To be succinct and private… My incubator worked me for weeks to build rapport and trust with me in my younger days, to get me to tell her a something that she would ultimately, and immediately use and weaponize against me and others.
This wasnt the first time I tried to have a relationship with her, but it did finally open my eyes and become the last. In the many many decades since, I’ve not so much as acknowledge her existence when crossing paths.
She got drunk and was crying about her regret about not aborting me. She came from a larger family and wanted more kids than she ended up having, but my dad’s personal limit was 2-3 kids — and kid number three was only to try for a daughter if kid number 2 ended up being another boy. Me being a girl meant that she could only have two kids, and the fact that I was pretty fucked up means that she felt like she’d “wasted” a kid on me, so to speak
I don’t blame my mum for having these thoughts, as awful as they may be. At the time, I had not long since been diagnosed with autism, and my mental health was pretty awful too, which must’ve been a lot of stress for a parent to handle. What I do blame her for is being deeply depressed and having her teenage daughter be her primary (and basically only) emotional outlet.
Whilst I am theoretically open to having a relationship with her in future, if she ever got sober (though that seems unlikely I’d learn of her being sober, as I went No Contact with her years ago), I’ll never be able to forget how much she hurt me. She wasn’t the root cause of my mental health problems, but she certainly made them a hell of a lot worse. And given that she never remembered the stuff she said when she was this drunk, I’ll never get the closure of a genuine apology.
What’s especially tragic about my mum is that she’s actually pretty well adjusted, considering the awful childhood she had. The main thing she wanted from life was to be a mum, and to do a better job than her own mum had. I do think she achieved that, and there are so many things that I feel appreciative of her for. Unfortunately, no amount of good can make up for the hurt that she caused when she’d get drunk and pile her grief onto me. Most of the time her drunken tears were far less hurtful, but it’s still a heavy burden to put on an already struggling teenager.
It’s a shame, because I think she could’ve been an incredible parent if she’d been able to get therapy in the few years after she moved out but before she fell pregnant.
he main thing she wanted from life was to be a mum, and to do a better job than her own mum had. I do think she achieved that
How fucking awful was her mom, if she achieved being better with how you were treated to emotional incest and bearing the brunt of drunken grief bombing.
When my mum was a child, when she wet the bed, she had her nose rubbed in it, like a dog.
Her step dad used to get her half siblings to restrain her arms as one of them beat her up.
When still a child herself, she was made responsible for the wellbeing of multiple of her very young siblings, necessitating her teaching her younger brother to help her shoplift food if they wanted to eat anything before their evening meal.
The thing is with my mum is that the good times were very good, and on average, she was still pretty decent — and that’s with awful things like the emotional abusive dragging down that average. As much as I still feel hurt over what she put me through, I also feel a like of sympathy for her. She tried to be better than what she had, and whilst she did succeed in that, that says as much about the extremely low bad as it does about the good she achieved as a parent.
It’s weird because like my mom was a pretty terrible mom and yet because I know how evil my grandmother is like she actually did succeed at being a better mother than her own mother.
Just the bar was so low that going up three or four notches was still deeply in the bowels of hell.
Like the only thing that separates my mom from being a good mom was her own psychological issues stemming from having been raised by her mother.
If she had been able to find a good man and hold on to him to fill in the gap between what she had and what she lacked, she would have been a great mom.
For instance, my dad was a pretty good man. But he wasn’t white, and so my grandparents conspired together to get my mom to separate from him and isolate her, which then led to her cheating on my dad and getting pregnant with my little sister, so she had to divorce my dad because of the shame of her own actions.
My dad was in the military and my mom got pregnant with me while they were stationed in Germany and my grandparents used the idea of me needing to be born in America to get her to come back to America.
His deployment didn’t end until just before my first birthday. He got back and was immediately served divorce paperwork, and while the divorce was going on, my mom gave birth to my little sister, who is just slightly more than a year younger than me.
The really sad thing is, is my dad still loved her and probably would have figured out a way to make it work and to forgive her if she had tried, but she didn’t try, she absolutely rejected him and he carried the emotional pain of that for the rest of his life.
My mom poured bleach into the enclosures of my brother’s pet tarantulas when she was kicking him out over laundry or something.
