Wascally Wabbit

I am baffled about how a parent who has drank themselves out of their childrens love because they abused their children, can later on in life lay guilt trips on you!

I am going through a lot of emotions about my mother. I decided not to live with her. Now, I am wondering why these type of parents expect you to be responsible for them when they get older. This is what my mom's doing to me all the time.

I am laid out on guilt trips all the time because I am not taking care of her. Actually, I am caring for my granddaughter and DIL because my son is in jail for another year. My plate is full. But, because I can't take care of her, I am a bad person in her eyes.

If she visits, she gets real pitiful, constant complaining, not feeling good, sick, hurting from arthritis etc and etc. When she's with anyone else, she's just the opposite.
She makes it sound like I will set her to the curb for trash, but her friends are the most wonderful people on earth.

I don't get this behavior. Any one else experiencing this?
How do you deal with it?

Do they still live in denial even after sponsoring hundreds of people in AA?

Is it normal? Do parents who never had an addiction act this way?

AcceptingChange

Well, i don't know about 'all older people', but i do know
that people see what they want to see.
And your mom wants you to take care of her. And she has
rationalized away what she's done to you. And our culture
expects children to take care of their parents. So that's the card
that she's playing.
Logic never trumps a person's will to live.
You could give her all the logic to prove her past actions
don't warrant your care. She won't believe that logic,
and she'll listen to her own logic.
So, you'll have to be hard-hearted and do what you feel
is warranted. If she can control you through guilt, she will.
Guilt is an older parent's most effective tool for getting what they want.
You have to be immune to the ploy of her using guilt to control you,
and not allow the manipulation to occur.
She's got society's approval on this as well.

Sort of like Joan Crawford, and how she treated
her daughter. Joan was the consummate actress,
a bit like your mum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mommie_Dearest

i know that's easier said than done.
best of luck!

GingerM

Your mom had a pattern of behavior she learned with you when she was still drinking. Apparently, while the alcohol is gone, the behavior patterns aren't.

I would liken this to parents who refuse to realize that they're children are adults. I've seen this in many non ACoA families, where, for whatever reason, the parent can not admit to themselves that their child is an adult now, they treat the adult child as if the adult child was a 7 year old, even when they're in their 50s or 60s.

In your case, the pattern of behavior just never changed. You can try asking your mom if she'd be willing to treat you the way she treats her friends, with the same respect and lack of guilt tripping, but there's no way of knowing whether or not she even realizes she's doing it.

I once had a counselor who told me that "the only way you can feel guilt is if you accept responsibility". She taught me a nifty little trick where, when someone is trying to guilt me or blame me for something I didn't do, I say "*I* didn't do that, and I refuse to accept responsibility for it." (repeat as needed until the other person stops trying, use whatever words it takes to fit the situation). For your mom, you might say something like "I'm sorry you think I'm going to toss you aside, however, I have not done so yet, and I will not be held accountable for actions I have not committed."

It sets a very very clear boundary, and it makes further argument futile on their part.

Someone sends you a package of guilt, and you just refuse delivery. You don't yell, you don't argue, you just refuse to accept what isn't yours to begin with.

It's amazingly empowering once you get the hang of it, and works with all kinds of people, not just your family (including toxic coworkers, pushy people in public etc)

SaTiT

I can relate, my father might treat everyone else nice, but he treats me
like crap.

My mother on the other hand, she dosn't drink or is an alki. In her eyes
I'm still her little boy. She saids so. i think she's a codi.

How did i deal with it or with my father ? it wasn't pretty.
Becuase the man was very ego tistic by nature and my preception
and thought process was he was always a god. of course i know his
not god, but I had behavior pattern or thought process enbeded in me
from very, every earliy on in life. Weather i think he is god or not dosen't
matter..I react like he is god.

And he pushed and
pushed as he always did. i just had enough..i told him to F-off and die.
Every ouce of my soul hurt and i felt like i was going to die. i even
broke down into tears after..all the guilt of shame came up on me.
No. it wasn't pretty..but it was never pretty before.

It's bascially the samething I had to do when I first got clean and sober
decades ago. I struggle with the 12 steps program becuase there was
god involved. My perception of God was that of a damning god..so
it wasn't going to work for me. In my mind and soul I though I was going
to hell..Oneday me and God had it out...i told the God to go to hell.
Seriouley i thought I was going to get struck by lighting. But peace
came over me as all faults profits wither away.

There's also POWER POSTS in the mental section. Those post help
me so, so much. Especially the one about negative inner vioce or guilt.
I followed the instrutions and applied it/ work it.
After a week I notice my negative inner vioce at work. it can be very subtle
at time...like a low , low vioce in the background.

I was talking a simple walk oneday just enjoy life. Nothing bad had happened,
it was actaully a goodday. But out of nowhere a vioce pop in my head
tell'in me how wortless i am and all the negatives things it can conjure.

i stop for a moment to identified it. It's bascially my dad's vioce.
There's a tape that runs in my brain from many, many years of
negative reinforcment.

