Mlynn

Over the past few months I have been working on setting boundries with my mother. She goes from one extreme to another with her treatment twards me. Wanting to coddle me like a small child & treating me like a small child (baby talk/attempting to cuddle with me/buying me age innaproprate items [i'm 22] exc.) to her herself acting like a small child who needs her mother (me) to take care of her. I either feel 4 or 40....but rarley my own age. My mother becomes enraged when I reject the roles that she tries to force me into. She takes it as evidence that I do not and have never loved her....and that no one loves her. We have had faux "therapy sessions" (ie..me attempting to "show her the light" while she flies into hysterics) which lead too [very uncomfterable] 2 hour long conversations where she justifies away her actions and lies to the both of us (herself included) about how it really was...and plenty of why can't *I* understand how tough *she* had its.
I honestly think some parts of my development have been stunted and others hyper-stimulated. I am both hyper-responsible (for others) while being hyper-irrisponsible (Lacking even the most basic of life skills required for self-care). There is no happy medium.

She can't form her own oppinions.....takes EVERYTHING I say or do and repeats it to others in conversations....WHILE I'M THERE!!!! I mean word for word like she just formed the thought in her own mind??? If I dislike something, she tells other people she dislikes it, If I have an oppinion about a public figure, her oppinion is the SAME!!! Oh I can't stand it!!! Then when something I say is wrong or if I change my mind about something I hear "we'll I just did/said you told me too" or "You said/did blah blah blah". Crap she doesn't have to take every oppinion I have and use it to blame me for her actions or get attention. WE ARE NOT *ONE* PERSON......WHY CAN'T/WON'T SHE SEE THAT???

Lauriejess

I'm sorry, I have the exact opposite problem from you. I may as well be dead for the amount of time/attention I get from my mother. She acts as though I don't exist.

Funny, how the two mothers are so different!!

Laurie

Mlynn

I am sorry about your mother. My mother uses affection(or decency) as a weapon.....when guilt trips and controol tatics (like making threts to burn down the building that I worked at - which gave me indapendence from her) don't work.....suddenly she will never see me agian, I am no longer her daughter, and destroying our relationship was *my* choice.

The sad thing is it worked . I gave up my job, my apartment, good friends, and a city that I loved....to "give in" and it was such a devestation that I am now paralized. RIGHT WHERE SHE WANTS ME!!!

It's funny that the only time our relationship is OK is when I am suffering greatly or when I am dependant on her. When I am happy and indapendant she has a literial nervous/mental breakdown.

lanie67

I am so sorry. It sounds to me like your mother has a serious psychiatric condition. I don't know how you stand that, it would drive me up the wall. I am 38 and can relate to a lot of what you shared, especially this:
"I am both hyper-responsible (for others) while being hyper-irrisponsible (Lacking even the most basic of life skills required for self-care). There is no happy medium."

I don't know what I would do were I in your shoes. I just hope that you have a very, very, very strong support system. Because clearly what you are describing is very far outside what is considered normal and healthy behavior for a parent to engage in. I found the 'evidence that I do not and have never loved her' to be particularly manipulative and disturbing. My parents played head games with me the whole time I was growing up, and sometimes continue to. I basically have no life, in part because I spent my whole childhood trying to make sense of their insane behavior instead of developing the skills I would need to make a life for myself. I am sorry you have to deal with the insanity you are describing at 22. You, of course, cannot help her, she needs professional help. My heart goes out to you.

Mlynn

Thanks for your support. You could have taken these words right out of my mouth " I basically have no life, in part because I spent my whole childhood trying to make sense of their insane behavior instead of developing the skills I would need to make a life for myself".

I don't even know where to begin. My support system is this forum essentially. I don't have any "normal" family members to count on. All of the "adults" in my life (with the exception of 1 aunt and 2 cousins who are a part of my father's family who I have recently just met and who I am working on building a relationship with slowly) are either mildly or highly dysfunctional. My Fathers family is all scattered, not close, and disconnected from one another or not so much from one another as a whole but from "us" as my father isiolated himself from his family. Getting to know them is both exciting and scary. I feel like in some ways like I fit when I am with them....but building a relationship with these strangers who look like me, and share alot of my likes/dislikes but who have had drastically diffeent life experiences is still quite alot to take in.

Still I DO have a cousin....who grew up with me as a sister (our grandmother took care of us....and we lived together when my brother had cancer and my parents couldn't take care of me) but she shares alot of my same issues. Neither of us is functional and neither of us had a "sane" adult to look too for guidence. Our grandmother passed when we were young and then we took turns taking care of each other. Her mother suffers from a much more severe mental AND/or personality disorder....while she has never been diagnosed (she is a good liar and highly manipulative so she has another face that she shows to the outside world) and refuses to go to a doctor we know that she has either NPD, Skitsophrenia, borderline personality disorder or similar. She fits ALL 9 markers for Malignant Narcisism or NPD and might have a "dependant personality" disorder. While I can't diagnose anyone I have spent enough time with NPD to recognise the behavior of NPD people....and she has it feircly.

