If you had a crazy mother, you will spend your whole life trying to transcend it. If you are a crazy mother, no degree of remorse will ease your heavy heart.
My mom was crazy. Even into her forties, my sister was ashamed to let anyone find out. Whenever I meet someone with a crazy mom, I feel an instant kinship, even if their childhood experience was nothing like mine. The burden of a crazy mom sets you apart. You missed out on something that you can barely imagine. But you struggle to forgive her.
I know people who were locked in closets, hit, threatened, screamed at, abandoned, and I know a woman whose mom killed herself on Mother’s Day, knowing her three daughters would find her with a plastic bag over her head.
If your mom was crazy, none of this will shock you. I’m more shocked when an adult friend tells me about a nice day she just had, shopping with her mom. It seems almost otherworldly. How do you get a normal mom, a mom who isn’t either enraged or crying?!?
While PAP Smear takes a break, I’m embarking on a Crazy Mothers Club. We might have a logo, but probably not. Maybe just a secret handshake.
Was (or is) your mom crazy? Here is a place you can talk about it. Rant, complain, whine, and compare notes. Are you a crazy mom? You can confess, seek counsel, or just bond with other crazy moms. No one gets to be mean to anybody else, i.e., bad vibes will not be tolerated.
Since I fit both categories, I get to be CEO. Annemarie will do the PR and heavy lifting. All other positions are open.
Count me in!
I’ve got a Nutter Mum. Battered the shit out of me for years.
Which didn’t help during what I call ‘The Undiagnosed Years’ (before they decided I had Asperger’s).
Cut her out of my life 6 years ago. Best decision ever!
I would happily join that Club!
Yes I often feel that I “will spend my whole life trying to transcend it” ! Like your sister, I spent years trying to hide my mother’s weirdness from others, and perhaps from myself in the same go. Now at nearly 30, I’m only just starting to come out of this attitude and get on with my own life….. at last !
I’m also worried about being a weird mom myself (no kids yet, but planning on it, at some point).
I often think I’m a weird girlfriend to my partner as well, though I’m not sure that can all be blamed on my mother.
I’ve been through a drastic period of cuting her from my life. We are now in good terms, though that means I very little of her, on family occasions only which means never one to one. That seems to work for me !
My both parents were crazy and I spent a lot of time, as a child, wishing they would die. At eighteen, I more or less cut them out but have made some efforts to establish some kind of relationships with them at a later age.
Living abroad gives a perfect excuse for not staying in touch too much and not getting too close. Last time I met my mother was in April last year. I managed to spend an hour with her, chitchatting, drinking coffee and not feeling too awkward about the situation. I haven’t had any contact with my father in five years but the last time I did was a pleasant experience. He’s a strange old man, and a rather funny one at that.
I’m a bastard, er, by birth, that is, not by nature, despite the majority opinion of this blog! My mother gave birth to me in London a few months before WWII broke out, a time when illegitimacy was severely frowned upon and for that and other reasons she had cut all ties to her family, so she was a woman alone. When the blitz began I was evacuated (along with tens of thousands of other children, to a family of strangers in the country whilst my mother remained working in London. Happily, the family I was with were superb and I remained with them until around 1946 when my mother, who had visited as often as she could, came to collect me. She need not have done so, the family I was with would have kept me as their own if she had allowed them. But she did, despite the financial strain that ensued, and which stayed with us for most of my childhood, and teh end to anything approaching a social life, let alone a love life. As I creep unwillingly towards death, she keeps entering my thoughts and I bitterly regret that I never expressed the gratitude I feel now, in retrospect, for the love and affection and care she bestowed on me at huge cost to herself and which, with the grasping insensitivity of youth, I took for granted.
I mention all this because it is my *personal* experience and it has, therefore, coloured my *personal* view of the relationship between mothers and children and I am in danger of projecting this *personal* experience outwards to encompass *all* mother/children relationships. That would be a mistake.
