Dealing with my difficult mother

gwynlas

MrsStepford said:

 I'm starting to distance a bit by sending short emails with photos and links so I feel I'm more in control and don't feel guilty about not talking to her. She's walking and having physio and will soon be back to zapping around E Sussex. I don't think she's interested in a mother-daughter relationship so much as having attention. My brother is working from home and he drove down to see her Friday. Would be good if he stepped up to the plate more. I really feel like I need space from her. 

Do still intend to get counselling, but I want to relax more, start doing Pilates and meditation again so that I can go into it feeling less jumbled up, if that makes sense. 

You are doing the right thing by distancing yourself and being in control of contact. Your brother is visiting and there are other people around so she is not alone.
I'm sure that you will gain a lot from counselling it pains me to hear what you endured in childhood,
It is easy for others to say cut her out of your life but only you can decide if this is what you need to do in order to look after yourself. Your family might not believe how bad things were and how she continues to abuse you.
You have managed to maintain contact over the years and despite her have founded a good marriage. 
Continue to take care of your physical and mental health. You can use covid if you need an excuse not to visit hrer or have her at yours. It might be too late for her to change but never say never. 

MoneySeeker1

It comes with the territory imo (ie living on Earth) that most people are illogical - and will drive those of us that are logical darn annoyed at intervals #understatement.

I'd go with "telling her straight" and not "making excuses (aka telling lies)" about why you aren't seeing her any longer. She does need to learn it's time to amend her conduct and I know some people would "make excuses" - but I'm in the "tell it like it is - straight out" camp personally. You may be meant to be her "teacher" about what is (and is not!!!) acceptable conduct. Imo - the best way to do that is that you have tried and tried and tried to get her to be "Normal"/understand/etc - but there does come a point where it's simply not worth "throwing pearls before swine" and, to me, I think you've reached that point some time back and gone beyond it by now.

It is very true - very very true indeed - that the vast majority of people simply won't believe just how awful the "Bad Minority" can be - because they don't have empathy. So you may find there are some that "don't understand" - even though it's perfectly possible for those who've not been in such a bad situation to "get it and agree".

EDIT; Still got that Big Question in my mind about just what part Brother has played/does play in this.

MalMonroe

MrsStepford said:

I have Type Two diabetes which is a chronic condition ie it's not supposed to get better. I eat low carb so it's in remission. but if I ate normally, I would get sick again. It takes a lot of effort on my part. I can't eat anything with sugar, so that rules out not just chocolate and ice cream, but also tinned soup, loads of over the counter meds, normal milk etc etc BUT I don't have any symptoms or complications, so it's worth it. 

My father died prematurely ten years ago, leaving my mother with a 3 bedroom house in the country, half acre garden, part-time gardener and her own Volvo. She swans around to afternoon teas, lunches, church, charity lunches, garden centres, historic houses and on holiday eg St Petersburg, Chester, Dublin, Venice. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she didn't self-isolate and her 'bubble' has more than 20 people in it. 

She called me and asked me to help her complete a form. She had decided that she ought to get a personal alarm (probably because older next door neighbour has one) and the form was a declaration so she could claim back the VAT. I pointed out that she couldn't do that, since she's neither chronically ill or disabled. She had a real tantrum and told me that there was nothing wrong with me so how come I could get it. She is waiting for a knee op and takes tablets for blood pressure, but neither qualifies her. She got really nasty because I wouldn't help her. 

The day after, she called to say she had got a date for her knee op. She called me an abnormal daughter because I wouldn't come self-isolate with her to look after her, yet she hadn't asked me to. She had told me that she was getting a carer via her health insurance. 

The day before her op, she was screaming down the phone at me, saying I wanted her dead. I don't and I have always told her that she can leave her money to a donkey charity if she wants. 

I'm getting to the stage where I don't want to know. Phone calls five times a day, she's always negative about me to family and her friends, she gives out my unlisted number and all of this is on top of child abuse. 

I don't think I'm being unreasonable or abnormal. I find dealing with her difficult. Before Covid I saw her every week, and she got flowers, pub lunches, chocolates, cook books plus birthday and Christmas presents. I don't want my abuser ranting at me. I feel guilty though because I don't feel much for her now. 