So while my cousin and I "support" each other it's kinda of in veigh. It's like the blind leading the blind because were both so messed up that we don't even have the first clue in the world what "normal" is or how to achieve it. The rest of my family is either drug addicts, alcoholic's, crimilals or have hit the trifecta and managed to achieve all 3 with ease!!!!

lanie67

God bless you. I've found ACOA to be really helpful with issues like this. Your knowledge about the issues and your resolve have inspired me so much because you are dealing with so much at such a young age. I too am glad to have this forum to lean on, but your struggles make mine seem minor. You seem to have a great awareness of what is surrounding you and that is incredibly impressive...just hang in there. Hugs to you.

utopia

im 23, this is relevant and obviously something i have to face as it keeps coming up for me. thank god i have a higher power to walk with me. my mother has recently rejected me as cold and selfish and i took it hard when she said im like my father now (an alcoholic, rapist, paedophile by the way, but she seems to ignore the fact when it suits her) i am aware my resentments are being stirred and that we are both self absorbed, esp when in pain. i am really hurt by her latest actions as i feel im just trying to live my own life whereas she feels i am abandoning her and not giving "enough" of a care factor to her. i feel quite barren as i always felt we were close because of the hostilitity/mad affection that came from my father. im baggin down some chips now because i feel numb already. she is acting just like a child and she has left it open ended when well talk again as she hung up on me on the phone. its strange to me ho i thought she was actually more like my father because she had the ism of envy thinking that i placed more value on a free meal or using the computer at her house then being with her. i just found her negative outpouring too much sometimes, but now i dont know how i feel, partly glad because i feel motherless? and this guilt that i should be the devotional son, but i think devotion can easily become resentment.

justjo

Utopia, you sound extremely mature for your age honey. I think maybe you have just answered some of your own questions. Mum sounds like she needs to be left alone to figure it out. Do what is best for you as you cant have this continuous emotional b...s keeping you down. You have been through enough.
Be honest with her and tell her e v e r y t h i n g thats on your mind... then its up to her to be the parent..

Wascally Wabbit

I am 51 and my mom is 74. She still to this day gets mad when I "don't do as she says" and believes we could live together! I would rather eat a rock than have to live in the same house. It wouldn't be 24 hours and I would be checking into a nut house.
I love her very much. She is a good person, has lots of friends, and has been in AA for nearly 30 years. It just seems that she hasn't learned things like "live and let live", and
"making amends to those you've hurt." Its her controlling behavior that makes me crazy.
I have realized I will never get the apology she gave to others on her list. But, I also have accepted that. One day she'll be gone and I will be sitting wondering what it all would have been like if she had never started drinking.

shockozulu

You could have described my mother to a "T". She was diagnoised with Borderline Personality Disorder before she began to abuse drugs. However, she did not tell me until 5 years ago when she thought it was bragging rights-- "Look how sick your mother is and you aren't taking care of me".

I felt for over 28 years that I was the one who was not giving enough in the mother/daughter relationship when she wanted to live through me, and wanted me to take care of her when she wasn't treating me like I still wanted to play with dolls. If you would like to talk more about this, just shoot me a Private Message and I can let you know more about it.

I finally had to go "no contact". The hardest decision I made this year was NOT to invite my mother to my college graduation. I'm getting an associates degree which was a dream of my mother's mother...but I know that my mother would simply try to overtake the attention and make it all about her. She has a way of making any of my accomplishments about her... its not my accomplishment, it is the accomplishment of "her daughter". Sound familiar?

There was a book I bought before she told me about her diagnois that really has helped me in recovery. It is titled "Surviving a Borderline Parent: How to Heal Your Childhood Wounds & Build Trust, Boundaries, and Self-Esteem"

GingerM

A quote from my mom: "Well of course you did well, that's because I brought you up to do well." mmmhmmm.

Not really there mom, you taught me a lot of things in life - just how mean, petty, vindictive, abusive and psychotic people can be. But you didn't teach me the things I needed to succeed in society - had to learn all that on my own.

I just ignore my mom when she says stuff like that. Giving any response at all only seems to encourage her. I've found animal behavior training (especially techniques used in training wild animals) works really well with my mom. Kinda sad really.

carl250r

If you live with your mom still at 22 then she is bound to drive you crazy.it sounds to me like she is nuts. and if you are under the same roof then it is going to suck to put up with crap like that.
So when you get your own place or if you already have your own place just screan your phone calls let the ansering machine get it.

my parents drove me up the wall when i lived with them so i moved out.and when your around some one all the time that you know very well and have known your whole life. they get very earitating,you just get sick of the $#IT. especialy moms and dads.
and allot of it is your paying to close of attention to what there doing or saying.after you get un-involved with there lives,sort of get cold to there BS. it will go in one ear and out the other.If some one is nuts and has allways been nuts sort of treat them like a ******** child all the time and they might get the point...or they might not,but just be sure to keep your life moving along.
it sounds like you don't like mostly things that she says and the ways she says it when she is talking, well that can be easy to deal with. Just tune it out. maybe she talks to dang much. if i get around to much bla bla bla,i will go off to another world just strait up look around into space day dreaming.try doing that.
and somtimes when i am not doing that and some idiot is blabing about some BS or just geting on my nerves i will honestly say this outloud to them hold on i got to go take a dump. then they will let you hang up the phone on them because you got to take care of buisness or you can leave the room and not come back ,if there there and not on the phone.I am not joking i do this and it works on my mom ,dad, friends ,pest,anyone.