The more i love myself, the more i will break away from the guilt.
Yeap it felt guilty to love myself at first too.

being an ACOA..it's like sufferning from Stockham syndrom.
Stockham sydrom came from when victims of a bank robbery felt sorry
or guilt for the robbers that was holding them hostage.

Wascally Wabbit

Thanks to everyone for such powerful replies. I very much appreciate it.

BigSis

You know my mom's dad was a 39 year AA member. He left when my mom was 3. She never lived with him growing up.

In 1988 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and believed his death was close... so he moved himself out of his life-long home, away from his AA home group and into a trailer he purchased and put in behind my mom's house.

Then he demanded she cater to him... checking on him, allowing him access to her home.

It was weird.

Then, when he didn't die after a couple years.... he moved back home - where he was far more comfortable.

Mom was as baffled as you, Wascally - but she had more resources. She worked, her husband (15 years her senior) was retired and available to help and she wasn't very much involved in our lives at the time.

I learned something kind of funny tho -

My mom was NOT like her mom (Nanny). Nanny was a sweet, codependent binger alcoholic. She smothered us with love and gifts and was always our champion.

Mom was a flirt and a prankster. Mom had opinions. Lots of them. She yelled. A lot. And she slammed pots and pans around in the kitchen when she didn't get her way.

One day after Poppy moved in, I walked into mom's kitchen and watched as Poppy started slamming pots and pans around on the stove... he was mad about something.

For the first time, I realized that some of mom's mannerisms were inherited. Her ways of coping weren't just brattyness... but biology! Poppy was a flirt...and a jokester. In fact, many of his "ways" were exactly like my moms - and they hadn't lived together in over 50 years!

It put things in perspective.



I hope you can find some way to accept your mom as she is without it reflecting on who YOU are. (((Wascally)))

KatieRose

My parents lay guilt trips on me all the time. They are very demanding of my time, but nothing is ever convenient for me. I once dated someone for 2 years and my family never accepted him. I suppose they will never change.

My dad used to drink constantly. In fact i avoid weddings constantly because it is embarrassing to be around him when he is drunk.

49er_fan

I think it is the co-dependent in me and the lack of boundaries that keeps my mom thinking I will take care of her. I never set boundaries in my 20's and early 30's and she just assumed that I was going to take care of her.

I'm a big caretaker, and I always have been. Either through necessity, or the way I was raised, I was always taking care of her, not the other way around. For instance, it's always been a *tradition* that on holidays, I drive my parents to my Grandma's or aunts or uncles house so that they can get bombed and they'll have someone to drive them home. It was just assumed. And the sad thing, is that I always did it.

I'm stopping that now, and it's a funny feeling. The guilt trips have been laid down heavily, but I am in control of my life, not anyone else's. I don't feel guilty for the first time ever. I've stood up to my folks and said no, I'm doing what I want.

The guild trips hurt, but I look at it like they'll only work if my parents have something I want like money, or a house, or an inheritance. Guilt trips will only work if they have something I want.

Guess what, they don't have anything I want or anything I can't provide myself. I hope one day my mom will treat me as a 32 year old instead of a 16 year old who just got a drivers license so I can chauffer them around.

lionessa

We can't be everything to everybody...And still be what we need to be for ourselves!I like you Have a grandchild I care for and my mom, who had her legs amputated, adult onset diabetes was the cause, is in a nursing home, I took care of her at first for 6 years, then hurt my back... Got her in a good nursing home, my doctor reccomended it as I was sick. She still makes me feel guilty, every visit! I must take care ofmyself, I am a widow and my father passed some years back. I am just one human being doing the best I can...I treat my mother with respect and dignity, I show her Love...I will not let how my mother sees me , define me, I know who and what and where I am!

mcerra16

I am going through this right now as well. My mom is currently unemployed, with no monetary resources so I have been paying her rent. When she is drinking and I bring up the money factor (I know stupid on my part- trying to reason with a drunk person- and stupid for paying it!) she says, "I raised you." She was a single mom and somehow that means to her she is entitled to me paying her bills and being wherever when she needs me. My response, "You chose to have children, I didn't choose to have an alcoholic mother who depended on me monetarily and emotionally." It isn't working for me either but I wanted to let you know I understand where you are coming from.

Trying.

My adoptive mother was always lying guilt trips on me. Then one day when she felt she was doing her duty by telling me just how let down she felt, I let her have her say then replied, "But I'm not all bad". I could hear a feather drop in the silence that followed LOL, she never treated me disrespectically again.

I felt/feel like the adult in the relationship now and see how her raging and hurt innner child had raised me as a child.

One of us had to decide to grow up and it looks like I got to do it. Thank god!

Wascally Wabbit

Wow, some pretty powerful posts here.

Well, I did get the opportunity to put to use what I learned here.
The other day while we were on the phone, some of her best friends help her move her furniture to a storage shed.
She then said to me what she does in order to MAKE me responsible for her.
She said, "Please call them and thank them for all they do for me".
I said, "Why? Didn't YOU thank them yourself?"
Yep, you coulda heard a feather drop!
I will continue to stand up for my self from now on.