It does sound to me as if your mother needs some psychiatric help. I'm sure that if she were 'in her right mind' she'd be appalled at the things she's said. 

Don't distance yourself from her. But what you can do when she starts being abusive on the phone is just say that you don't want to continue the conversation because it's not good for you and hang up. Or even, don't answer the phone in the first place. I always screen my telephone calls, I have an answerphone and I can either just pick up in the middle of a message as it's being left if I so choose, or wait until later. You don't need that kind of abuse and when it's over the phone it's SO easy to manage! And it isn't compulsory to answer the phone. Which people don't always seem to understand. If you can't ignore the ringing, then turn the ringer off. Life is so much better with your phone ringer off. And an answering machine. 

But really, I'm not joking, it sounds as if your mother would benefit from some kind of psychiatric intervention. But failing that, you could perhaps try some. Or one of the many free meditation sites on the internet. Or even online Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. My counsellor told me that you can never change anyone else's personality or behaviour but you can change the way you respond to them. If you respond at all.

Abuse of any kind is never acceptable and you really do not have to listen to it. Hang up. You are allowed.

thepurplepixie

How old is your mother?  Dementia sounds  a possibility, it can develop over years and in my experience (painful and exhausting)  it is the person closest to them that they will be horrible to.   Knowing helps you to rationalise it but it doesn't make much difference, all I can say is that in my relatives case this phase did pass and she became much more mellow, sadly she has deteriorated now and it isn't really possible to have any meaningful conversation with her.  It is a very wicked condition.  She may deteriorate after the operation, I'm not sure if it is the anaesthetic or just the change in routine but it does seem to happen.

Good luck, the Alzheimer's Society has a forum which can be helpful it does turn out to be dementia.  Lots of people with experience and lots of good advice.

MoneySeeker1

Dementia might worsen things - but OP's mother was horrible to her even when she was a child - and that would have been quite some years ago (ie most definitely not dementia at the time).

It just sounds like OP's mother is a nasty/selfish person - always has been/always will be - and I admit I don't get why psychiatric help has been suggested for OP's mother (what's that phrase about "not being able to turn a sows ear into a silk purse"?) and psychiatric help won't turn a nasty person into a nice person. It is what it is. All one can do about nasty people is to have as little as possible to do with them to minimise any damage they can do.

MrsStepford

I have been having flashback nightmares for a week now and the effect of that is lack of sleep and stress. So much so, that when I tested my blood glucose today, even though ketone and haemocrit levels were bang on, my blood glucose was ten points higher than it should have been, two hours after food. I had a nap and she woke me up. I didn't answer. She called me again and I didn't answer. I knew that if I did, I'd get her demanding to know where I'd been. Later I called her, she started going off at me and I hung up. 

I decided that I've had enough of being keeper of secrets for her. I sent a calm email, detailing what she said to me the day before her surgery and pointing out what she did before her varicose vein surgery, to show that she had form on the pre-op hysteria.

Then I detailed how she would drag me off to my room, then break stuff and tell Pa that he had to deal with me. I would be frantic when he came home and he would give me a hiding, while she watched. It happened between ages of 6 and 10. Probably stopped after I was diagnosed with osteochondritis. Didn't stop them smacking me round the face for supposedly being cheeky. Even at 17. 

When I was in Sixth Form, Pa took me out to lunch. I don't recall how it came up, but I remember that he admitted that he knew what she was doing. I don't suppose for a nanosecond that he let on that he knew, so it will probably be a big shock to her.

I am realising that she has been really manipulative all my life. I get the abnormal daughter jibe just because I loathe trawling around Sainsbury's. She told me that my aunt preferred my brother, she didn't like any of my friends, I had way less freedom than my younger brother. It's likely that he told her to ask me to stay and look after her, because my mother, brother and uncle all seem to think that their time is more valuable than mine. 

We could afford a cleaner but don't have one. My brother does because yes he is sexist. His feminist wife doesn't think she should do housework. According to my mother, she barely cooks. I've met her about twice in last ten years. 

All her spite is on view now. I think she's worried. She once told me that there was no point in telling anyone, as no-one would believe me. 