He’s a better person than i cause he still cares about her
My mom told me that she heard my soon-to-be-wife say some really horrible things about her and my kids behind my back.
Whatever she thought that would accomplish didn’t work, because I had already told my wife to start recording her interactions with my mom. (Clearly not my first rodeo)
Mom wasn’t real happy when I told her I’d listen to the audio.
I have to ask.
If your moms such a piece of shit, why is your solution to your wife “make sure to record every interaction” instead of “Lets just stop dealing with this bitch”
Like, there might be a decent answer, but it is worth the ask.
Definitely a fair question.
We all lived in the same house at the time, and Mom’s name was on the deed, so up until that point we were walking on eggshells to keep things civil until other arrangements were in place.
Ah, thats fair then. Sometimes you do have to make sacrifices like that, as you make your preparations for the future.
That is utterly evil (ok the everyday sense). Glad you were prepped for that, but I’m very sorry that you’ve had life experiences that taught you it was necessary.
I still don’t know what Mom’s problem was with her, not that I even care. Before that point, they would each text me “You won’t believe what she said to me!”. I was stick on the middle trying to figure out what really happened, but something my mom said didn’t match with a major detail that she didn’t know about my wife’s past, so I had a feeling she was the one causing the shenanigans. That’s when I suggested the recordings.
what Mom’s problem was with her
She competed for your attention
I wouldn’t doubt it.
You’re her property and another woman is encroaching on you.
That theory was definitely on my list of possibilities.
could be she saw your wife as a threat to her controlling nature, or your wife saw through her bs, and the mom is projecting. i had a former co-worker that had an extremely controlling mother, due to having trauma with thier first child(an accident) so she kept the former coworker close to her, to the point of “suffocation”.
God that would fuck me upppp, I’m so sorry your mom is such a mess. :(
manipulation tactics, shes probably wants her to be the only "woman " in your life.
My dad invited me to meet him at work, one day. It was a bad week for me and the new step-mother getting along, and so I wasn’t surprised. We took a little walk from the shop and stopped to chat.
“I’ve given you all 25 years of my life,” was when the conversation changed, mid-speech. “Now it’s time for me. It’s my time.”
It was how he invited me to go live with my mom, or just go. It began a bit of a formative time filled with stress and anger, and I daresay we’ve not been the same since.
Told my friend that he’s like the son he never had, in front of me.
I assume that was absolutely calculated for maximum pain. I’m so sorry.
Being a parent myself now I still can’t understand how you can intentionally inflict pain on your own children. I’ve been trying to understand my whole life.
a narcissistic parents does, they do it in 2 ways, either coddle you so you never launch and become dependant on them forever, or manipulate people around you so are dependant on them.
I think the part of their humanity that feels empathy, bonds, compassion and so on are completely absent in some people. But more than that, not only are they incapable of feeling or reciprocating love and empathy, they also have a sadistic appetite for other people’s suffering and little else can satiate them.
Thanks. It really fucked me up for a long time. ;-;
I know the feeling. I was lucky that my first therapist was solid as a rock and spotted things I wasn’t even aware of. But working through it was damn tough.
You deserve a good life now and I hope you get it.
o7
He’s like the father you never wanted.
For context: I had an uncle who was an alcoholic/addict, with his addiction being the result of immense trauma he suffered as a kid. He was fired from his job in the medical field after writing himself scripts, and made a genuine effort to turn his life around. He went to AA and other therapy, brought his sponsor/buddy to events where there would be alcohol, and generally took it seriously and worked to improve.
A few years later, we got a call in the early morning. He had overdosed and died after an argument with my aunt. It’s unclear whether it was a relapse or if the overdose was intentional, and to be honest it didn’t matter. My aunt was distraught, he was dead, and their kids now had no father. It was a horrific tragedy.
When I got up to ask what the phone call was for, my mother had a huge smile on her face. She thought his addiction was a moral failing that automatically made him a bad person, but she also judged him badly for needing AA and the buddy syatem to stay on track. She told us, with glee in her voice, that he had “finally killed himself”.
It took everything in my power to not lay into her, which I didn’t do only because I knew she would never change her mind. It was just the latest and worst example of her horrid behavior. I never told my aunt, but I did tell other members of my extended family when they asked why I didn’t talk to them anymore.