In a penultimate comment to that long, tedious thread below (sorry, my fault – well, actually, I’m not that sorry!) ‘Sister Wolf’ proposed a sort of ‘general theory of mother/son relationships’, and I see now that much of this stems from her own personal experience which she is projecting outwards. In addition, it has all over it the finger prints of that arch fraud – Freud! In the last 150 years there have been two grand, world-wide hoaxers whose unmitigated rubbish has caused utter misery to millions, that is, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx. The fact that both of them were Jews and thus members of arguably the most intelligent race on earth is yet another example of the Intelligent Designer’s jokes! Also, of course, they were both intellectuals and thus stand as excellent reasons for the general derision I aim at anyone who kneels at the feet of such ninnies.
‘Sister Wolf’ writes of “the male’s inherent fear and loathing of Mommy”. Well, I’m a male and I have never felt anything other than the exact opposite of what she posits. I am certainly not alone in that and there is a sort of proof in the innumerable stories of soldiers wounded in battle instinctively crying out for their mothers. Even so, she asserts, wihtout a hint of doubt, that “All male endeavors not designed to acquire pussy are in fact a futile effort to get even with Mommy for being the boss when he was helpless. It is the male condition and cannot be transcended.” That is, if I may use a post-modernist word of doubtful integrity, a ‘construct’ built without foundation. It may be a description of *some* relationships, the human condition is such that it contains a myraid of possibilities, but to claim universality is not so much a step too far but a whole route march.
‘Sister Wolf’ ends with this, and I confess that when I read it, I giggled:
“When you can’t get even with Mommy or win the unconditional love to which you believe yourself entitled, you turn to other men for approval. Hence the drive for political power and while we’re at it, for bodybuilding. At this point, you are looking for Daddy or else trying to kill him in your Oedipal fury.”
This begs the following question: “Arnie, did you really lurve your Mother?”
Mr. Duff,
It is normal to have clarity when looking back on the past– 20/20 hindsight is the expression, I believe– but do you not see the inherent contradiction in saying this:
“the FAMILY I WAS WITH WERE SUPERB ….my mother…came to collect me. She NEED NOT HAVE DONE SO, the family I was with would have kept me as their own IF SHE HAD ALLOWED THEM….I bitterly regret that I never expressed the gratitude I feel now, IN RETROSPECT, for the love and affection and care she bestowed on me at huge cost to herself and which, with the grasping INSENSITIVITY of youth, I TOOK FOR GRANTED”
And then this:
‘Sister Wolf’ writes of “the male’s inherent fear and loathing of Mommy”. Well, I’m a male and I have NEVER FELT ANYTHING OTHER THAN THE EXACT OPPOSITE of what she posits.
???
(BTW, I think you should revisit Freud and Marx; the original sources rather than readings that ape their work.)
Also, I apologise for hijacking your story like that.
But I think the whole problem with mothers is the simultaneous sense of love and anger and guilt we feel for them. It’s one big messy emotion.
Sister Wolf, I’d high five you if I could, no really.
My mom is a crazy bitch, and it has effected my siblings in completely different ways. My oldest brother tends to be a compulsive liar and constantly tries to get me to believe he’s really really cool, no really.
My little brother likes guns, airplanes, and violence, of course he is in the air force and loves to talk about it. He has the most unfortunate case of social anxiety.
My sister can be described in two words: “Princess” and “Cunt” both capitalized, enough said.
I’ve found it most interesting to observe this, but have been shocked to realize (and also be told by someone on the “outside”) that I am the most normal child my mother has produced. ..and yeah, you can probably figure that I’m hilariously weird, introverted and angry.
It comforts me to read this; I’ve struggled with my mom’s crazy bitch-ness for a long, long while. When I was younger I figured I’d oust her once I were older, never talk to her because why the fuck would I or anyone else? Then I started to live like an “adult”, on my own and all that, and now I just feel sorry for her. She did the best job she knew how to do, but now it only angers me that she doesn’t see anything wrong with the fucked up job she did.
