/ot/ - off-topic

It’s really weird that this thread came up.

I’m seeing my mom for the first time in nearly a year tomorrow. I cut her off when I was 3/4 months pregnant because having a relationship with her destroys my mental health. However, instead of leaving me alone as requested, she keeps contacting my husband’s mom asking questions, who in turn contacts me for the answers. So I’ve given in to speaking to her again because I practically am anyway with this arrangement.

I don’t hate my mom, but I don’t like her very much. My childhood was hard, largely because of her behaviour towards me, and it still continues to this day. It’s just easier to not have her around (even if she makes it impossible by not leaving the situation alone).

People seriously underestimate how much emotional shit gets to you. If your mom/dad beats or raped or starves you, everyone can understand you never wanting to speak to them again. Anything less gets “but it’s your mom/dad, you’re family…”

>>234509
Fuck, are you me? I swear, everyone says that shit all the time to me because many people don't consider neglect abuse. Like, my mom never showed up to my after school shit, never signed any school papers, never bought groceries or things that I needed. Any time she really talked to me was to tell me I'm stupid or doing something wrong. She bought my brother food and bought him clothes all the time. Even bought him year books and shit.

All of a sudden she's afraid of being alone so she hits me up ever so often trying to involve herself in shit I'm doing.

But my sister, who was taken the best care out of all of us, doesn't get why I won't visit and feel anxious around her.

I love my mother and I forgave her for the shit she put me through when I was a child and a teen, but I'm 100% aware that we can't live together anymore and I'm very happy she live 4h + away from me.

She was extremely depressed for my whole childhood and teenage years and she would go from being ultra possessive of me (she would hold me and say again and again that she was going to put me back in her belly because she loved me so much) to saying shit like "this is not your home, I can kick you out whenever I want" and would refuse to acknowledge my emotions, which made me unable to express them for the longest time (I was either super chill or extremely angry, didn't now how to regulate my mood).

She was an abused child and she thoughts because she wasn't violent with me I shouldn't have any suffering or reason to complain, but I still have big emotional scars from her negligence and emotional abuse.

One time she screamed at me when I was 9-10 because the told me to do something very specific without giving me any instruction and I obviously failed, I still cry when I think about it because of how cruel and unnecessary that seemed…

Pic attached is a piece of art by Louis Bourgeois called "Maman" (mommy) sadly it speaks to many people.

>>234518

I honestly think about that situation, too. My mom asked me to make her macaroni and cheese and because it was hot, I made it "watery". She yelled at me nonstop for ten minutes saying I messed it up on purpose (I was making my own food and she would always make me give her some of mine because she's too lazy to make her own). Eventually it cooled down and got thicker and she said "Oh no it's good now. Sorry about being upset" in the most casual way possible.

My mom is kicking me out the end of next month. I’m 20, but I have no money and am currently a full time student. I can’t work more than 10hrs/week because of my student loan. Child support ends next month since I’m not returning to school so she doesn’t want me around. She’s a very strange person, it’s almost as if she’s two different people. She has been diagnosed with something but she won’t tell me what and she refuses to be medicated.
Her and my father physically and emotionally abused me and my brother but my mother acts like I’m exaggerating. I don’t even know how I feel about her I feel like I don’t know who she is.. Maybe I’m crazy..

>>234513
Yeah, my mom is now trying super hard solely because of my daughter, because she wants a relationship with her grandchild. My sister is exactly the same - she didn’t get the treatment I did so is completely on my mom’s side.

>>234518
>>234523
These situations sound horribly familiar. I got my purse stolen at school once and my mom called me a “little bitch” and sent me to my room for the night. But then I got mugged by some girls who were bullying me and she actually started on them herself. Like she did blowing hot/cold like a pro. She used to lose it and punish me over nothing, but other times she was my best friend who would do anything for me. I spent my childhood feeling sick whenever I was around her because I never knew which mom I’d get that day.

>>234518
Samefag but I wonder if the abuse thing is the reason for the inability to allow others to express their feelings? My mom does the whole “I want to love you/I want to control you” thing, and the reason I cut her off was due to not having my emotions acknowledged and it making me unstable. That shit gave me BPD, and she still triggers it even now.

I feel like my mom had me just because it was the thing to do. I also think she was lonely.

I don't particularly feel loved by her. I'm actually really awkward when it comes to physical contact in general because she never really hugged me or bonded with me as a child. As I got older she would compliment me and make me feel very uncomfortable. She'd also touch me inappropriately.

She had depression for years and she'd always take it out on me and refuse to get help. Her own child had more sense than her. She passed down her eating disorder by telling me I was fat and needed to diet while still a teen and perfectly healthy. So I did and it fucked up my metabolism. That was 45lbs ago and yo-yo dieting and comfort eating has caused me to to genuinely become overweight. She still makes comments about what I'm eating or wearing ("That's a huge portion, are you sure?" "Wow your portion sizes are so small, I'm jealous you can eat so little!" "You look pregnant in that, I can see your fat rolls!" "You're sick? Maybe you'll lose some weight, I hope I catch it too!")

She was also unnecessarily strict on me, not allowing me to hang around with friends she didn't like or not letting me shave my legs which led to bullying. When I met my bf he encouraged me to go to counselling and I became a much happier person and I think she was jealous. She turned on my bf and made all these wild assumptions about him which she posted online.