GingerM

I could swear I replied to this, but I may have gotten distracted.

Great first step towards setting those boundaries Wascal! The first time is the hardest, after that, it just gets easier and easier. Which is not to say you won't find yourself being pushed/pulled/grapled with by attempted guilt trips, you just won't go on the trip nearly as often, and the longer you return her problems to her, the fewer and fewer trips you will take.

Good on ya!

SaTiT

okay..thanks for reminding me.
I feel like I've been on a trip lately, which threw me for a loop.
if i look at the big picture, there's been less and less trips.
i just feel sick when i'm in the trip.
So dose that mean I'm getting well ? Becuase stuff like that didn't
use to make me sick.

GingerM

It means it's infrequent enough in your life to have a significant impact on you when it does happen. So while it may not mean you're getting well, it does mean that you're not finding yourself in that situation nearly as often. Or it means you're better at keeping the guilt trips to a minimum, which would be on the path to recovery.

Either way, it's a good sign! Keep it up!

SaTiT

okay, I feel a little better today.
I still don't feel well or functional. i seem to struggle at routine task.
I did manage to get one thing done, but it wasn't what's most important
or what I'm suppose to do. i really, really need to get this one major
responsibilty taken care of, but for some reason i put it off. it's
getting to deadline time but i find it imposible for me to complete
it. Logically i can see how simple this task is, it's not difficult.
I've looked at it and printed it. All i have to do is fill out the form
but I can't pick up a pin to complete it or work on it. it'll probably
only take me 5 mins. Well, it took me longer for me to wirte this
post and i still havn't fill out that form.

I've been having these types of issues all my life. Not epecificlly to
paper work or bascailly simple task that needs to get done, but I'll
wait till the very, very last moment to do it, which makes it at little
bit complicate or harder.

I'm not drinking or using, but a big part of me is numbing out.
I think I'm sinking in old behaviors becuase I know I did this a lot
as a child. I'm very aware of it now, which makes me fustated at myself.

I'm going to try to go to beb now and i hope to god I fill out the form
tommorow.

GingerM

I found that initially bribery worked for me SaTiT. I would have to bribe myself (and still sometimes do) to do those chores that, for reasons unknown to me, I simply couldn't seem to do. For me it was taking out the garbage and dusting. I still have to bribe myself to dust (and thankfully, hubby is willing to do the garbage). Any reward will do - an hour of watching tv, going to bed early, a 'get out of other chore free' card, whatever it takes.

I've whittled my "can't stand to do it" chores down to just those two items. I used to be nearly paralyzed with almost any task that was not familiar and routine. A combination of bribery and rational self talk helped me through it until it became easier and the old patterns were driving me less and I was driving myself more.

SaTiT

okay, i filled out the form.
It was actually silly. i only had to give general personal informations and check on a
couple of questions. Alot less than signing up for SR.
Contacted a lady to get more informations and that was it.lol
Maybe it was too simple and easy, which makes it all too difficult for me.

I actaully feel free and releaved after doing it.

I know i'm not really well.
it's stuff like this , bascailly in general i still don't feel i deserve to be
happy or suceed in life. There's a mental or emotional block somewhere.
I sense something. i can't really put my finger on it. Guilt perhaps.

thanks for being here and talking through it. it was a challenge and a half for me.

Wascally Wabbit

Only by the Grace of God did I make it through college, and with a 3.7 too.
I waited till the last few minutes before leaving for class to do an entire final project. Homework came at the last moment.
I don't know why on earth I could not motivate myself to get the simplest project done before hand so I could relax.
No, I waited till the last minute all the time. I would put it off and then, in a complete state of panic and fear, do it all at once.

I think my success was because of the millions of pages of notes I would take. I don't think I could handle school, doing it like that again though.

I find that I am still that way with many things in my life. The other day I had a one page form to fill out too, and waited till the day before it was due to mail the stupid thing even tho I had that paper for a month.
What the heck is it about us not being motivated like this?

It's interesting you'd bring up this subject. Now, I am going to have to take a good hard look at this problem and use Ginger's advice on little bribes.

SaTiT

I use to be a manager . i had to sign my john doe by the thousands
or nothing gets done. Make million dollar decisions without hastitations.
when it comes to doing things for myself it's like pulling teeth.

Not my top priority but it's still something for me
i'm geting better thou..i made a phone call to have my pc
pick up for repairs..lol i had the pc pack for days..they sent the
box overnite so i can send i back overnite, prepaid.lol
All i had to do was dial 1-800 come pick it up. it took 30 sec.
but it took me over a week to pick up the phone.

when I was at work..i had phones gluded to my ears
with call waiting and handle them...becuase it's not for me
that I'm making millions for.

yeah..i think i'm going to have to bribe myself or something.
or i hope god removes this defects..it's not good for me
becuase it's not as if i don't know i need to do things for myself.
I'm fully awear of it but for some reason I don't them.