Its a tough one, I guess. I might never have kids because of her, but she’s my mom and the only one I have.
Actually, can someone who isn’t a Crazy Mom adopt me? I’m a good kid, really.
I used to think the mothership was a little loopy… but the extent of it was that she locked me out of the house a few times…. I was pretty crazy though so it warrants that sort of reaction…
My mom’s not super crazy. Though she is a drinker. She would always forget conversations, and sometimes forget giving me permission to do things for which I would get fussed at later. But overall, she was pretty much like growing up with Martha Stewart (minus the creepy parts). Always cooking and decorating and shopping. My Dad’s mother though, she is certifiable, and he finally cut her out about 4 or 5 years ago. And he definitely had the “the male’s inherent fear and loathing of Mommy” thing going on. He was still trying to win her approval into his 60s, failing continuously, while her baby son gets all her affection and can do no wrong… in spite of the fact that he’s sitting in prison for murdering his wife.
fascinating stuff. if your mom tried her best and has some small ability to see her faults, well i guess you’re one of the lucky ones. my mother did try her best despite my father’s alcoholism and her disappointment with life in general (depression). my mother died at 56. she was a lovely woman, perhaps a tiny bit distant, but she did love us. my mother-in-law was controlling and egotistical. hence, my daughters had no grandparents. my reaction was to over-protect and become somewhat enmeshed. but hey they know i’m THERE and that i adore them. i know every way i’ve fucked up and it does keep me up at night.
Annemarie,
Sorry, no, I don’t see any contradiction in what I wrote. My evacuee family were wonderful and we remained friends for years after. In retrospect, I can see that there *might* have been a temptation on the part of my mother to quietly slip from the scene and ‘do her own thing’, as they say today, knowing that I was cared for. But she didn’t. At great personal and financial cost she took me back as soon as she could and looked after me with love and affection.
Now, I know that that is not the case for everyone but I can say with certainty that *all* of my close friends enjoyed an affectionate relationship with their mothers, so it is a mistake, I suggest, to think that there is some sort of natural law that all mother/son relationships are as described by our hostess.
Perhaps it is best if we place Messrs. Freud and Marx to one side. I simply rest on the obvious fact that all their prognostications have proved false.
That suicide story is appalling! Yikes.
David – By accusing me of projecting my childhood experience outward (meaning it invalidates my personal beliefs) you are attacking me and using my Crazy Mother to do so. You broke the rule, so you may not comment in this thread. Why you can’t follow a simple rule when you are so well-read, I have no idea! Please be gone until you can figure out what’s wrong with you. Don’t be too hasty to dismiss psychoanalysis.
I’m not saying anything because who knows, she might be reading?
Yes, add me to the club!
Sleepy – Sorry to hear this. Sometimes you just have to divorce you mom. If she understood more about AS, I wonder if she could have learned to control herself? Probably not. Would you like to be a club official? xo
Sarah -It sound like you’re doing better than most in figuring out a way to deal with your mom in a positive way. I can relate to your story. Your awareness of your own childhood will help you with your own kids. No mom is perfect. But because you’e clearly not in denial, you will have compassion and sensitivity to your children’s needs. xo
Juri -Ah, it’s rough when both are crazy. Same here. It’s great how when enought time passes, you can see them from a detached perspective. My dad is now just a frail old guy who likes to tell jokes, instead of the monster he was in my early life. xo
atomic ovaries – wow. My sister is a compulsive liar! I figure it’s her coping mechanism, but it is hugely exasperating! Crazy moms do deserve our sympathy and compassion. I don’t think you’ll be one. xo
susie b – You turned out well, I have to say. Maybe you can go lock your mom out if she gets out of hand? xo
Honeypants – god, I remember that story. But look how you are the post-post modern Martha Stuart, kind of?! xo
jools – I’m so sorry for your loss. I can totally relate to the over-protection!!! If only it was my worst quality as a mom. But yes, knowing we’re always there for them is good, it should count for a lot. I sense you are a wonderful loving mom. xo
annemarie – Can you find an adoptive mom for atomic ovaries? And a position for sleepy?
