Horrible Relationship with my Mother

[Athenah]

My mother and I never got along I was raised (in the same house with mymom) by my grandmother. The only thing my mom says is that I am the reason why she hasnt had a lasting husband, a good relationship, no savings at all in the bank. I was raised believing all this and last saturday I exploded, she keeps saying she has suffered so much and that she deserves all she can get and I am just sick of it, of understanding her OCD of not arguing and exploded and almost passed out. I have been going to psychologists since I left my mothers house and stopped for a while now I am going back I cant handle it, it is affecting my relationship with my friends, with my husband, at work, everywhere.
My grandma is always on my mom's side, so there is no way to talk to her either. It is understandable my mom supports her, I dont know what to do anymore.

Please please advise.

[Richard Pomerance, Ph.D]

Dear Athenah,

I’d love to help! But before I can, I need to know more of the facts. Please answer these questions, fill me in as much as possible, add anything else you think relevant. More is better than less.

The basic questions that crossed my mind as I read your request:

What were the circumstances of your upbringing? Where was your father? Raised in same house with your mother?

What do you and your psychologist think is going on with your mother? Diagnosis? OCD doesn’t compute with her behavior as you report it.

How long are you out of the house, and why are you back?

How old are both of you?

Anybody else at home? Any siblings?

If you’re married, why are you back home with your mother? Or do I have the arrangements wrong?

What else can you tell me about what's going on, or who both of you are?


Hope to talk to you soon, when I get some more information.

Sincerely,

Dr. P.

[Athenah]

Dear Doctor Pomerance,

Thank you for all your advice; I will bring this letter to my therapist and continue working with her on my feelings as you suggested.

You are right and the things you describe are the things I feel. I think the hardest part was to make up my mind and decide not to apologize anymore and accepting I couldn't talk to her and that part is done, the rest is hard work.

I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for answering my question, helping me with advice and for being so honest.

You can be sure that if things change for better or worse I will let you know.

Many many thanks again, I felt very lost and I now feel I have a direction and know where to go next with my life  (I have something to work on).

Regards,

Athenah.

PS:  I just read my husband what you told me to tell him. He thought about it for a while and think he will soon (or maybe he does now) that problems just dont go away if you dont talk about them, that you actually have to work on getting them fixed.

[Richard Pomerance, Ph.D]

Dear Athena,

Thanks for filling me in.

Your therapist is right, maybe righter than you’ve realized. Your mother is a mess. She has treated you terribly, and for no reason whatsoever. It’s obscene, well beyond OCD. I’m not sure, from your description, what her formal diagnosis is, but it seems she’s mentally out of control much of the time. Paranoia? Occasional psychosis? Who knows. The point is that she’s wrong-headed, scapegoating of you for no reason, and vicious. In addition, her own mother is complicit in all this, though better than her. And your grandmother is someone you feel you owe, because she partially rescued you.

But the key here is that you feel unable to set emotional limits with your mother. This happens with nasty mothers, and women (daughters) are especially vulnerable. THERE IS SUCH A NEED TO PRESERVE THE RELATIONSHIP, THAT THE DAUGHTER PUTS UP WITH ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING. It’s as if the TABOO, WORST thing is to call a spade a spade, and set limits.

I’m referring to two kinds of limits. The first, the easiest, is contact in reality. You need to keep your hand away from the spinning blade if you don’t want to get bloody. But the second is the tougher one: the inner understanding that she is a sick and impossible person (at least for now, and maybe forever) and that you have a low probability of getting the love and understanding FROM HER that you’ve always wanted, and therefore need to distance yourself emotionally.

Let me say this another way: when we have severely personality-disordered or mentally incompetent person in our family, we somehow don’t believe it. We deny it, or say we somehow MUST fix it. But when it’s someone outside the fsmily, we are much more accepting of reality, and if we come in contact with them, we’ll be more likely to just give them a wide berth.

The point is that sometimes a sick family member has to be avoided, temporarily or permanently. Otherwise, we’re making a decision to keep being bloodied by them. We’re so desperate to repair the relationship that often we’ll keep doing that, irrational as it is! But it’s a CHOICE. You CAN learn to put emotional distance between you, if that’s the sane and self-protective thing to do. The alternative:  work with the feelings, and get our love from people who can actually give it!

If the conflict over this is what’s making you anxious and unable to sleep, then the emphasis should be on you wrestling with all the feelings involved, with your therapist. If you have a more or less separate anxiety issue, then that has to be treated as such, perhaps with medication.

So here are the options: pull back emotionally, try to heal with your therapist (I hope she’s very warm, rational, and accepting!) or keep putting your fingers into the spinning blades of your mother’s craziness. Some women do the latter, feeling unconsciously, that somehow THEY MUST HAVE ACTUALLY DONE SOMETHING TERRIBLE,  BECAUSE MOTHER KNOWS BEST!

By the way, in my experience, sometimes, though far from often, when the daughter, or son, for that matter, says “NO MAS” and will no longer accept that scapegoat role, the parent stops victimizing, sooner or later. If that ever happens, you MAY be able to form a decent relationship with the woman. It’s a long shot. In any case you’ll have all your fingers.

