I have a confession: my mum and I have hardly spoken since early August. There, I said it. It’s not been a secret per se, as close peeps around me are aware of it, but it’s part of the reason I haven’t updated my personal blog. It’s not because I’m worried she might read it; I just didn’t feel ready to write about our silence. I also didn’t want to ignore the issue and pretend like it’s not there affecting me.
So why am I telling you this? Well, things happen in life to teach us about ourselves. If you don’t learn, life just keeps throwing different versions of learning that lesson until light dawns on marble head and you go ping! Aha! A bit like when we have epiphanies/epiphany moments with Mr/Miss Unavailables and assclowns.
I have found with many of the women (and men) that I’ve corresponded with that their self-esteem issues, more often than not, have a link to one or both parents. Those who have been reading this blog for long enough know that when I did an about turn with my life, I had to deal with the double-pronged issue of my parents. This summer was a repeat of having to redefine myself to them and re-establish boundaries.
I say ‘them’ because shortly after I had the bust-up with my mother, I found myself having to get blunt with my father.
It’s not because I want you to be a hardass with your defences up and barking at everyone; it’s because we teach people how to teach us. And with our parents, in many respects, they assume how they should teach us. It’s up to you to tell or show them otherwise. Or…adapt your position so that the power for them to impact on you is greatly reduced.
With many of the readers I’ve corresponded with, I’ve observed that when they have issues with a parent, they still react in a childlike way, almost being transported back in time.
They go from put-together adult to surly, pissed off teenager or petulant seven-year-old, as their parents push their buttons. Unfortunately, the parent-child dynamic doesn’t always shift to reflect the passage of time. It doesn’t always reflect how you’ve developed. And sometimes, they just don’t acknowledge that while you respect the fact that they tried their best, their best sometimes fell short.
I realised that despite my laying to rest many of the issues that had niggled in the past and driven my lack of self-love and my seeking relationships with people that seemed to recreate that feeling, here I was almost five years down the road wanting to disown the pair of them!
Distracted with kids, the boyf, and my work (Baggage Reclaim and my other blogs), I thought I could cocoon myself in these great things happening around me. I figured I’d just leave my parents to get on with their own thing. The trouble was that by not always speaking up or letting things slide, or not fully vocalising my annoyance, things spiralled.
In early August, about a week after my 32nd birthday, my mother and I locked horns. I truly have no desire to hurt her. That said, I also realised that you have to speak up when someone claims that you are something (or that they are) but it’s untrue because actions (or reality) say otherwise.
Go ahead and tell me anything you want about yourself, but actions speak louder than words. Language also says a lot. So aside from actions contradicting words, you have the swaying of tone, but also using words that don’t match what you’re saying.
This is a bit like when you say you “don’t care” about something, and then your subsequent words or actions say otherwise.
Let’s be real: in an ideal world, someone should know that they are doing something that is pissing you off. But we don’t live in an ideal world. Als, the assumption that follows is that the person will want to make things right because they know how its affected you. Yeah, no.
My father said that he’d do some DIY at our home. However, not only did he not do what he agreed, he stayed with us, worked for someone else, and then disappeared for ages. It was horrible and reminded me of when I went out with the Mr Unavailable that made me see the light! I’d think I was hearing from or seeing him in a few days, and a couple of weeks would go by! Honestly, I was furious. My father didn’t just do it once; it happened twice. The worst thing was that I actually told him how annoyed I was and why, and yet it still happened.
And then I explained it differently.
I told him that of course I recognise he has to work, but that I am the type of person who, when you tell me you’ll do something and then you can’t, say so, not bury your head and disappear leaving me hanging. For six weeks straight after the birth of my second daughter!
I explained how when he disappointed me, despite what I’d said to him (twice), that I felt unimportant and that I fell very much down the pecking order. While his not doing what he said was upsetting, what truly upset me is that by being so careless about my feelings, he conveyed he did not care. He then insisted that he did care but admitted that, presented in how I did, he understood where I was coming from.
He now knows that not only will this type of behaviour will annoy me in the future, but that I will call him on it.