Oh Yes!
Count me in.
Should there be a Yiddishe Momma Branch?
I do believe they have a specific kind of mental.
Ok Sleepy, the Yiddish branch is all yours. You are head of the Yiddish Mommo Division.
I bet they have a specific kind of mental! What mental is not specific? It’s like the Tolstoy saying, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Atomic Ovaries. I will be your mother. I can’t say that I’ll be a good one though, considering the fact that I am the spawn of a mad cunt.
I feel for you though, marooned with all those cunts and believing that the stork who dropped you there must have made a mistake. I felt the same way. My poor brother, in an attempt to transfer the frustration and anger endured during the chaos of our childhood, went and joined the cops– the cops! Say no more.
My mother battered both of us, but him more than me. He suffers from a very acute form of arthritis now. Arthritis is basically inflammation of the bones, a description I have always found haunting.
I was her favorite, which was a mixed blessing. I was privy to all sorts of…madness.
Here are a few of the questions that the child of a Crazy Mother will torture her/himself for years to come:
Sometimes she is nice to me and tells me she loves me, so when she tells me what an evil person I am, she must be telling the truth?
When will other people find out that I am evil?
How can I prevent other people from finding out how evil I am?
If my own mother doesn’t love me, does that mean I am unlovable?
Who will ever love me?
Will they love me once they find out I am evil?
It is evil to hate your own mother; therefore, I am evil.
But sometimes I SEE her, and when you really SEE a person in all their brokenness and softness, you have to love them. But how can I LOVE and HATE this person at the same time?
……If I hate her I am evil; therefore I must love her; but I hate her for being so mean!; If I hate her I am evil; therefore I must love her; but I hate her for being so mean!;If I hate her I am evil; therefore I must love her; but I hate her for being so mean…….
All of us daughters of Crazy Mothers in the end must become our Mother’s mother.
It’s the mothers who need mothers. Knowing that makes forgiving the bitches easier.
When I started thinking of my Mother as a seven year old I found it much easier to forgive all of the madness and violence and humiliation. Someone had to be the adult in our relationship and it was never going to be her.
Annemarie.. I have aunts who have a ‘general’ mentalness that is specific to them!
I won’t claim to have enjoyed or understood Tolstoy too much and wouldn’t want to make an idiot of myself!
But I do understand RD Laing.
“Madness need not all be breakdown. It may also be break through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death”.
atomic ovaries – You can see that you couldn’t do better than have annemarie for your adoptive mom. God bless you annemarie. xo
sleepy – You may not even need Tolstoy, given your deep understanding of existential matters. I once lived a few blocks away from RD Laing in Belsize Park! War and Peace is worth reading though, and it isn’t difficult, just loooooooong. xo
SW.. I’ve read War and Peace, unfortunately as much as I tried and as much as I was told it’s a classic and brilliant… It did nothing for me!
Sorry.
Living near Laing, now that is proper cool!
Oh Sleepy! I don’t think Sister Wolf is a fan of RD Laing, but I have been reading “Knots” recently and I must say, it cracked me up!
Some of my favorite lines:
“How dare you have fun when Christ died on the Cross for you! Was He having fun?”
“What an interesting finger. Let me suck it.”
“You should be grateful that we never tried to make you feel grateful.”
Sleepy – Well, I admit to racing through the War bits in order to get to the Peace bits (i.e. the romance.) How about Anna Karenina? I loved it!
annemarie – Haha, that IS funny. I like RD Laing for being a, ahem, maverick thinker. But I do think it’s worth distinguishing between the psychotic and non-psychotic in a healthcare setting.