I didn't even have a decent female figure in my life. My aunt used to constantly belittle me and get her husband to spy on me until I cut her out of my life. They might still be monitoring my online presence, idk. I've always wanted a sister but I was never blessed with one so I've just had negative experienced with female relatives all my life.

I can't relate to characters in media who have good relationships with their mothers. I enjoy writing but I always kill off the mothers of my protagonists because I can't write about mother-child relationships.

>>234550
Yeah I think it's part of the abuse, it's extremely dehumanizing to be forbidden from expressing yourself especially during formative years.

I do believe that my mom gave up on me and doesn't really care what I do. She was neglectful throughout my childhood, I'm the oldest of 6 and growing up it was clear she didn't really have time for me. She stood aside and watched while I was being abused by my father (even laughing in some cases, talking about how if a TV show came into the home they would think it was an abusive environment). Her solution to my mental problems was to ignore it, and then, when it got worse, she tried to have me locked up in a mental ward. When we couldn't afford that, she put a lock on the outside of my door and would keep me in there for entire days. (Not a new thing, she had a habit of locking me in the bathroom as a child and actually remembers this as a cutesy memory) In general she wasn't sensitive to my sensory issues at all (she would repeatedly buy a certain food that I thought smelled so disgusting it made me cry on multiple occasions, she would try to hide it from me in the car and was "surprised" when I could still smell it. It's worth noting I had problems with this food ever since I was a baby) She had this idea that I would parent her children for free, and when I refused she would get super bitter and nasty. I live away from home now, and she refuses to admit she did anything wrong. She expects I'm going to like and respect her now that I'm away from home, but if anything the opposite is true. Being exposed to people who care really drove in how much she didn't give a rats ass. I hope her other children leave her just as alone and destitute

>>234518
I've never seen that sculpture before. It's interesting that the artist intended it to be a positive representation of motherhood when that same motif was used so negatively in the film Enemy (image spoilered bc spiders).

I was blessed with a very wonderful mother in pretty much every way. She was actually a huge source of envy for a few of my friends (for some reason, I always ended up with friends from broken homes) and has done her best and sacrificed for me my whole life.

This thread is really making me realize how lucky I am.

All of these are sad to read, but at least it makes me feel like I'm not alone. People always talk about mothers like they're never wrong and beyond everyone just because they had a kid.

I don't hate my mother, but I really can't say I love her either.

I was (am) her emotional punching bag and she did admit that she never wanted a second child (who says that to a 13 year old??).
She loves my brother and she spoiled him rotten. He would constantly get attention from her - help with school work, finances, finding a job once he was 18, etc., while I was being flat out ignored or just left to fend for myself.
She'd cook for him his favourite food daily, while never even asking me what I like. Some days I couldn't even eat what she cooked because it made me nauseous/throw up but she didn't give a shit and though I was faking it (I had allergies). I got new clothes or lunch money very very rarely because "we're poor" but my brother would get 50 for the week and sometimes 150 on the weekends to go out and get drunk.
She would often talk/answer questions instead of me, and in the process flat out lie or exaggerate the story to make herself look good/a victim.
God forbid I would ever get sick, she'd stomp through the house and yell/swear at me for having fever, throwing up and not being able to go to school. I often ended up going anyway because it was better that getting yelled at. She also never took me to a doctor, no matter what was wrong with me.

Her constant yelling, swearing and passive aggressive behaviour got worse with time. I was terrified to go home after school, when I knew she was working in the morning I'd sometimes run home just to clean up the house so I wouldn't get yelled at… she still found a reason for it tho. I ended up developing an ED, anxiety and pretty bad depression that I'm now trying to fix.

I'm 22 now, we still live together and while she still acts passive aggressive she's only now trying to be nicer to me but it's far too late. I just don't see her as my mother and I don't call her that. I mean, she never hugged me or showed me any form of physical affection and she never said she loved me. Or cared about me, my hobbies, life anything.

I think she never did any of that on purpose and is probably mentally ill herself, but I can only guess. Parenting doesn't come with a manual.

Sorry for the word wall salad

>>234636
Am that anon and yeah I was so surprised when I learned the intent behind this piece, I saw it at the Guggenheim museum of Bilbao, it's a huge piece and I was 100% convinced it was a representation of the all powerful scary mother, I totally projected my own emotions on the piece lmao, it still is one of my favorite piece of art.

>>234642
The hardest bit sometimes is that I never wanted for anything physical. We always had food, lived in a nice house, new clothes, holidays, etc. To the outside world we looked completely normal, and I’m sure many found it easy to believe when she told them I was lying about “how bad I had it”… she was just messed up emotionally/mentally and passed that on through her parenting.

You are very lucky, I’m glad you’re aware of it anon.

