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Hi IM's.
I don't like my mum.
I love her.
But I don't like her.
I was sexually abused by my step father as a child. She ignored it. He also abused my sisters. Sometimes I think I blame her more than him.
She was a drunk.
She was lazy.
I remember eating a piece of bread for dinner sometimes. Nothing on it. Just a piece of bread.
She left my father for another man (it took me over ten years to accept that).
She bad mouthed my step mum.
Then I remember.
Christmas mornings. Opening a present she got from St Vinnies. She made an effort so we got something. Some Sunday's she'd cook a roast and bread and butter pudding. She gave me a surprise 16th birthday party and my dad and step mum came. She helped me raise my own kids when I left my drug addict husband.
That's when I remember I love her.
I can't stand to be around her though. The thought of it causes anxiety. I feel ashamed to have these feelings. She is my mother. I try. I saw her last week and afterwards I have feelings of wanting to SCREAM for days until I can't scream anymore.
She's now in a wheelchair. She had her foot amputated. Now the world owes her! She refuses to get a prosthetic and is happy to have people fetch and tend to her.
I'm distancing myself from my family because they are all so supportive of her. I feel ashamed that I can't feel like that. I'm angry at her. The world doesn't owe her! Go and get what you want yourself. But maybe that's just the problem? She doesn't care about being independent.
Sometimes I randomly cry. I keep these feelings to myself. I don't know what to do.
I wonder how many other people don't like their mother.
8 Replies
It sounds like you are so conflicted and like you've never really come to a place of peace about your childhood. Wether your mum is in or out of your life it's a huge gift to you to get to that point where your emotions aren't ruled by what happened.
Have you done any long term counselling?? I'm not talking a few sessions, I mean long term, where you start to work on coming to a place of peace in your life wether your mum is around or not.
Never done counseling. I went to my doctor a couple of months ago and he gave me a mental health plan. I'm yet to call and make an appointment.
I feel anxious about it.
I.would go ahead and call. I don't have a great relationship with my mother. Not half as serious as your issues, it's just hard work.and.hurtful. The psychologist will be able to help.you talk it through and arrange things so that you don't feel that guilt and anger and wanting to scream. You may never be close.to her it sounds like you of all people don't owe her and it wouldn't be good for you to have to wait on her. So don't. And you don't have to justify taking care of yourself to anybody else. Although I know it affects other family relationships. Family just sucks sometimes. Take care of yourself. Counseling can definitely help with that.
Like the other comment said sound like you haven't got over what has happened. Do some counselling see where that takes you, let it flow with the relationship with your mum. You must be a strong amazing mum if you could leave you husband due to drugs. Even that take a lot of will power. When you have them days when you want to scream treat yourself with a massage.(even if it a back massage thing that sits on a chair from gumtree) or go to the park with you child/ren and let the play and run wild with them.
*hug*
my mum hit the vodka, hit the dope, hit the box of anything she could get hold of pretty regularly....she was actually a pretty good mum when I was very young if she wasn't in hospital....there arent many but there are good times...
she had anorexia since before I was born and spent decades recovering from child sexual abuse.
I don't like my mum, I don't hate her....I don't enjoy her company. I like staying over here on the other side of the state and doing things with my own little tribe....
she has helped....occasionally over the years when the shit hits the fan. but her help is a double edged sword....she also undermines and sabotages, and tries to pull you in complete opposite directions to which you are going and not for the sake of your welfare.....but her wants.
it is called a codependent relationship....and she had me in the grips of one til I was about 19.....and I literally slammed the door for a number of years on advice from her doctors in order to get on with my own life....I didn't even answer the phone for a few years....I left it to everyone else or screened messages.
she has lost it a few times and literally smashed up my house....
I do love her I know there is alot of her past "missing" for her but she patches up as best as she can....and she does care.....it took a long time but she I think has finally learned that she has barbs and it is specific to me....
she is careful not to invade, she tries to get consent and ask, she isn't very successful we are still ORDERED to be at her house for christmas come hell or high water....she has learned to accept no for an answer, doesnt always pull it off but she does pull herself up before my house is damaged.......but I wont be there this weekend I am very sick right now.
see a psychologist they can help. I do love my mother, and its not even really that I don't like her.....she is a blade with two edges....and you know what? that's ok, she needed them.....but she has to be handled with care and in small doses...
I think what makes it easier for me and taught me alot.....is that yes at times she ran....at times she just wanted to go away take herself away from us.....but that motivation was out of concern for us....she lashed out and faught back and wanted us to go as far away from her as possible because she thought she was the worst thing on earth and that she would contaminate us and ruin us.
She really is an amazing woman. It sounds terrible to say that knowing her history but it really is true....it isnt about her pushing us away when drunk or her numerous attempts to suicide or the years of starving herself and hating herself.....
She lived through over a decade of physical emotiotional and sexual abuse and literal torture at the hands of her father as a child younger even than mine.....
I have seen her lying in a pool of her own vomit trying to reach oblivion and peace. I have seen her laying helpless in ICU tied to the bed with tubes while the very drugs she wanted to give her release hold her trapped inside her flash backs taking her through the horror again and again and again because so much got past her stomach, the pumping and the charcoal......
She survived the worst she could dish out on herself....
And the worst her own family could serve up to her.......
During and inspite of all this I watched her lead state wide protests on issues which impacted cost of living and quality of life of everyone who lived there.
I saw her catch shop lifters and thieves by day and in the evening take boxes of food, toiletries, shoes and suits to them where they were couch surfing for the job interview they would have in the morning which could change their tide.
She insisted on a decent education for all of us. We were fed, we were clothed one way or another, and we made it through hell as a team.
And after it was all done in the early 2000's I watched her stand up as the public spokesperson for the police operation chameleon using her own name no blurred images with the public support of my Father and us.
And speak of what she survived to help others know that they can.
She did have him convicted the police investigation took 4 years and a half dozen incidents of the file going missing until she started naming his friends in victoria department if justice to the Victorian police commissioner.
He got 2 years 3 months no parole. When released he was sent sideways into a dementia ward because he phoned her (he in his 70's) and told her he was coming to rape her. He died on that ward.
I can't imagine myself or my mother not jumping for a prosthetic should amputation ever be necessary ( TBH iv begged just to get rid of the mongrel thing and focus on mobility)
but many amputees experience grief following amputation.....
its disturbing and the thoughts pathetic, defeatist, lazy, and every foul descriptor in the dictionary......along with the guilt of knowing how awful it would be to say those things aloud to her....
I am not saying understanding this will help your overall relationship with your mum. but this period and stage may pass and there is no way to know how quickly it will. it also depends on why and how suddenly it was removed.....
I would throw a party if they would only take my left leg from the hip.
my mother has a mental illness, and she absolutely does my head in too, but at the end of the day shes my mum. She has never really been there for me when i struggled to pay my rent, bills or food but now that she struggles she has no problem hitting me up for cash and i buy her fruit n veg so she can eat, she spends her money on smokes. I only hear from her when she wants something which is really sad