My mom was not crazy. A bit depressive, but all in all quite adequate. I do, however, tend to date men who had the Crazy Moms. I don’t know what this says about me (and I’m not sure I want to know). The thing that seemed to have kept them from utter despair was the presence of just one loving, sane adult woman in their lives – in one case a grandmother, in the other a loving neighbor.
This is my plea – if you know of a kid who has the Crazy Mom, try to be that rock for them. It doesn’t have to be all-consuming, but a steady, sane voice and an open door go a long way.
Suebob, thank you, that is an amazing heart you have there. xo
Suebob sent me. My mother is bipolar and in the midst of a horrendous manic episode RIGHT NOW. Well, actually right now means since the end of September. She spent most of October in a geriatric-psychiatric unit. She refused to take Zyprexa (which has worked in the past) and was on Geodon for most of the hospital visit. A week after getting out of the hospital, the “Great Geodon Experiment” (as I called it) ended and she went back to Zyprexa. Or more specifically, she was prescribed Zyprexa and has taken it sporadically since then.
She hangs up when I call. Today she called and accused me of stealing some family photos. There’s lots more on my blog…
I’ve blogged a lot about my mom’s current manic episode because I’m sick of the stigma of mental illness. Life’s too short. We need better prevention, treatment and research.
My mom lives a thousand miles away from me (literally) so I’m not in a position to stop by and check on her. I’m just trying to ride this one out without worrying about her safety 24/7. I have called her local police department and had them do a couple of welfare checks.
Thanks for the place to rant!
Kelly – Shit. My mom used to call me and demand that I return various photos…it was a reign of terror. You have all my sympathy and blessings. I’m going right over to your blog. xo
What wonderful stories, Sister Wolfe friends. Sending love to all of those who endured such painful events and fucked up *Mothers*.
I only recently realized my mom was crazy. I concocted a very romanticized and kindly selective memory of her, since she died 15 years ago of breast cancer. But as time has gone on, I remember things more accurately.
She would throw things at me in anger, or sometimes just to get my attention. One distinct memory I have is being beaned in the back of the head by the small wooden bench I would stand on to brush my teeth in front of our too-tall sink. Another time, I walking down the mahogany stairs at our house and she threw a Radio Shack beach ball at me, which took my feet out from under me and resulted in a concussion and 8 stitches in the head. Then there was the time she took one of my favorite childhood toys – a treasured wooden marionette that I adored – and she broke apart in front of me, piece by piece, until she got down to the large leg pieces that couldn’t be snapped and she repeatedly hit me with them. I always used to read about how abused children would get the shit beat out of them, and later would get an apology and a reassurance that it would never occur again (even though it would), but that never happened to me. I just kept getting the shit beat out of me with no pretenses or false promises that another whooping wasn’t right around the corner. The funny thing about the beatings were that I didn’t get them when I deserved them, like when I had a messy room, broke curfew, was caught drinking, cut class, etc. I got beat for very unsubstantiated reasons that made sense only to her, and this caught me off guard at first but then taught me to never allow myself to be emotionally or mentally unprotected around her, or anyone. As Sister Wolf said, don’t be too hasty to dismiss psychoanalysis for guessing the gift that this childhood behavior has given me in later life.
Her last words to me, on her deathbed, were that I was a huge disappointment and that I never cared about her. Part of me wants to believe it was the drugs that made her say such things, but in my conscious thoughts, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. I’ve forgiven her and admittedly, sometimes I still pretend that romanticized memory I have of her is the real one.
Oh, Ann. I hear you loud and clear. My heart aches for you. Your mom was nuts and someone should have been around to protect you. Bi-polar, borderline, whatever her mental illness, it must have been a nightmare. It took me many years to stop focusing on my dad as the designated Monster. so i had the same sort of delayed recognition of what my mother was really like.
Her abuse was more verbal. But she did accuse me of ruining her entire life and always asked god why he cursed her with me.
I have forgiven, too. The relationship you can have after you crazy mom dies is much sweeter and more comforting. It’s still valid. It all takes place in your head, anyway.