Joining the bad mothers club, I'm daughter of a narc mom.
I'm also the scapegoat, while my younger sister is the golden child. I was a happy, confident and bubbly child but grew up more and more tormented after the abuse. Got yelled at and beaten up for accidentally spilling drops of milk on the floor, got yelled at and beaten up for the most trivial shit in general and even worse for more serious things. I used to top my classes and she used this thing in her favor, boasting about it with non-caring neighbours and relatives, like a rat race where I constantly had to prove "I was better than my neighbours' and relatives' daughters". A bad grade meant a whole afternoon of hearing her banshee screams in my face and being slapped, my hair pulled, sometimes she even did bite me on my hands. As you can imagine, my grades started dropping and being in a shit family in general my relatives started savoring my "defeat", even though I was only 8, and making sarcastic remarks to my mom which angered her, anger that was always directed towards me.
She nitpicks everything about me and then says "Why are you so insecure? It's so pathetic". Seriously, she looks at our faces scanning them to find the smallest imperfection to nitpick us on. "Disgusting, what's on your face?" for the smallest pimple.
She also raised me and my sister in very different ways. She inhibited my anger, while with my sister she ENCOURAGES it. I'm telling you, my sister screams in anger and my mom looks at her SMILING sweetly like she was watching a cute baby or something. As a result, my sister has huge anger issues and flips her shit over a molehill while to me it took a while to start showing my emotions again after being in college, away from her. I was bullied by a girl in high school, and I remember distinctly one time where she yelled at me in my face like my mom did, and I stood there without saying anything, almost in terror, because… when my mom yelled at me I couldn't reply, or else I would get beaten up, so I was used that way.
Also, you know the "Mama knows best" song from Tangled? It all applies perfectly to her. I'm gonna move abroad for a year (will try to stay though) and she did everything to kill my buzz, told me I was going to get raped, tortured and killed and similar stuff even though I'm going in a safe place with crime rates 999999% lower than ours.
She always throws hissy fits whenever I do something she doesn't approve. This summer I was going to work as waitress for two days at my friend's restaurant and she killed my buzz so much, saying stuff like "You can't do that, you're so clumsy! You're gonna drop every glass and dish!" (no data of me being clumsy, though), that in the end I didn't go anymore.
I'm working to fix myself and go back to the confident and bubbly person I used to be, and I can proudly say that I'm halfway there. This time away from her will only do me good. There's definitely hope.
In the end, I can't say I hate her. She made my life shit but I can't hate her. I love her, but I just want to see her as little as possible, because her negativity is just too much and she crushes my self esteem all the time.

>>234657
>Got yelled at and beaten up for accidentally spilling drops of milk on the floor
Ugh, my mom did something like this to me too. I spilled some water on a table when I was about 4 years old, lied and said I didn't, and then she beat the shit out of me for it. She's been using it as evidence that I'm a sociopath eversince I was 10 and still brings it up almost every time we argue.

>>234570
My mother used to read my journals and destroy the pages she didn't like. She is no longer in my life but I'm still terrified about putting my thoughts on paper. I don't understand why you'd want to be the thought police to your own children.

Mine projects her insecurities onto me. She fusses about her weight and makeup which leads her to fuss about mine. She makes comments like "should you really be eating that" and "you'd look better if you wore a little more makeup". There's nothing wrong with my weight and I'm perfectly comfortable wearing minimal makeup so it's just water off a duck's back.
She also reads my journals and looks at my sketchbooks, even though I've told her not to which is annoying af

>>234703
>She also reads my journals and looks at my sketchbooks, even though I've told her not to which is annoying af
Mine does it too, I tried to keep a dream diary years ago and stopped because she was always reading it, no matter how I tried to write as small as possible and make it unreadable unless it was me reading, she took a magnifying glass and went on reading my journal. She also went as far as confronting me on my own dreams which I can't control, yelling at me because one night I had a dream where she was a prostitute and she was seriously offended and yelled "How could you dream that??"
Also she has access to my laptop cause our desktop pc is gone forever, and goes through all my pictures, all my chats if I forget to log off somewhere, all my stuff, even though I tell her not to. She almost found my lingerie pics. And if I dare to try putting a password, she threatens me to cut off internet connection.

>>234701
Mine wouldn't destroy anything but she did read them all, then pretend she didn't. Then she'd wonder why I never told her anything and didn't confide in her like my sister did.

The psycho never gave me any privacy, she'd go through my cellphone in secret and note down my friends' numbers so when I was out and took a while to pick up the phone she'd start calling them. She made a secret copy of my apartment keys and still shows up unannounced.

I never put my real name on my Facebook because I want to keep my online life away from my real life, but there's some overlap of real life friends that I have added. She stalked them until she found me and pretended like she believed me when i told her i didn't have Facebook (I showed up on her workplace and she had Facebook open on my profile page).

I feel like I'm only ever going to be free from her when i move countries. And even then, there's still the risk of her cyber stalking me. I hate that woman.

My mother sold my old PC to a friend. I was planning on selling it anyway and she knew so she just sold it. There were 2 main problems with this:
1. she sold it for £50 when I could have easily got £200+ for it
2. I hadn't had the opportunity to wipe it yet so all my shit was still on it
Number 2 is the main problem because, while the stuff that was on there wasn't majorly embarrassing, I still don't want some random person I don't know seeing it. I just hope that the woman she sold it to wiped it straight away without looking at it :T

>>234642
Yep. These moms are awful, holy hell, they clearly have multiple untreated mental disorders. Nobody should be controlling and stalking their own kids like that.

I have an amazing mom but my father is just a stranger to me, so you know. Balance

oldest of 7 with a neglectful, alcoholic mom. chose men over her kids constantly. she had me at 18 and i really don't think that she ever matured much more than that. she constantly put us and left us in dangerous situations. stayed with a man she knew was sexually abusing me (clear memories of her calling him out but oh no she doesn't remember that now) and treated me like shit over it. she tells people my oldest brother has autism because of stutter and crippling anxiety and it's like no??? the man who chose over his safety beat and ridiculed him every time he stuttered. i think i am going to stop now before i get myself too worked up.

i don't have contact with her anymore. apparently she had got her shit together and is such a great mother to my younger siblings that escaped a lot of the bullshit. and guess what?? i am the bad person because i want nothing to do with the woman who seemed to want nothing to do with me, who never made me feel safe, who never took my side. ugh fuck anyway.

i do however have 2 very loving and amazing aunts who helped me out of that situation.