They see things through their eyes, from their perspective, and you literally have to spell it out for them. Yes, a lot of them do intentional stuff, but many of them just don’t think. We assume that because we’re in pain that they understand why we’re in pain and that they should see things in how we do.
I’ve learned a lot in the past few months, and tomorrow I will follow up with a whole list of truths about relationships with emotionally unavailable people and communication.
We are always learning, and we have to be 100% committed to our peace and sense of wellbeing. I don’t want to argue all the time, but I realise that when I find myself truly upset by the actions of people that claim to care, rather than stay stuck, I have to adapt a new position. My new position has meant honesty (the truth with respect). At the moment, that means that I’ve only seen my mother once in the past three months, and we’ve spoken very little. Of course I miss her, but I don’t miss the drama or being made to feel bad about myself. In time, I’m sure we will establish a newly-evolved relationship… with boundaries. My father and I are okay at the moment, and he’s apologised and started doing what he originally said he would. Slowly.
Your thoughts?
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Being honest with a parent is a scary but ultimately rewarding thing. I have 2 mothers (I’m adopted) and have confronted both of them about issues that upset me. Both initially reacted very badly, and there was a cooling off period, but both now have an attitude of trying to please me, almost like they are the insecure children craving love and acceptance whilst I am perceived as the harsh parent pulling them up on their behaviour. It gave me the courage to stand up to the men in my life, with similar results. It’s like you have to recognise your own power, and use it carefully to gain respect from others.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Until recently – I always viewed what my mother and I had as “friendship”, what it really was? Codependance. It’s been hard to pull back. It’s been hard when I’m honest, not mean, but just honest about her place in my life and she gets upset turning into the victim. How many times did I do the same thing in my marriage? Too many to count.
It’s true that, as adults, we have to take responsibility for our continued behavior. However, when we are with our parents – a lot of that behavior is deeply rooted in patterns from our past, causing us to act in ways that would put my 4 year old to shame.
I’ve had to pull back, emotionally, from my mom. I’ve had to place boundaries where there really were none. She’s still making a lot of the same mistakes in her relationships that I’m now learning to change. It’s been hard, but luckily – my mom is very self-reflective (as am I) and has been able to adapt somewhat.
I have been thinking about something lately that our choices made as adults, like the assclowns and Mr. Unavailables are the types we are familar with, subconsciously, in other words, we choose our parents. I had a cold, unemotional, distant father and I choose the same man in my first husband. Until we become clearly aware of that, history will keep repeating itself.
Another point I would like to make is what you said about mixed messages. I needed to know for my own peace of mind why my ex-husband wanted the divorce which I never really knew. Well he would give contradicting answers and I called him on it which completely pissed him off and he turned around calling obsessive. Oddly enough he did this type of projection throughout the marriage making me look mad while he was the sane individual. Yet, today I know as a fact he is suffering from severe depression taking medication and unhappily married in his older years, while I found a man totally different from him and my father and I couldn’t be happier or sanier.
Well I tried but that doesnt realy work with my mother.She is the kind that never thinks that she is wrong and take everything you say personal,so she ends up making you fell guilty for saying something.Plus every time I start to say that I didnt like something she did/said she takes it as if Im ofending her and refuse to hear,she even tells me to drop it and if I dont she just walk away.It is very frustrating and I just fell like I cant express myself and have to keep it all inside.Realy I would love if just once I could have a talk with her about things she said/did that I didnt like without her taking it the wrong way,but so far it never realy happened.And dont get me wrong,I love her very much but sometimes I realy dont know how to relate with her.
I find that in order to have integrity (and the peace of mind that comes with it) it has to be across the board. I cannot make exceptions, I have to be impeccable for it to truly work.
In order to have relationships where the person is honest and communicates with empathy, I also have to be honest with myself and communicate the same way.
Lots of self-examination then.
As I gradually figure things out and get my own act together, the people who would otherwise be stressful seem to drop away and or I am ready to let go of them.