Look at how despite everything Ann, you are so loving, and so beloved.
Let us light a candle for the souls of our tortured moms, the crazy fucking bitches.
xoxoxoxoxo
Skye -Aah, I didn’t see you there. No worries, we won’t let Her know you’re here, xo
I love the term refrigerator Mother; Mine is an Esky. Weirdly it didn’t make me “catch” autism, but I do have two autie kids. And every single day I rebel against the way she raised me and my sisters.
one story. At 16 I had a part time job to pay for MY SCHOOL TEXT BOOKS as mum complained I took all the “dear” subjects. (as in expensive) like Arts and History.
I was earning enough to disqualify for children’s allowance which is paid to the mother. She reported it; and then demanded I pay her myself out of my wages.
But get this. With one child, children’s allowance is about $50 per month, Two kids = $100, but for three kids it goes up as they reason it costs a lot more to raise 3 kids at home, so it was $175 for 3 of us.
I offered to pay the single child amount, She made me pay the differential.
I have so many of these passive aggressive “I wish you had never been born” stories, you would actually think me a fantacist.
So I just divorce her. (and my actually aggressive father)
xx
Dear Sister Wolf,
I’m 53 years old and am still working through anger issues with both crazy mf-ing parents. My mother was spineless when it came to proctecting her children. When I was 10 years old, my father grabbed me and my two siblings and almost beat us to death. He tore most of my clothes off, pinned me to my bed and literally beat the piss out of me. My mother was in the kitchen having coffee and a cig while listening to her battered, bloodied children screaming for her to come help them. The day after, the bitch grounded me for wetting my bed! I’m glad they’re both dead.
My mother tried the best she could with what she had.
I think my step-mom was ill equiped to be a “normal” nurturing parent as her own parents were very misguided individuals. I guess she did the best she could. She’s not exactly psycho but more along the lines of needing lots and lots of therapy. So, she’s a bit crazy, self-centered, and well educated but extremely ignorant. She is insecure and believes that everything is about her or a reflection on her.
There are stories I could tell, as recent as what happened last weekend, but I won’t. Let’s just say she continues to be crazy and my sisters and I continue to try and get sane.
Hammie -A divorce was a smart decision. I know what you mean, about all of it. xo
Winter Bird – All blessings to you. Let us know if we can help.
enc – Understated as always!
HelOnWheels – Your last sentence will resonate with all of us. All we can do is try every day. xo
My mother is a good person but we had our issues growing up. We are only dealing with these issues now (our relationship is better now than it’s been since I was 4 years old). Truthfully, she’s a fairly negative person. She had an unhappy dirt poor upbringing and her mother’s was worse. I have learned to accept that, though every now and then it still gets to me. She has slight narcissus tendencies. . . (there’s a book out about Narcissus Mothers, which I will probably buy and read). I tell her more and more about my life every day and I think she’s surprised by how much she missed (because she sort of wasn’t listening). But in comparison to some of these tales. . .I realize I had it okay.
I’m so touched reading all these crazy mother stories. Wow.
I’m grateful that I had two really good loving parents (and still have my mom). My only fear is that my own kids will be joining this club someday…
i’m going to have to call my sane and sweet mom tomorrow and tell her how much I appreciate her; wow, this post has opened my eyes, and d duff was banned from commenting, too!
unfortunately this doesn’t qualify me for the club, as I’m also not a mom, so you’re out one very experienced, unorganized office manager.
I’ll nominate Imelda Mike any available position, his mother has done the right thing and gotten even madder (and camper) in her old age.
Aja – It’s great that you and your mom can communicate better now.
Iheartfashion – You are right to be grateful! And too compassionate probably to do much damage to your kids.
fashionherald -Damn, you were a great office manager.
Imelda Matt- Send him over!
