When is it time to cut ties with your abusive mother?

[HopeForABetterFuture]

What do you do when your own mother, who you love dearly, is making your life miserable? I am really a happy girl, I try to meditate every day and stay positive, but after spending just a couple of weeks with my mother, I am transforming into a depressed, negative person who lives in fear, like my mother. If I didn't love her so much, she wouldn't have the power to transform my state of mind.

I have been in this vicious circle for many years with my mother, and I need it to stop now! Been thinking of cutting ties with her, because I get sucked back into her negativety every time I try to escape. She is a very negative person who is afraid of everything, she does not enjoy life and she is constantly stressed and worried for no reason. She is projecting all her fears onto me. She doesn't support my dreams, she doesn't believe I will become a success, she doesn't respect me, she doesn't value me, She treats me like a child (and I am in my late 20's), she manipulates me, she tries to control me, etc. So this has resulted in an ongoing battle, and it is just sucking out the life in me. I just want her to love me and treat me how I deserve, but it just won't happen. Everytime I move away from her, she becomes the best mother ever; supporting, sweet, kind, she tells me she loves me. But it is just an act I think. I get caught up and I fall for it every time, and move back in with her, because she almost beg me to move back in with her. She manipulates me, I feel bad for her and guilty (after she has pushed all the right buttons).

I just want to feel loved by my mother for once, so I move back with my mother every time she asks me to. And what happens then? After 2-3 weeks, when her acting is done, she changes into a "witch". She critisise me all day long, nothing I do is ever right, she just has this really negative energy around her that makes me uneasy. I am an artist, and she always critisise me for that too "why won't you get a job?".. Even though I am working really hard with my art and making enough money from it. But that doesn't count to her, it is like she doesn't respect me or what I am doing with my life. It is like "you have got all the time in the world, do me that favour tomorrow". (Again, I do work every single day, somethimes 7 days a week, but she doesn't acknowledge that). She knocks down my confidence and self esteem so I have lost faith in myself at times. I am never good enough for her. Nothing I can do will ever be good enough for her. When we are in public and talk to other people, she always interrupts me like what I have to say, don't matter at all. She can also shout at me and speak to me like I am a child when we are e.g. in the grocery store together. It is complicated to describe everything she does to me in one take, I'd have to write a book, lol. But all in all she treats me like garbage, even though I have done the best I could to please her. I have even taken jobs I hated to please her. I have changed who I am to please her, but it is never good enough. I stay with her on saturday nights instead of seeing my friends, because she makes me feel guilty about leaving her alone or she scares me into staying at home by telling me e.g. "Oh so you are going to that place? It is very dangerous there and you would most likely get raped there" (she doesn't go out much because no one is good enough for her and she is afraid of everything). My mother is making me isolate myself from people. My mother is just making me miserable and depressed. She takes away my confidence and self esteem.

Every time I try to start my own life without her, I get sucked back in because we speak on the phone and she changes to this nice, compassionate person. Me and my mother have a destructive relationship, where she manipulates me and makes me feel codependent. I have tried to start a new life now, in a whole different country, but she still has got a hold on me. Because I feel like she doesn't love me, but now that I have moved away she gives me  a little love so I desperately cling to her hoping she will fix all the bad things she has done to me. But I know deep inside she never will Change. I was abused as a child, by her and my former stepfather. My former stepfather was really cruel to me, in many different ways, my mother knew what was happening, but did nothing. And this happened just a couple of years after my father suddenly died when I was 7. I lived in hell for many years, and eventually ran away from home when I was 17. Had some bad abusive boyfriends, but it was better than living with my mother and stepfather. My mother is not a good person, but I am and I deserve better! i deserve to have people around me who genuinely loves me! I tried to cut ties with my mother recently, but it was so painful that my heart physically ached! So I am desperate to know, what do I do? I have this foolish, stupid part of me that believes my mother will change and finally give me the love I have been yearning for. She could fix all the bad things she has put me through, so I just want her to fix it. But I have that other part or me who is in tune with reality, and so I believe it is best to cut ties with her, but it is damn hard.. I know I have written a lot of info here, it has been therapeutic for me actually, thanks for listening. I would really appreciate your thoughts, or advice..

[HopeForABetterFuture]

Thanks for support and advice. I know what I have to do and I need to use my inner strenght to acheive it. Enough is enough, and it is time for me to take my power back and have a good life. I can't change the past, but I can try to make the best of my present and my future.

[AnnieBrooke]

I agree with SisterNewSong, especially that it is important to know absolutely that she is unhealthy for you.  You can cut ties to take care of yourself for your health, can't you?  She is playing a toxic game, but it is nowhere written that you have to play it also.

If she is nice when you are away, stay away.  Take the niceness for what it is (it might be fake, but you like hearing the tune) but keep it from afar.  (Not only because it stops when you are close, but it is nice to hear the tune occasionally even if you think it is fake or just a manipulation.)  It is a classic abuser thing to do, to hurt someone and then sing a siren song to supposedly make it right.  It's a power trip, abusers love to bend the abused person to their will and then "make" them love the abuser again after being so cruel.

She might be blind to how cruel she is or she might do it on purpose, but you are not blind and should not hang on in the false hope that somehow the Magic Reality Fairy will come and wave her wand and your mother will see how bad she has been and be sorry.  That won't ever happen.  What you can do is take back your power, walk away from it and stay away from it.  Once you are out, or even before, see a therapist.  Work to unspool your years of post-traumatic stress.  It will lift the world off your shoulders.

I am sorry this happened to you.  Nobody deserves a horrible parent, and unfortunately so many get them.  

[SisterNewSong]

I've faced similar struggles with my mother. I finally realized that it's unhealthy for me and I really keep my distance now. When mine starts laying guilt trips on me, that's when it's time for me to go. I finally realized that there's no way to change things, so I work on just letting it go. Good luck with your struggles. I feel for you.