I have a borderline mom, one on the aggressive side with superstitious thinking. I have few memories of her being anything other than hateful and cruel, or violent and irrational. she’s scared the shit out of every one of my friends thats had to meet her, and thats been reason why I’ve never invited people over. I’m moved out now and on my own but I can’t get rid of the memories I was raised with

Hate her, she molested me from the time I was six till I was fourteen, she slept in a twin bed with me till I was sixteen, she’s an alcoholic and she disgusts me and when she dies I won’t care. I finally got out and when my first boyfriend and I broke up she laughed at me for crying and feeling hurt. She’s a horrible person and I don’t know why she had me. She blames me for her Dad's death. She blames me for all kinds of shit.

Sometimes I think she wanted a boy. When I was small she always kept me from wearing what I wanted and dressed me in ugly shit. I ran away at 17 and I work three jobs to afford rent but I’d never go back to her or that life. I hate her so much.

My mum is a narcissistic psycho. Former actual prostitute, stalked men with my older sister in the car, and would sleep with strangers with my older sister in the room (she was like 5-7)
Told me growing up that my dad abandoned me because I wasn’t worth enough to him, and he didn’t love me. Turns out he was 18, had a drug problem and was too young and unhealthy for a baby. She was 28 and lied about being on the pill so I don’t blame him. Met him a few years ago, he’s been horribly depressed his whole adult life over it and acted like he deserved the cancer he had.

She spent my early childhood as an obsessive control freak and perfectionist. Rarely ate, obsessed with this girl named Bronte Cullen who had anorexia and got famous for it (still remember being told at age 5 to shut the fuck up and let her watch this very important girl) always loudly obsessing about never ever weighing more than 52 kilos.
Always screaming and letting us all know how much of a burden we all were, literally calling herself a martyr if we made a mess or spoke.
You weren’t allowed to look at her, speak to her unless she asked a question, show emotions, (crying meant you just wanted to make her feel bad because we were awful and manipulative. Think Machiavelli but still in preschool. Laughter is too annoying and unnecessary. We didn’t do anything so funny that we needed to make a noise about it)

Everything we liked was stupid trash, everything we made was crap and a waste of materials, daily tirades about being lazy and selfish and disgusting and useless, puberty was just a malicious prank my sister and I pulled and having acne she wouldn’t get treatment for meant we were dirty, smelly, and disgusting.

She invents memories that never happened and pretends all of ours are lies. According to mum she has never threatened suicide, especially not to her children on the majority of christmases/birthdays/easter/family dinner with relatives. Nobody was allowed to have a good time because she didn’t want to be happy.

Growing up I owned two bras. DD cups, and two D cup bras from age 13-16. She wouldn’t buy me uniform pants so I spent every lunchtime for an entire semester in detention, which resulted in a month of attacks over being in detention so much because only shit kids get detention.

At 15 we moved across the country to visit my sister. She decided we would move there. Two weeks later she decides to go back and leave me there.

Just endless little moments of shit. Her entire being is devoted to giving out moments of shame and pain and sadness and she’s a master at it. Chips away at your self worth every day with a remark or a denial of love or an all-out attack.

Are you guys afraid of having your own children?

I didn't have the best experiences with my mother either and always told myself that I'd do better and be good to my child. However, now that me starting a family comes closer, I'm genuinely afraid that I'll do the same shit my mother did to me. My cousin once told me that this certain maternal behavior simply runs in our family and will impact each generation. Do you think that's true? Or can I manage to overcome it?

I want to love my mom more. She's 56 and lost her husband of 30 years when she was 50. This event really hurts her to this day and i don't know what to do. She's too conservative/traditional for therapy and i don't know how i can be there for her. She likes doing weird shaman/medium stuff instead. I want to have a healthy relationship with her and support her but i have no idea where to start. It pisses me off too because my older sister talks to her as if it were just a friend, and i can't even hold small chat with her without fucking up. I want that, anons… i've always wanted it. and losing my father has made me realize how much i should valuate my time with her.

Anyways, the reason why i feel like i can't help her is because we never had a close relationship. She's always had a full time job and we never develop a friendship or a bond at all. She gets along with my older sister, but when she was born my family was in a completely different context. She simply didn't spend much time with me, and for years i resented this because during her absence a family member sexually abused me, i was getting bullied relentlessly in school, beat up by a silbing, and just gross hygenic problems that y'all don't want to know about but that she didn't help me with. She knew about the bullying, the abuse and the hygenic problems and didn't help me because she just didn't have the time or didn't think it was that big of a deal… Either way, i'm older and i don't hold this against her, but it did fuck me up mentally a lot ngl.