I change my expectations if there is a relationship I think I HAVE to have for some reson (i.e. parent or work) and don’t expect them to be who I want them to be — rather I stop hurting myself by acknowledging they aren’t going to do better or different and so I don’t get disappointed by my own dreams or hopes or a belief system that wasn’t based on fact.
Every relationship is a choice. Every single one.
It is how much we are willing to work on ourselves to choose peace and happiness versus habit that will bring us the result we are in alignment with.
Hey Anusha both my mothers are like that and it’s infuriating! But from their perspective I think they fear being ‘wrong’ and us kids being disappointed with them. Neither of them ever admitted having said or done anything wrong, but their subsequent behaviour proved they had listened, despite their stubborn pride. I complained to one about her negative attitude to others. She denied it, but then started counting her blessings. The other, who brought me up, and was violent towards me, initially denied what she’d done, then grudgingly admitted it, adding “but I felt really bad about it at the time” (no apology). She has since been very kind and supportive towards me. So don’t give up hope. It takes time for parents to get over the shame at having their faults pointed out. Keep showing love, keep the door open, but establish new boundaries – the same you would with a friend. Having said your piece let go of the past, and build a new adult relationship with your mother.
You know, with parents and with the men in our lives, there’s a tendency to behave differently because we are so emotionally invested in them. Maybe we should apply the Friendship Rule to all of them. Ask yourself – if my best friend said that/did that to me – how would I respond? We can’t literally change other people, but we can change the dynamic by reacting differently. I did this with my ex-husband in the last painful months. The atmosphere was intolerable, but by projecting my best friend onto him when we spoke, I was shocked by the difference in my tone of voice, and how I phrased things. It made life a bit more bearable.
This is odd timing because this morning I woke up knowing that the EUM relationship I was in was both of us reacting to parent issues under our radar. He was hoping for approval from me, and when he did not get it, he rejected me emotionally, which sent me unwittingly back to feeling the unworthiness that originated from my parents rejection of me.
Now, as a middle aged woman I had dealt with my parents rejection and forgiven them ( mom dead, dad does not stay in touch). But, with the EUM It was a shock to learn that someone could bring back all those feelings and make me feel bad about me and face that again. I had never experienced this outside of my parents and they had been out of my life for decades, So, yes, clear honesty and boundaries were something I never learned until him and NC.
But heres the killer and the relate to this post. I also laid in bed realizing that this not so great parenting not only influences our self esteem, till we deal with it, but is likely passed on through generations…it is likely whatever your Mom did it to you is because it was the way she was parented.
Enter compassion for the parent, then forgiveness, and then the needed behaviorial boundaries to protect us and challenge the “abuse” they can bring up in us, even if we think we have worked through the abuse.
I then laid in bed and hoped to all hell I had not passed this crap on to my only child and introspection led me to find that I dealt with my parents criticism and abandonment before passing it on to my kid. Must have been instinctive, praise be.
But, even if I am wrong and maybe I blew it it still is NEVER too late to let her know how great I think she is. In fact I think I will make a point to do that more often.
Another excellent point here is something I try to live by. Being clear and honest with others about how you feel, that is the key to being at peace within. Honesty may not bring the desired outcome but you have done everything in your power to do what you need to do to communicate wisely. I think this is so important to teach kids too.
Ok, so this one really hit home. Its taken me years to work out how my narcisstic mother has trained me to believe that love is pain and that the only relationships that feel ‘normal’ are abusive. We too don’t talk anymore. Its taken 40 years to realise that no contact is the only way to go for the sanity of me and my children. She is mentally ill and violent having been sectioned many times. She is a paranoid schizophrenic with NPD. I have suffered from her abuse since I was a child and she still expects me to put up with it. If I don’t, I’m ungrateful and spoilt. In the end, as I worked on my healing from relationship after relationship with EUM’s and realising how EU I am too, I realised that I had to go NC. I had tried boundaries etc to no avail. There is no respect or love for me – its all about her. Still it hurts. Although I am NC, she sent another abusive text only a few hours ago. I suppose the next step is changing my number.
One thing that upsets me is other people who cannot perceive the fact that some mothers are not loving and caring. I feel that mine actually hates me and always has….it is hard. I hurt but realise that she is that way for her own reasons and they do not reflect on me….reading this post and comments makes me realise how I am not alone in this..