Wow – nice to be validated. My mom is in a class of her own; she is one scary b*****. She’s the type of crazy mom that smiles a sickly sweet smile and speaks in an equally saccharine tone of voice, all while grabbing you by the soft flesh at the back of the neck with her v. long nails and digging in. She has nothing to do with my children, beyond making up stories about them that portray her as a wonderful, understanding, truly connected grandma.
She and my father separated when I was 3 and my brother 4. They were 22 yrs apart in age. My father FOUGHT in WWII; my mother was born before he even got back to the states. He had a wife and a child. They divorced. I digress.
Fast forward many years – my brother and I were sent away to go to school when my mother was working night shifts for Sprint’s 1800 call center. I lived with a unique family with 9 children when I got there and had 4 more during the 5 years I lived there. Did I mention that they were very orthodox jews and my family was reform, and that my mother sent both my brother and me to orthodox jewish schools – where all of the children observed the jewish dietary laws – kosher- and most did not have televisions. They definitely did not watch Saturday morning cartoons and eat bacon cheeseburgers. To make long story short, I was an outcast before and after leaving home.
Tried my best as a teenager to fit in with my “foster family” to the point where I shut down as an individual and became the ultimate people pleaser; a “yes man”. I went along for the ride – wherever I was told to go. even got married a week after I graduated from High School because I was told that the boy I had been set up with, practically as an afterthought mind you, was a provider and had some $ and he probably wouldn’t wait for me if I decided to go away for a year to Israel like most of my classmates (I WAS already accepted into a program) and that “looking for a husband for me would be akin to searching with a candle in the dark.”
Dear reader, I married him. Now, nearly 20 years and 4 teenage children later, I woke up. I want out. I don’t know who I am. My entire adult life has been based on doing what other people have expected of me; what this community expects of me. I don’t believe that in this day and age that If I turn on or off a light between Friday @ sundown and Saturday night that I will go to hell. I don’t believe that it’s more important to make sure your skirt covers your knees – pants are verboten as men’s clothing, that a married woman must cover her hair in public, etc., than being a virtuous person.
I want out.
Thanks for creating this blog – venting is good.
weak one – Venting IS good. Action is even better, in your case. What stops you from leaving your marriage? Would marriage counseling help, do you think? Write to me at sisterwolf666@gmail if I can help direct you to some useful resources. It’s never too late to change your life. xo
We’ve started counseling – the therapist feels that we don’t know each other despite being married to each other for nearly 20 years; he compares us to a couple that just met and is starting to date. Fine. But he is not a person I would continue to go out with after a first date.
What’s stops me from leaving is that it is difficult to leave 4 children- teenage children. Contrary to popular belief, they are more difficult than small children.
I am a little late, but would love to join! I totally relate to the stuggle of forgiveness. I somehow managed to forgive her…mostly. It did, however take quite a few years of therapy.
weak one says -Teenagers are horrible. I understand.
tiffany sams – Better late than never. You’re in!
My mother has the mind of a spiteful teenager who blames everything that has gone wrong in her life on everyone else. My parents divorced when I was a year old and my brother was three. We ended up with my father and grandmother. Ever since I can remember, she has told me awful stories of how my father and grandmother had “ruined her life”, “taken her kids away from her” and how my father had done things in the past that I dare not repeat. I find it funny that she would say these things, because I had the best childhood with my grandmother and father – and later stepmother. Meanwhile, she would only see us if it suited her schedule, spend her last $20 on buying herself sushi rather than buying groceries (she would rather us go to bed hungry), bum money off of us(she could never keep a job) and constantly got involved with abusive men. At 16 I finally told her that she needed to get help and ever since then I try to keep conversations with her limited…which is easy since she is a four hour flight away. Recently though, she became my facebook friend…and oh my goodness. She is leaving messages on my wall about how “she is my mother and that my stepmother was the mistress”. I want to strangle her because my stepmother was more of a mother to me than she ever was but I am scared to tell her that because part of me feels sorry for her and that she might do something stupid…she has questioned her existence in the past. What do I do???
mad and worried – In many ways, your mom reminds me of the way my mom behaved in her last years. Very needy but also very bitter and angry.
