sure I'm not even inadvertently giving the wrong impression. (I understand now that I was doing that because my mother was always treating me like a liar.)

Yes, she will believe absolutely anyone over me.

I offer this for what it's worth:

I believe her desire to believe I'm a liar springs from childhood incidents in which I told what my dad was up to, and it was easier for a house wife in the 70s to call her daughter a liar rather than confront him about his bad deeds.

I would think that it's very common for alcoholics to have other bad traits, too. And I would think that my experience--telling something very wrong the parent did and being labeled a liar rather than the codie parent having to face the truth--would be a fairly common experience among children of alcoholics.

EveningRose

Being too lazy to do the multiple steps required to edit.

I'm in my mid-40s, and the latest I heard of my mother's tale-telling is that she's still telling people at church I 'have a big imagination.' In other words, blatantly telling people I'm making things up. And of course, I'm not making anything up. I don't even know why she'd feel the need to do this to me, since I'm not running around church telling people anything about my parents. I say nothing at all about them. So why does she do it?

It's a sad and fascinating thing to watch how the victimization continues year after year in order to cover up their own misdeeds.

Does it hurt? I don't know. It disgusts me. I've come to take the attitude that if people believe her, they're fools, and if they don't want to take the time to get to know me on my merits rather than her warped sense of reality, their loss.

I have a friend who constantly reminds me it's a marathon, and the truth comes out in the end, and to keep living with integrity and not worry what anyone else thinks.

MikeH

Absolutely! My mother NEVER believed anything I said, from as early as I can remember (maybe 4 years old?)

Absolutely x 2!
I'm amazed at how many of us have the same, or very similar, experiences!

NWGRITS

*raising hand* Here, too. I got so used to saying things that I thought they wanted to hear. That inclued lying about things to make them better than they really were, or to make myself look better. It was a desperate attempt to be accepted by my FOO, but it carried over into adulthood. It's embarrassing when I look back at the things that happened just because I wanted to belong to a group of hateful, dysfunctional people. I'm better now, but I still fight that instant reaction to want to stretch the truth to make it all a situation look better than it is, or to put myself at fault in order to avoid hurting someone else.