So, about a month ago i'm taking a walk with her. Its hard but i do try to walk to the park with her every couple of weeks to just talk and catch up. Thing is, we never have anything to talk about… but i try. i still want to try.
we're walking and she says to me (of course paraphrasing, plus it was in a different language so i'm saying just the important stuff)
>You know, anon… I'm sorry i didn't get to be there for you when you were younger. We were struggling (aka we were poor, and she starts crying as she tells me this) and i didn't have the time and i'm sorry, anon. its one of my biggest regrets. but i did cause i loved you and wanted to give you a good life, you know? remember how we were living then… i wanted things to be better. [something somethign] i should have been there. To teach you how to cook (again she's kinda traditional, i can cook, girls. but since i can't cook the traditional food from my country she's sad) and to help you.

It honestly was therapeutic. Fuck, i've been waiting my entire life to her here say stuff like that to me. After that we went home and started talking about other stuff. It didn't lead to something. We have barely spoken since. Oh anons, my mother is the sweetest human and i feel so bad because we have nothing in common and i want to be part of her life but i don't know how. i'm ready for it. for years i saw my dad as a complete monster but after losing him i realize he was doing his best. and for years i saw my mom as a negligent bitch but she was just doing her best too… i'm sorry mom and dad. i realize now. oh man i can't believe i'm crying while writing a lolcow post.

my mother is nowhere near as bad as some of these but she still messed me up a lot. sorry if this gets long but i need to get this all off my chest.

she’s one of those people who thinks that ignoring a problem will make it go away. i was bullied from age nine to about sixteen and, even though she was fully aware of it, she only went to my school once about it. they said there was nothing they could do so she decided her motherly duties were done and ignored the next few years of bullying. kids were stealing my lunch every day? here, take it in a plastic bag instead. sure they'll still steal that too, but at least she won't lose money on tupperware. problem solved.

she also ignored my mental health and would instead just search though my belongings until she found evidence of my depression and messed up body image and threw it away. i thought that if i lost weight the kids at school might like me (i was a healthy weight but very tall and broad which was the initial focus of the bullying so i started freaking out about being “fat”) and started writing out plans to get down to 100lbs (which would have given me a bmi of FIFTEEN) and all she did was throw away the plans. i stopped eating, started fainting so much in school i was removed from physical education, dropped two dress sizes and looked like shit but the closest she ever got to acknowledging it was saying i didn’t look healthy. it’s been a full decade since then and i still haven’t regained all the weight, but since it means i’m the same dress size as my (significantly shorter) mother she doesn’t seem to mind because she can wear my clothes.

i’ve been regularly self-harming from around age twelve to present and she only acknowledged it once, when i was in hospital aged seventeen for something totally unrelated. she asked if it was because of her, i said it wasn’t and she hasn’t mentioned it since. i'm still impressed she got to the hospital, though, since a year later i ended up in there again for a concussion (i whited out out on my bicycle the previous day, hit a kerb and landed on my head and she still sent me to school, where i was immediately sent to the hospital) and she didn't check her phone until after i'd been discharged.

she cheated on my father for who knows how many years until they separated when i was fourteen. i found out when i was trying to find a hair tie in her drawer and saw letters from my friend’s father. she also had affairs with my father’s best friend (i saw them kissing) and her best friend’s boyfriend (i saw a message on her phone from him). she won’t admit this and insults my stepmother because she resents my father for being happy without her.

from age ten to fourteen my father’s other best friend would sneak into my room whenever he stayed the night and he would molest me. i didn’t trust my parents enough to tell them, but my father vaguely found out when i was nineteen and apparently told my mother, who didn’t mention it until a few years later when i was having a mental breakdown over something completely unrelated. she asked me why i didn’t tell her myself, and she hasn’t mentioned it again.

the only times i was allowed to leave the house were for school, three hobbies (two of which my mother also attended with the man she was having an affair with) and a church youth group. one time aged fifteen i left the house for a walk, leaving a note saying i'd be back later, because my family were aggressively trying to make me show them my arms (a kid at school told my brother they had cuts on them). my mother called the police, and stood in the kitchen while i was berated by an officer who told me i was wasting his time because some kids out there had "real" problems and i was preventing him from helping them.

when i was eighteen i started seeing a boyfriend after college, messaging my mother exactly where i was and when i'd be back home (he was about two miles away in the next town), and one day my father called me after school, telling me i had to get my things from hers because i was living with him from then on. she didn't say anything about it, even six months later when she told me my hamster i'd been forced to leave with her had died, and that i had to find a home for my gerbils (my father is allergic). a few years later she also made me rehome her birds that i adored because she decided she was suddenly allergic to them despite having owned birds since she was like twenty. she wasn't cleaning up after them properly and the dust was making her sneeze. my landlord wouldn't let me keep them so i had to give them to a rehoming charity. because she couldn't be bothered to vacuum.

she's been chain smoking non-stop since she was eighteen so i grew up stinking of smoke. my baby sister developed pneumonia before she was one year old and had to spend a long time in intensive care but not even that deterred my mother from smoking around her kids constantly. when i worked for her, she smoked in her office despite it being incredibly illegal. if i ask her to go outside or at least crack a window because i can't breathe she acts like i'm bullying her, leaves for one cigarette and then comes back into the room two minutes later to smoke the next one. i visited her last week and could barely breathe.

she sneakily put our fourteen year old cat down when i was at school, told me in a text message and still doesn't understand why i was upset about not having a chance to say goodbye. she also texted me when my great aunt died last year and wouldn't tell me anything about the funeral.

she'll remember an event perfectly until it puts her in a bad light, at which point my memory is incorrect and bad and mean. when i was seven i was stung in the ear by a wasp, which she remembered right up until i mentioned the part where she laughed at me for it, and now i was never stung by a wasp at all and i'm just making the whole thing up.