Your mom is probably mentally ill and it’s a shame that she never got help. I think that if you’re unable to persuade her to get some help, you need to take care of yourself by refusing to be manipulated. You aren’t guilty of anything. You are not responsible for what she did with her life. And you can’t fix things for her.
Make sure you have some support! I understand how you feel. It’s really difficult to handle a mom who pushes your buttons like this. My advice is, do what you can but be prepared to protect your own mental/emotional well-being.
All blessings to you. xo
A person’s upbringing shapes their perceptions of reality I think. My mother may have been ‘crazier than a shit-house rat’ or maybe not…who knows.
Her telling everyone that would listen that my father sexually molested my three year old sister was the last straw for me. I could have coped with her indifference, beatings and absence of love. But sitting there announcing that my father was a child rapist with a slight smile on her face was the straw that broke the camel’s back. When I asked her how she knew, she just said ‘I just know’ and that was the extent of the evidence I have heard from her since.
I became angry and didn’t behave to her liking, so she kicked me out. Shortly after puberty I discovered that I had a complete inability to relate to women affectionately. I decided in a rage that the solution would be to hang myself. Being thirteen, I broke down and cried before I could even get the rope tied. Afterward I was no longer enraged. I felt very clear headed.
I have had depression since then. One morbid fantasy involved me driving all the way up to where she lives, greeting her with a manic laugh, putting a gun in my mouth then spraying most of my brain onto her lovely wallpaper and curtains. Wont happen. My body wants to survive, even when nothing else of me does.
May be able to dissolve my craziness with a combination of: antidepressants, online cognitive therapy and seeing a therapist of a more unconventional nature. Maybe, maybe not. Whoever claims to know the future has me beat and wins first place in the competition of craziness.
I know this is a year and several months late but I have been working backwards through your blog.
My mother was/is a full blown paranoid schizophrenic. She had always been a little off and very moody but things suddenly went to pieces around her 40 birthday. She suddenly divorced my father and accused him of trying to murder her and poison her children (me and my younger sister). I was younger than 10 at the time.
She was to really physically abusive but what was disturbing was how her mood could violently change at any second. She could be laughing and happy and enjoying herself, only to fall down crying hysterically the next moment, and then fly into a blind rage the next. Little me loved my mother and I was trying to help her by doing anything she wanted but I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t do what she wanted. Often what she was asking me was beyond my understanding. She had been well educated and clever but now everything she said was jumbled together as a classic word salad symptom of schizophrenia. Often she berated me for being less than perfect or told me that my arrival had ruined her career (it hadn’t, which is really confusing). She drilled into my head that I was terrible and I would get knocked up in high school, have to drop out, and be chained to an infant. And people wonder why I was terrified of any sexual contact well into adulthood.
Her delusions were always changing, often centering on food. We had to pick a random restraunt every night so “they” couldn’t poison our food. She forbade us from eating food at our dad’s.
Eventually my dad was able to win custody of us after she suddenly ran away from home, never to be seen or heard from again. He’s a really good parent and really did his best to undo the damage done to my sister and me.
Even though I feel damaged by it all, I can’t bring myself to be mad at my mother. She was truly mentally ill. She felt hunted by unseen enemies and frequently hallucinated things that weren’t there. I feel bad for her and hoped she has found comfort somewhere, if she is still alive. However, I am mad at the teachers and relatives who brushed me off when I tried to explain my mother’s behavior, saying that I was exaggerating or dreaming things up. They have no excuse.
I feel somewhat haunted by this. I thought her behavior was normal and it took me a long time to unlearn a lot of that. I have a hard time reading people and I usually just assume people around me are angry at me. Most of all I’m afraid I’ll end up like that. I don’t think I will but it’s an idea that scares me so much. I would rather end up dead than afraid of everything.