Jesus. That doesn’t sound like a momentary lapse in judgment the way you describe it, but a trait. Must have been horrendous. Well done for not turning out like that.
Yeah, it was not the first time I saw that kind of emotional sadism from her, but it was the one that made me realize that she literally thought some people deserved to die for things they ultimately had little to no control over.
Thankfully my dad is a bit more levelheaded (though he still enabled her) and I have a lot of extended family who also can’t stand her. I credit them as being the main reason I didn’t end up continuing the abuse cycle.
Those anchor points (stable people) are essential. It’s why I try to be less of an introvert these days. You never know who you’re helping just by being explicitly decent.
Was your mom a right wing christian? cause that sounds like the kind of sadistic glee you only get from a right wing christian.
Extremely. She and my dad were Catholic, and she was so right wing that she forced us to find a new church because our pastor said that we should treat non-Catholics and non-christians with respect because good works, not belief, is the key to salvation and the best form of worship.
Sounds about right. No hate like christian love.
My father was pretty draconic. No time for friends, no time for extra curriculars, no time for homework (he didn’t believe in public education, which caused its own problems), because there was always something to do: my chores, my siblings’ chores, home improvement projects, random “educational” outings that were mostly just me sitting in the car. Not to mention the verbal and physical abuse, leaving me on the side of the road to “scare me straight”, making me live in a tent in the backyard for a while.
I tried to be the bigger person after I moved out and practice hippy-dippy radical forgiveness. Unfortunately, he’s a malignant narcissist and even when he realized he had no leverage anymore and had to behave, he was still a really really bad influence. The more time I spent with him, the more his traits rubbed off on me. I had to cut him off entirely because it became too much.
Despite countless requests to not, they sent me to a parochial school where I was physically and sexually abused.
Choosing to invite my Jan 6er uncle to family events knowing I would never break break with an insurrectionist traitor.
First, I stopped attending family events. Eventually went no contact. Now my happiest recent memory of my mom is when my daughter couldn’t remember her name.
I’m reading this at the moment. It sounds like you might have active abuse rather than detached neglect.
This stuff impacts us and those around us in the future. From personal experience it’s well worth talking to a pro about it.
Glad to hear that. I’m only a few chapters in but it’s excellent so far and there is no filler. It can bring up memories, but it’s like the gym: worth it.
Yeah, this book resonated with me and my experiences so profoundly that I could only read a chapter or two at a time before needing to put it down for a few days to process all the eureka moments. I recommend it to everyone I can.
If I wasn’t a good as her, I needed to do better, try harder, stop being lazy etc. If I was better than her at something she would pick out the most miniscule flaw she could come up with and give it to me as a back handed complement then slowly work it into random conversations until it became my insecurity.
The thing that sticks with me the most though, she had me absolutely convinced I was far too fat to wear shorts in public, let alone a bikini. Finally was convinced by my group of friends that I was in fact, normally sized and literally handed one and told to wear it.
I was not expecting to see my Mom between getting dressed and going to the pool. She asked me if I was really going out like that and how I was going to handle everyone making fun of me then highly suggested I go change into my 1 piece. Said she wasn’t going to feel bad for me when I came back crying
That broke me. Of course I believed her. She was my Mom she just wanted what was best for me right? I can still see the look on my friend’s face when I came back in the room to change and she said “you know that’s not true right? There’s nothing wrong with you. This is about her.”
Took me years and years to realize she was very wrong. I didn’t let anyone take pictures of me for awhile after that but I saw some recently of 3 years later when I had “gained some weight.” Holy fuck, there is zero chance in hell I was fat.
Anyways, she had a horrible, long {9 years), and painful death and probably got abused pretty bad in the nursing home. Good riddance to that piece of shit. Because I got off easy with just emotional and mental trauma. What she did to my siblings was significantly worse.
I’m sorry.
She can’t hurt me anymore. Wish she stuck around long enough to pay for my therapy though 🤣🤣 not that she would’ve.
But thank you.
boy that is a can of worms. my mom sorta spoiled the relationship with all her kids. Whats funny is she is really not that bad. If you have distance from her. My father in law was kinda the same and early on my wife and I bonded on how our parents were. Essentially there is a type of person where if they have any type of authority they are aweful but if you are completely out of their control then they are not all that bad.