God Bless everyone xxx
Thank you for posting, Gemma. I also have a narcissistic, emotionally abusive mother and I finally went to no contact with her four years ago. Lots of people don’t understand. It is not a case of a loving, caring person with good intentions doing the best they can. I have never felt any love from her at all, for anyone. And she is frequently out and out malicious. My oldest son recently told me though, “Mom, when you stopped speaking to your mother, I really didn’t understand it. But I have to say that since you did you are better than I have ever seen you.” I am learning to be compassionate with myself about why the crumbs of affection I received from my husband were so important to me that I endured an awful lot of abuse to get them. He is gone now. I am glad I no longer have the pain and drama of trying to deal with him. But I do still sometimes long for the tenderness he showed me sometimes. Trying to love myself, and that’s good. Trying to connect with a loving spiritual source, and that’s good, too. Trying to surround myself with loving and supportive people — also good. But there is still I void that I feel like only a partner can fill.
Whilst I understand the reluctance of people to distance or even cut off from unhealthy family members, it’s reading a post like Gemma’s and Kathy’s that reminds me of why sometimes we have to do painful things because the other option is to engage in an extremely unhealthy relationship that impacts on you and on others. Blood actually isn’t always thicker than water. There are some parents out there that have done some highly destructive things to the children – same goes for siblings. At some point, it is more than OK to say ‘Enough’. Nobody has the right to treat you like sh*t because they’re a family member – that’s total BS. Good for you Gemma and Kathy!
@Phyllis I think with a person like that you have to question how much peace of mind you’ll get from pursuing answers or understanding. Sometimes it is what it is. Sometimes all you need to understand is that it’s no good, it totally obliterates your boundaries, and it really doesn’t feel good.
@Beth Thanks for sharing. Most parents, no matter how they treat you, assume they’ve done a good job. Just the fact that you exist is enough for some to pat themselves on the back! The great thing is that you said what you had to say and they digested and have adapted because they recognise that to have a relationship with you, subsequent poor behaviour would be unacceptable. They will settle down…soon…
Student Mama I totally relate to what you are saying. It’s very uncomfortable when you can see your relationship patterns playing out in your mother. It makes you wonder how you stood a chance… I’m glad that you are both learning and growing.
@Anusha One of the things you must accept is that if you say something to someone about them, it’s personal. They have to take it personally. They need to. If we always say stuff that won’t cause offence and steers clear of causing upset, we let our boundaries be jumped all over and our own feelings take a beating. Her reaction is silencing you. Just because she doesn’t like what she hears doesn’t mean that you should stop talking. If she’s still going to be your mum, and you’re still going to be her daughter after you’ve said what you have to say, you both need to have room to speak and be honest.
@Loving Annie Very, very wise words. Even when we think we’re not making a choice and stalling, that’s still a choice and it is very easy to back away from things that seem difficult and daunting that may attract conflict. The adjusting expectations is key. It’s not about having no expectations, it’s about adjusting to reality and realising that for some, no matter how low your expectations of them, they just won’t meet them.
@Aphrogirl “Honesty may not bring the desired outcome but you have done everything in your power to do what you need to do to communicate wisely. I think this is so important to teach kids too.” Excellent!
I check in here fairly often and, seeing the topic of some recent posts about difficult relationships with parents, it seemed incredibly timely that a similar article is now in the top 10 on the NYTimes website. I think the author makes some really great points about the emotional abuse that parents can inflict (at every age), how to deal with said abuse and, most importantly, how we have to know when it’s time to pull away from a relationship, no matter how difficult this may be.
So, I offer this link as a companion piece to NML’s equally wise words about the difficulties of parental relationships:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/health/20mind.html?_r=1&em
Gemma – 90% of what you wrote are my words and feelings. NML…this is really hitting home…I googled ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder” a few weeks ago and had an AH HA moment…AC and Mum…
There is a little guilt attached to the NC with parents. I keep thinking that something is going to happen to one of them…and I would be worse off. (yes, selfish) I know she is damaged…and has passed awful socialization and relationship skills on to her kids. I look at all the loving relationships others have with their families…and just amazed that my mother hated her children as if they were competition or a burden. I have been in another NC period with her since August…and the AC since January….A huge year of growth for me…really!! Thanks NML…another post that just hit home…you are amazing.