it took her years to accept that i'd been diagnosed with bpd by a psychiatrist because she thinks it makes her look bad, and she refuses to accept that i was also diagnosed at the same time with depression and an anxiety disorder so whenever i mention them at all she asks me why i can't "be happy with just having bpd". i've been having panic attacks since i was very small and she's always dismissed them, even though she also gets them and takes antidepressants for them. she still mentions my perpetually messy childhood room as an example of my "laziness" even though i was clearly just too depressed and fatigued to pick up after myself and her house is messy too. she tells people i should have been successful by now (she's always wanted me to be a writer) but i'm not and she doesn't know where she went wrong (obviously fishing for the "oh no it's not your fault it's her fault for being lazy" response). because of my mental health problems i went from one of the top students in my class to getting average grades, which she sees as failure and has made me scared of trying to get a degree in case i don't do amazingly and get told i'm a failure again. i feel like she's allowed to have mental health problems but i'm not.

i guess none of these things is really that bad on its own, but they kinda added up over the years and now i'm only recovering because i live 11000 miles away from her with a very supportive boyfriend who understands because he has a weird mother too. my self-esteem is improving, i'm gaining weight and i'm looking into getting a degree. she keeps asking me when i'm moving back home, but why would i?

>>234800
Anon, I’ve just had my first child and all I can advise is wait until you can honestly say that you would be strong enough to admit it and change if you did start acting like your mother. I’m only a few months in, so I can’t say that I will or won’t, but I can already see that I’m able to keep a grip on my behaviour when things get tough, and not act out how she would have. I was scared about it prior to the birth though…

>>234820
Anon I’m the same as you. My mom is nowhere near as bad as some of these, but minor things enacted by someone who is responsible for (and essentially controls) your formative years can be super damaging. My mom is similar to yours and it’s messed me up. I’m the first poster on the thread - I had to cut her off for a year to sort myself out and only reconnected with her yesterday.

I love my mom very much.
She has her shortcomings, sure, but overall she is a wonderful person and I've learned a lot from her. She's not only a good person but also a good mother, and I truly think I wouldn't have ended up well at all if it weren't for the gentle, loving kindness I received from her as a small child, as I was a very sensitive kid.
If I ever have children of my own I hope I can do as good of a job at raising them as her.

I love my mom. She is tough as hell on us and genuinely intimidates me. Yeah sometimes she puts others first to instill this bootcamp esque tough love. But she is strong, pretty, intelligent and caring when it comes down to it.

A lot of the problems I used to blame on her I don't anymore. All in the past.

My mother has some kind of disorder but refuses to see a psychologist so she'll never get diagnosed with anything. She goes into several hour screaming rants than can be triggered by anything and everything. She was one of those parents who was never satisfied with good grades, either you got 100% or you were worthless. She regularly goes through my and my sibling's rooms and anything we write down, so neither of us write or vent about anything. She freaks out when we don't want to talk to her, but if we talk to her she takes the opportunity to belittle us. She will use every scrap of information against us, even if it was done years ago. Like a lot of other anons here she'd talk about how we had it so good and we'd be out on the street in any other family etc. She beat me several times in high school until one day I hit her back. She hadn't done it again, but she has thrown hot tea on me and thrown cups at me. I still have to live with her because housing is too expensive while I'm still in university here but I want to get out. I hate her.

>>234800
I'm not having children. My mother is awful and my father is useless in protecting either me or my sibling from her rage episodes. Even if I felt any affection for children (which I don't 99% of the time) I know I'd end up snapping at them or wanting to abandon them when they acted out.

>>234504
I cut my relationship with my bio mother. I’m planning having kids in the near future but I’m afraid to ruin or spoil them too much. Any tips in how to be a good mother? How to raise children to grow up an become decent, healthy human beings?

>>234924
Sounds like a textbook narcissist. Mine is the same, it's tough to get narcs mental help because they always refuse and say they're perfectly fine

>>234928
Learn about developmental psychology, and behavioural psychology.

Remember that to a screaming toddler going without the toy literally is the worst thing they’ve ever experienced and it’s annoying to us but unbearably awful for them.

Compromise, never threaten, don’t use affection as a bargaining chip. In general don’t be a shitty human being and you’ll be okay.

My mother had me at 18 and was depressed for most of my childhood. She beat the living hell out of me for seemingly no reason. She broke wooden chairs and plastic objects on my body and burned my skin. She would let go of me in crowds and watch me freak out from a distance (she said it was to see how I'd deal with getting lost). She would pretend to pass out or die just to see my reaction. I knew affection in the form of praise for getting very good grades only. I got a toy of my choice if I got the best grades in class at the end of the year, and that was the only thing I deserved until next year. She made me do as much house work as she did, even though I was tiny and weak and a child. She nitpicked every single thing about me, my behaviour and my appearance and that continued into teenage years, except it was worse because teenage angst made me actually talk back now. She is also extremely religious, a superstitious fanatic whose idea of curing mental pain includes sorcery and reading religious texts(yes, she doesn't see the contradictions). Fast forward through years of severe depression, eating disorders, social anxiety, hallucinations, hair plucking OCD and a fuckload of other things - I finally find a way out of this hell. At 18, she decides I need to get married because I'm getting too old. But I have other plans. Of course, she destroys them and any chance of me getting out of home. It's either her way or nothing at all. She needs to be in control all the time.
It's been a few years. We're better than before. I have an easier time hugging her now than I did when I was 10. We've talked and she said she didn't realize what a monster we thought she was - but I'm not sure if she was guilt tripping me again or not. She cried a lot, though.