I changed my name in 2016. When I found out that Power of Attorney with my brother meant revealing my new name, I declined her request. That also means that she's dependent on my brother and her cousin, whether she goes into a home or not. I sidestepped that. She put her own mother in a home, but she tried to make me promise to look after her, and I wouldn't. 

I want to be left alone to sort out counselling and get my health on track without her drama and crocodile tears - the only person she feels sorry for, is herself.

MrsStepford

I found out from my husband yesterday, that they told him that they would pay for a divorce. Evidently Pa said he was thick and wouldn't amount to anything. He is a regional manager in a big company, lots of letters after his name, postgrad from Greenwich, fantastic cook. He has PTSD so at times it's a struggle but we really love each other and I was so lucky to find him. 
I am glad that my husband as able to achieve all that while Pa was alive, to prove him wrong. It was a class thing. Pa and Ma were snobs. But husband was first person in my life I could talk to about absolutely anything. 

I don't have contact with my brother. To me, he's a boring wannabe. 

Savvy_Sue

Who phones you apart from your mother, that you actually want to hear from? 

I'd get a new number and not pass it on. 

MoneySeeker1

MrsStepford said:

I found out from my husband yesterday, that they told him that they would pay for a divorce. Evidently Pa said he was thick and wouldn't amount to anything. He is a regional manager in a big company, lots of letters after his name, postgrad from Greenwich, fantastic cook. He has PTSD so at times it's a struggle but we really love each other and I was so lucky to find him. 
I am glad that my husband as able to achieve all that while Pa was alive, to prove him wrong. It was a class thing. Pa and Ma were snobs. But husband was first person in my life I could talk to about absolutely anything. 

I don't have contact with my brother. To me, he's a boring wannabe. 

That is wicked that they went behind your back like that and tried to get your own husband to divorce you!!!! Shocking! Sounds like they wanted to take away from you the one person you can rely on to "be there for you".

Yes some brothers can be very sexist and a daughter can find they've been working away blithely assuming behind their back that they are the ones that get "landed" with high proportion/all of any "caring" stuff that comes up later. Apparently women don't Have Lives - just because they have a female body, rather than a male body - according to some brothers. Your time matters every bit as much as your brothers time - even if he has all sorts he wants to do with his time and you would be spending yours sitting in the garden. It doesnt matter - its your time v. his time regardless of how you both respectively spend it.

As for "thick" - people who are thick in my experience do their best not to do any job other than a very low-level one (if that) - so they don't get shown up. To be a regional manager and generally well-qualified etc indicates to me that he sounds pretty intelligent and hard-working from where I'm standing. To me - he is sounding pretty supportive and well worth hanging onto. So he's a different class - well that ultimately doesn't matter in the scheme of things. What matters is he is hard-working/supportive/generally a decent person.

Do stop having contact - pronto - with that awful family of yours. You can see the effect it's having on your health - as well as your peace of mind. I've watched at close range myself the effect personal conflicts can have on health - and....warning right now that heart attacks is a frequent one and you don't want to start down that road (which I can tell you - again as close observer - can go on and on and be a thing that can last for decades, rather than "one attack and bingo = gone"). 

Aranyani

MoneySeeker1 said:

MrsStepford said:

I found out from my husband yesterday, that they told him that they would pay for a divorce. Evidently Pa said he was thick and wouldn't amount to anything. He is a regional manager in a big company, lots of letters after his name, postgrad from Greenwich, fantastic cook. He has PTSD so at times it's a struggle but we really love each other and I was so lucky to find him. 
I am glad that my husband as able to achieve all that while Pa was alive, to prove him wrong. It was a class thing. Pa and Ma were snobs. But husband was first person in my life I could talk to about absolutely anything. 

I don't have contact with my brother. To me, he's a boring wannabe. 

Yes some brothers can be very sexist and a daughter can find they've been working away blithely assuming behind their back that they are the ones that get "landed" with high proportion/all of any "caring" stuff that comes up later. Apparently women don't Have Lives - just because they have a female body, rather than a male body - according to some brothers. 

If this brother has a feminist wife he's probably not very sexist.  

You are projecting your feelings about your own brother here, maybe the OP could actually have a decent relationship with her brother and his wife once she can shake off her mother's influence.  After all, who knows what poison she's been drip feeding to sour the relationship between them and manipulate them both.