Maybe share this perspective with your therapist? Perhaps some important conversation may come out of it.

I wish you luck with all this. Work hard on seeing the reality of your mother's sickness and evil behavior, toward a resolution of your emotions. Refuse to be victimized, both externally and internally, and you’ll beat this awfulness over time.

Feel free to reach me again if I’ve misunderstood anything or there’s more to discuss.


Sincerely,


Dr. P.

P.S. Tell your husband for me that this stuff doesn’t just disappear by will power or avoidance. He couldn’t just WILL a car engine to stop making noise; he’d have to get in there and FIX IT.  Repair takes time, work, experience, and focus. Same thing here, only with something far less concrete, this personal history of abuse, and the feelings involved!

[Athenah]

Dear Doctor Pomerance,

Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer my question, I really appreciate your help. Below the answers to your questions:

I was born when my mom was married, she divorces when I was two years old and my father lost his interest in me, later I was told by my own mother that she threatened him to leave us alone or she would harm him. In my house there were three people, my mother, my grandmother (mother`s mom) and myself. My mother worked a lot and during the first five years of my life she went to school so I dont remember a lot of her. I do remember she would get really upset and close me in the bathroom and hit me, she would call me names (still does) and do things such as cancelling my elementary school saying I could never come back, or treating me as she said `like a dog`food and shelter and no more. My grandmother knows me better, she is more patient and listents, she is never on my side because she says my mom is sick and needs more understanding. My grandmother was the person who raised me and the person whom i looked up to. Recently I found out that every single secret I told my grandmother she told my mother (my mother listed a lot of secrets I had told my grandma) and that my grandma would go to my mother to tell her she had to watch out more for me because I was going to turn into a bad person. My mother`s excuse: "we were fighting for your love".

My mother has no family (only child too) and her father hated her after she turn 15 because she "changed". My mother was married as I mentioned before, then she divorced my father and had a couple of boyfriends, then she found a person whom she could yell at and manage as she likes to put it, she spent 10 years with him and he left her for other woman.

My mom was the only economic support I had when I was growing up and she paid my school, gave food and a house to live at. Until this very day she still says I owe her big because she raised me.

I am married, I left my home country and moved away when I was 21. I have a great husband, he has been very patient with all this and I feel we are reaching the point where he cant stand me talking about it (my mother and the problem) anymore.

I am not back home, I called on the phone and used to talk to them (grandma and mom) a few times during the week. Now, because of the economic crisis my mother (who is still back home) was demoted to a position where she makes less money and I help with money.

When I was 12 I was told my mother had OCD, she used to clean all night or all day and not sleep at all because of her need for cleaning BUT that didnt change anything to me, she was still mean. After she was told she had OCD I feel (I am probably very ignorant in the psychology field) she used that as an excuse to her behaviour. Since I can remember she would have in the fridge special food for herself (the best food), the best fruit for her the bad fruit for us (grandma and I), my grandma justifies that saying "ohh well she works she must have the best", best bed for her bad beds for us and so on and so forth.
I paid my unversity partially working at the library and doing other jobs (painting, waitressing, etc etc) and she would pay the rest of the money. During my last semester she didnt want to help me anymore and my boyfriend then (now my husband) paid my school (back home there aren't student loans). After I left home I went to university again and graduated and now I work.

Everytime I have an argument with my mother she turns it around and she is the victim, the argument can be that I called when she wasnt there therefore she says I love my grandma more, that I decided to send less money so she doesnt continue her obsessive spending (she has at least 50 pairs of shoes and a room full of clothes), then she gets mad and makes a excuse to tell me I am ungrateful (insults go here), before I left home she told she hoped I had a very rough time and had to come back looking like a dog. If I run at the gym she buys a treadmill, if for some reason I say I got new business cards she makes an excuse to get mad. She keeps saying I shoudl stay with my "little husband" and comments like that.
I am guilty according to her for everything that has gone wrong in her life and after she insults me and treats me bad she cries and makes up stories of things that I said (which I didnt) and calls people to tell them I am the bad person. In previous years I would apologize but not anymore.

This is really affecting me, my husband wants to have children and I think  cant because I wouldnt have to deal with this emotional roller coaster. My husband gets mad at me and tells me I should focus in our relationship now and not in my problems with her, it is affecting me with my friends, and at work (and I love my job).

She wants to be a victim saying she has suffered a lot but who hasn't, everyone has their own pain. SHe makes me feel guilty and the excuse is OCD.

She was a mental institution 10 years ago and her happiness depends on me allowing her to humiliate me, since I dont apologize anymore for things I havent done she keeps playing victim.

My therapist says she is a negative person in my life because she brings out the worst in me (I am upset for days after talking to her) and that I should stop talking to her 100%.

I cant sleep and I am taking pills to sleep, i am too upset and repeat things in my head I would tell her if I could, I am taking naturopath drops (white chestnut drops) so I can at least try to have a normal night.

I dont know what to do. I am sorry for the long letter and thanks so much for all your help.

Regards,

Athena.