I have physical damage from all of this. Chronic pain to remind me of my childhood. OCD and constant nitpicking of my self that wrecks my mind and self esteem. But I'm making my way out of here this year. She'll never accept the kind of life I want and the people I love, and it kills me. I'll have to cut her off at some point. I'll cause her so much anguish and she'll probably fall sick since she always does when I go against her.


I wish she didn't give birth to me.

I want kids. I really, really want kids. But my mother says she was ripped away from her family too early and didn't get to experience motherly love enough, so she looked forward to having kids to fill that void and she says she couldn't wait for them to grow up and become her bestfriends but here we are, the complete opposite. I'm afraid I'm going to repeat the same cycle. But at least I am self-aware and she wasn't. So maybe I won't maje the same mistakes? I definitely got her extreme perfectionism and sometimes coldness, but I'm very very good with kids and they gravutate towards me. I'm not sure if I'll be a good mom or not. But I wish mine never gave birth to me.

>>234958
I'm sorry about all the typos. I wrote that in one go while being emotional, I should have spell checked first.

I'm just starting to realize how negatively my mom effected me. Its really amazing since she seems pretty close to what people would imagine the perfect mother to be.

There is a part of me that would like to have kids, but I don't think I ever could because of her.

>>234928
Never be afraid to challenge your own behaviour and immediately stop acting on impulses you know are unhealthy. Learn to apologise when it’s needed. Always keep in mind that children are not adults, and therefore will always need patience and kindness on their journey to self-sufficiency.

>>234958
Self-awareness is what saved me from being like my mom. I’m glad I waited until I could face myself before I had kids.

It took me years and years away from my mom to start developing a healthy personality and social interactions. I can't even begin to list all the shitty stuff she put me and my sister through because she was selfish, irresponsible and manipulative. My sister, who has less self-control, still suffers from the lack of proper education to this day (ED, violence). At least this has made me swear that whatever happens I'll NEVER ignore, belittle, hit or fucking abandon my children. That is, if I have children at all, because she also made me realise that if you're not sure you can handle them, better just not have them.

My mom had me when she was thirty. She isn't the worst parent, but I feel like she's never really tried to do anything for herself. She's worked the same entry-level job for over two decades, never went to college, and doesn't understand technology. She shares an e-mail address with my father because she doesn't know how to make one for herself. At one point she couldn't log into an online bank account and she didn't understand how to copy and paste a link to reset the password. She has never talked to me about feminine topics like tampons, birth control or sex.

My father is an abusive jerk, so one thing that has always upset me is that she rarely ever defends me or herself in an argument. Once when I had an fight with my dad he spit in my face when we were standing in front of her and she didn't do anything. I was angry at him because the two were going to see a concert and he left her there without a ride, so I had to pick her up.

My mother reminds me a lot of my grandma/her mother, as I can see her being the type that just sits at home watching television shows and babysitting when she's retired. My grandma never had a driver's license and spent a lot of time relying on other people after my grandfather died so I think my mom adopted a lot of her mannerisms from that. AFAIK there might have been some verbal and physical abuse when she was a child but I've only heard bits and pieces during my dad's drunk ramblings.

I love my mom. Despite all the sad things I've been learning about her life, she managed to influence me in the best possible ways.

I don't deserve her tbh.

>>234942
>>235035
Thank you kind anons! I’ll look for some books about those subjects and always try to be self aware. One of my biggest fears is to be one of those obnoxious moms or that my child will become a lolcow.

Jesus don't think I've ever typed all of this in one go

My mother got pregnant with me when she was 16. Her parents, my grandparents, are conservative and catholic, and despite being disappointed, supported her very well and fawned over me so much once I arrived. They are who I see as my real parents, I truly love them.

My real father left as soon as he found out my mother was pregnant, years later i found out he's a scumbag who wears wife beaters and drinks shit cheap bear and owns muscle dogs that look stronger than him.

When I am a toddler, she goes out with an abusive guy who is emotionally and verbally abusive to her, possibly more types that I'm not aware of. He also extended this to me, one of my few memories of this time was not wanting to take a bath so he dragged me up the stairs by my hair. He would also break into the kitchen through the window or try to lure me out the front door. My mother put my grandparents through hell by constantly enabling and going back to this guy, ending up in court with him, having to go on a trip and hide if they were having a fight.

They break up, he actually ends up going to jail over what happened. She goes out with another guy who is nice for a few years. I hit 12, he becomes a raging alcoholic, buying huge quantities of piss cheap beer EVERY SINGLE NIGHT and drinking all of it, going to sleep at 5am and leaving to drive to work at 6am. He would verbally fight with my mother, I would at the age of 15 frequently hear shit about their sex lives being screamed from downstairs, and just really random shit like him saying "you're getting too into exercise you're becoming a fucking man and a lesbian" (actual quote)
But most of all he takes it all out on me. Verbally abuses the shit out of me, pervs on me and my female friends, hits me, insults me, comes into my room at night, threatened to cut the heads off my pets once, threatened to kill me, kick me out, and just the screaming and constant absolute fear.. it ruined me. It fucking ruined me. I am crying as I type this out. I had to move out with the clothes on my back overnight when I was barely 18, and couldn't afford to continue my community college course. I was very fortunate that my now fiance asked me to move in with him so I wasn't stuck in hostels or on the street.