About the article, let me tell you. I heard the phrase Adulthood means, take your life and move on. We are not here to judge our parents, the reason you are here is because they gave you the best give of all. LIFE. we all have issues, maybe is the generation gap. Do not take personal any of their comments, parents want the best for their kids, even if they not always convey it using the best words. She wants you to be better that her. I have my issues and one day I was in front of my mother bed, she was dying and at that moment, there she was, the person who gave you life, it was such strong and intense moment.The passing of live. I just wished I could stop time, and go back in time.
Just send her love, a friend told me this mantra that you repeat and think of the person I’m sorry. I miss you. I love you. Thank you. Send her love, life is to short. Take the love your parent put on you in the moment you were created and love yourself. Every day you have the opportunity to improve something that you did not do yesterday.
The Best.
I tried getting frank with my mother 3 years ago. She refuses to understand or listen to anything that I have to say. She is much of the reason why I have trust issues with men and don’t want to be bothered with them anymore. I got frank with my father; it took a lot of yelling and cursing and silence and distance, but we’ve come a long way in that I can be open with him and not be ignored or ridiculed. I’ve done a little of the same with my (ex-) stepfather too, and we’ve also come quite a ways.
As far as I’ve come, I wonder if I can ever TRULY have peace of mind. At least therapy and other things have helped. Still though….. 😐
Natalie, I’m so glad for this article. I haven’t been on here in a while, thinking that I could get on without the support of this website. But also, number of events had tailspinned me into a bit of a depression. One was having my ex treat me cruelly verbally, and couldn’t believe how someone who said he cared about me, could be as cruel as he was. The second thing was my mom…I told her of my breakup with my ex and how I was sad, and all she said was “That’s life…So do you want to come to lunch on Sunday”. She paid more attention and empathy to the uncertainty about my job (which I was not too worried about) than my relationship causing my heart to break. And it hit me like a tons of bricks worth the last 40+ years…my parents never gave me emotional support at any time of my life. Never. This was what caused me to tailspin, because I then realized I may not know what true love was about… I related, Natalie, to your reference to chasing love all your life for something that you didn’t receive from your parents, and that’s what I realized about my choices in men and relationships. It has not always been this way, but certainly in the last 10 years. From the moment my mother showed no empathy for me and my pain of my breakup, I made a decision that I couldn’t expose myself to that kind of pain….and that I needed to see less of my parents. It’s a hard choice. I know my parents did all they could, and they were poor growing up so they relate more to loss of finances more than they could about loss of a boyfriend. So they are only doing what they know. I thought about the one thing that I didn’t do was give myself a voice…again (I have not given myself a voice around my parents ever since I was born)…and continue to do so. So I’ve thought about actually speaking my mind, but then I think my parents are in their 80s now….Do I really want to subject them to heartbreak if I tell them that a good part of my pain is because I don’t feel like they are not there for me emotionally and never have been?? I don’t know if it’s a right choice or not, but I feel like I shouldn’t subject them to that when they only have a limited time here…and heartbreak, which they will feel, is something I don’t want to put on them. 3 years ago I had it out with my parents blowing up and really speaking my mind, after all my 40+ years…how I never felt like I mattered in my family, how I felt taken for granted, and how I didn’t feel loved. Well, their understanding only lasted a few months, and then all behaviour went back to old ways. With the recent episode of non-empathy, I’ve just thought ‘what’s the use of talking when I tried that” and now resort to avoiding spending time in front of them, because it hurts to know they just don’t get it. Anyway, I am rambling. But I will say that I am thankful that you have linked our experiences with our parents as a factor in the choices we make in relationships. Because I don’t know ANYONE who I can talk to who can relate… I am still struggling to get past the ex and my mom’s reaction of non-caring. So much so that I feel “disconnected” from most everything right now. I don’t know which way is up. I don’t know what is real anymore. But deep inside I feel that one day I will feel myself again….the loving, caring and passionate person that I believe is in me. But somehow I feel it’s going to take a long time this time…I’m not as resilient as before, and I’m tired from my heart taking a beating….I feel like something in me “broke”…and don’t know how to connect or fix it. But despite that, I remain hopeful despite my weariness. If only there were magic answers or potions…
This year has been a killer for me – I ended up courting (managed not to actually go out with him though) a seriously toxic EUM which completely disoriented me and sent me spinning back into co-dependency and then my mother became ill and is now living with me (trust me, if there was an alternative I would have taken it). She is the main cause of my problems in relationships and having her living in my house is like my greatest nightmare come true.