Saying they are great parents as long as you have a lot of distance emotionally, and geologically, so they can exercise no control over you makes it sound like maaaybe they aint so great parents.
yeah that is why I did not use the word great. not all that bad is not so great usually. like that pizza was not all that bad.
My father controlling me up to the age of 18, and preventing me from doing anything I wanted at home or at school (it was a prison, not the regular “school is boring”). The result is that I did nothing at school because I had anxiety 24 hours a day.
When I became an adult, I didn’t knew what money or taxes were, I didn’t knew that I had to take showers (because homework is more important), and I didn’t knew how to use toilet paper. I used to take a bath once every two weeks because why not instead of taking daily showers. It took me 10 years to learn basic stuff like cooking or washing my ass.
Now that he’s old and dying, he wants me to listen to his advice and help him with his phone and computer. I don’t answer to such demands. And I’m pretty sure that when he dies, I’ll only be sad for my mother, not him.
I’m glad you’re maintaining a boundary that sounds right for you. I won’t be attending my father’s funeral at all.
going into my backpack and stealing my HRT while i was in the shower, and refusing to give it back
Thats one of two things you just dont fuck with, no matter what, and thats medications and food.
it’s funny you should mention food because they did also fuck with that! from the time i was zero until i was twenty i believed my parents when they said i was allergic to MSG and that it would give me asthma and that it was in basically everything besides what they cooked. but eventually i realized it was just another batshit method of control
My mom did that with my psych meds. The kind of meds that break your brain if you stop abruptly and don’t taper off. I’m lucky I found them because I hate the brain zaps.
I suppose most folks would consider my breaking point to be unwarranted.
0000
About four or so years back, a parent fell over. They are heavyset, requiring firemen to be lifted off the floor. They were nude, so I asked the fire department to send same-gender fighters, if that can be reasonably done. My parent threatened to have me thrown out of the household, out of embarrassment.
While that ultimately didn’t happen, it was a great breach of trust for me. I don’t have enough of an income to survive without a home, and quite frankly, I will take my life if I can’t enjoy it. Far as I am concerned, the threat of homelessness and poverty, isn’t much different than having a gun to my head.
I realized that this parent, like the other one, didn’t love me. The affection I held for them was fading over the years, but this is what broke the chain for me. I don’t love them anymore - they are like a rock or any random thing. They just exist. I won’t hurt them, but I also stopped going the extra mile. I ceased patrolling to check on their health, nor did I try to cook real meals or ask if I should fetch restaurant food for them. I simply made TV dinners at the appropriate times, and didn’t speak to my parent anymore.
My relationship was simply one of going through the motions.
Point clarification: the firefighters ended up not being necessary?
And yes, like training an LLM, you’ve taken in negative feedback to not do this, not do that, maybe some positive feedback along the way on how to do something right, and when things really mattered and someone was in danger, you engaged the LLM part of your brain to think two steps ahead…and it gets thrown back in your face.
Your breaking point is completely warranted, because you hit a point where you realized that no amount of messing with internal weights and trying to guess what they want would ever work, so why bother stressing over it anymore?
The firefighters were necessary, and falls of this nature kept happening at an increasing pace. That parent, simply isn’t able to walk safely anymore - and they have a stubborn streak of not asking people to help them. This residence I am in, also has many hoarded items of that parent, that are not allowed to be thrown away.
Fortunately, they are now in a elderly care facility.
Congratulations on getting almost all the way out. It sounds like the hoarded items thing will come up at some point, but you knew that.
Your reaction is a lot like that of people who’ve been parentified when they were younger (forced to take care of younger siblings). There’s a similar reaction out of the parents when the child doesn’t carry out the portion of The Plan devised for them.
There’s more honesty in a parent/child relationship where the parents tell the children they’re out the door on their 18th birthday so the children have time to plan. At least that way the children know for sure where they stand.
Sad to hear in several ways, sorry for the situatuon.
Apologize this might be a rude question but how did your parent make thier livehood while being in that condition?
Savings. Helped run a business, until they divorced from the owner, about 15ish or so years ago.