I routinely cut myself, drank, and just engaged in really shit depressed behaviour, being catatonic in bed for days at a time staring at the wall.

All this time my mother has known all of this and always put the blame on me for "Being lazy" or "provoking him". She completely puts down any suggestion that her previous abusive bf abused me because it's all about her. She stayed with her alcoholic husband and had 2 more kids who she will put through the same shit once they're old enough to speak for themselves and have critical thinking and need more freedom. She bad mouths me to everyone in the family, but most of them take no heed because they dislike her for being such a rampant gossipy moody bitch anyway. All her friendships are short lived and tumultuous and she's forever sorry for herself even though she's an unbelievable fucking instigator and just volatile asshole.
I told her recently about the worst parts of the abusive from the alcoholic guy and she seemed surprised and said she would confront him about it.
She later said "I'm not saying I don't believe you but he doesn't remember" and I just lost it. We went around in circles for ages and she just stuck with "welp he doesnt remember" like I fucking told her what he did and she's using that scapegoat and continuing to raise small children with him

Guys my whole life was fucked by this I think about it all the time I have nightmares about it all the time, I have left out so many details but I am a fucking useless human because of the constant anxiety in my chest if I hear a door or cupboard slam too hard or hear someone coming down a hallway or stairs towards me. I am socially useless, introverted, and horribly depressed because I've never gotten an apology but more importantly never even had it acknowledged.

I've told my grandmother, who is very supportive and kind, but because of her generation, religion and my country it's one of those things that is very much swept under the rug that you're expected to forget about.

Thank you for making this thread, it is good to vent about these things.

>>235201

Samefag but to add to this, I absolutely adore children. I love children so much, seeing them mess around or say stupid kid things or baby babble makes me teary eyed. I have been the baby sitter for my family and friends kids and babies and children love me so much. I am very good with them and I'm so grateful for it. I lived in fear that I couldn't have kids because I'd be like my mother but with the help of my fiance I realised I'm just not that bitch. I am not like that.
I thought I was born to be a mother, but a medical condition we are looking into means I may be infertile anyway. But whether it be adopting, or my cat, or through minding other babies, or HOPEFULLY going back to college and going into preschool education I will always be infintely better of a guardian figure than she ever had the capacity to be. Children are my life.

>>235201
You should probably call someone and get those kids away from that asshole. If your mother is still living with him and raising kids with him, after you confronted her about it, it'll probably happen to them too. Now he knows she'll cover for him and won't believe even her own children over him. I obviously can't say anything will or won't happen, I'm just a stranger on the internet, but don't be naive enough to think he'll stop just because you had the nerve to mention what he did to you to your enabler mom.

My mum was extremely unstable after my dad cheated on her while pregnant with my younger sister. She (and my father sometimes) was extremely violent to me and my siblings and yelled a lot whilst I was growing up. Despite her ups and downs and the infidelity of my father, they stayed together and had 2 more children. I despised her growing up, her fits of crying and hysterics, the way she would beat me or scream at me for simple things like not hanging the clothes the right way. Fast forward to me aged 19. I lost my boyfriend to an overdose and she had lost her mother to cancer a few months back. I could see there was actual sympathy in her eyes when we went shopping for a funeral dress and I had a panic attack in the shops and started crying and just wanted to go home. She started to soften after that. Fast forward to a few years ago, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It was meant to be terminal but she miraculously recovered. She's been medicated for her bipolar and is like a completely different person. She comes round to my house and makes sure I am eating. She offers to pay for me to go to uni and wants to pay for a therapist for me so I can get help.

It's weird because my dad conviced the family that my mother was an unstable mess growing up, but after learning that he was her only partner, gave birth to 8 children, stayed with him through the cheating, came from a home where her mother was a gambling addict and she basically had to mother her 6 younger siblings, was sexually abused by her own grandfather repeatedly, and went to rehab to stop her marijuana addiction without the help of my father, I just see her as a little old lady that is trying to mend her broken ways. I love her so much and all that she does for me.
I still get flashbacks of fucked up childhood memories but now i just feel sorry for her.

>>235212
I know he will do it again, i never said i thought hed stop. It drives me insane. Unfortunately theres nothing that can be done, its not severe enough for them to be taken away (very difficult to get kids taken away here) and theres 10 years between me and one sister and 20 between me and the youngest. Basically when one kid reaches 10 years old they're seen as a nuisance and they need a new baby to get attention and distract themselves. The real shit will only start happening in the next few years. All i can do is be here for my sister and she can leave to my house whenever needed, and the same for the youngest when the time comes. I really appreciate you taking the time to read and reply, anon.

>>235203
I had to pause and hold tears back while reading your posts. I'm so happy you realize you're not that bitch. I'm also happy you have a supportive partner and haven't given up on being the guardian angel you were meany to be. I truly believe those of us who were abused as chilren and knew no warmth growing up are the best at caring for children. Good luck on life anon, I love you <3

>>235377
You could tell the police about the things he used to do to you and that you told your mother. IDK why everyone thinks reporting shitty parents means you have to have 100% damning proof, the police will investigate and talk to the children too. If he's mistreating them, someone may notice after talking to them.