But … it’s also an opportunity to finally confront my codependency and my responsibility in keeping myself in a state of immaturity. I like the ‘best friend’ test above and remember using it in the past and will do it again. I am reading this site every day and rereading books which helped me in the past. I am finally, finally beginning to understand what it means to attend to my own needs because I’ve been forced into doing it or sinking and losing everything I’ve worked so hard to gain in my life.
This is the scariest my life has ever been and I am just so grateful that I didn’t go out with the EUM because I think I’d be insane by now!!
.-= raven´s last blog ..reasons to be cheerful – 2 =-.
NML,
Wow! I think somebody from above is trying to relay a message to me, saying that i’m not alone.
My mother and I have always butt-heads ever since I can remember. She is not a good mother and now as an adult, she actually has a very low sense of herself and lack dignity.
Growing up in a divorced household, my mother has always, “always” picked her men over her children. Pecking order? Her men is “always’ number 1 then her job, then her cosmetics, then her properties, then her money… her children are always dead last and sometimes, doesn’t even make it on her list.
On her days off, she would spend it her her boyfriends rather than with her children. She had introduced us as her “cousins” to her potential boyfriends to appear younger to them.
I can go on with all of the garbage my parents dumped on us but I’ll spare you.
I haven’t spoke to my Mom since last year when she tried to extort money from me. She asked me to pay her back every cent she’d spent on her only grandchild and I told her I will as soon as I earn it. And unlike her, I keep my promises.
The examples both of my parents showed me were more than your average dysfunction. Both of my parents are self-centered, selfish, undignified, uncaring, toxic, pretty much almost everything negative you can throw at a child and screw her up, my parents threw it at us.
None of her children talks to her. During my Father’s funeral, my siblings only came because they wanted to support me. I was the only child of theirs that was upset of his death. My siblings weren’t.
I’ve often asked myself, if these 2 people, our parents didn’t want to have children, why didn’t they allow us to be adopted by other family members? Family members wanted to adopt us and raise us in a loving, caring environment, yet, they were the ones who were offended when other family members offered to adopt us. They saw how cruel and uncaring our parents were to us, yet, they decided to stay selfish out of their sake of “saving face!” It has taken me over 20 years of therapy to undo all of the garbage they dumped on me!
As an adult, we all have to come to terms on how we were brought up and eventually start taking responsibility for our actions and feelings. My parents no longer has control over me and the best thing for me is to have no contact with my Mother. She’s a very toxic person who wants nothing to do with any of her children. Growing up, we’re so used to hearing the words, “you stole my youth!” while we were cowering in a corner. There was a time that my mother abandoned me at 15, to move in with her boyfriend at the time. I was left with no food or money, just a roof over my head. She moved 47 miles away and only came by for about 30 mins on weekends to pick up her bills.
It’s no wonder I am the way I am today. Hungry for love, attention, acceptance. The basic foundation of childhood was never given to me nor my siblings and being the oldest, I got the brunt of it. The little love I have left, I had to give to my siblings in order for them to somehow grow up halfway “normal” life, whatever normal is.
But through years of therapy, I had to undo a lot of hurt and lack of self-respect and extremely low self-esteem. I’m still going through therapy, but my issues weren’t as bad as it was when I first begun my journey.
Even writing all of this therapuetic. Thank you again NML.
Sherry