Family triggering stuff

Hey @Dean21,

Welcome to the Forums and thank you for sharing with the community!

Sounds tough with you mother and dealing with being ungrateful and making things about herself. You are demonstrating your resilience and strength reaching out to the Forums and sharing what is going on for you.

There are some great threads that you might find are good ways to connect with others here if you would like to take a look at this post: Looking for a space to connect with others? Find a... - SANE Forums

Thank you again!

Take care

RiverSeal

Hey @Dean21 ,

Welcome to the forums. I'm sorry to hear your mum is doing your head in. Sounds frustrating.

What's happening on your side at the moment? I'm here for a chat if you want one.

A lot to explain but simply nothing is ever good enough. Sly comments she calls “jokes” but it’s the usual passive aggressive crap.

I'm really hearing you there @Dean21 .

Have you ever had a chance to sit down with her and let her know how you feel about the comments?

That is, to really get her to listen to you?

I'm just thinking back to times when something similar happened, and I'd let it boil boil boil within me, and then I'd really explode. It wasn't nice. I wish, as a younger person, I had more assertiveness to tell people (not to hurt them, but to let them know I wasn't okay with what they were saying).

As an older person, I'm a lot more assertive. I let people know if something is upsetting me. By doing this, I found that it was a load off my back and that people were more respectful because I spoke up.

But this wasn't for family, so it's not exactly the same.

What do you think?

Understand, most of my family are peices of shit

I'm hearing you @ArraDreaming - that's tough too.

Did that yesterday. Silent treatment ever since. Good advice though.

@Dean21 , silent treatment on her side or your side?

I used to do the whole silent treatment on people when I was young. Now, when I look back, I'm thinking how much more hurt I was trying to stay silent.

Like when you desperately need to ask that person something, then you hit yourself and try to remember that you are supposed to be quiet. I find that the silent treatment hurts the one trying to be silent the most lol .

The other person probably just wants to move on and get on with life lol...

I wish I learnt all this when I was younger... I was such a miserable being in my late teens and my early adulthood. I never want to go back there again.

@Dean21 , silent treatment on her side or your side?

I used to do the whole silent treatment on people when I was young. Now, when I look back, I'm thinking how much more hurt I was trying to stay silent.

Like when you desperately need to ask that person something, then you hit yourself and try to remember that you are supposed to be quiet. I find that the silent treatment hurts the one trying to be silent the most lol .

The other person probably just wants to move on and get on with life lol...

I wish I learnt all this when I was younger... I was such a miserable being in my late teens and my early adulthood. I never want to go back there again.

Hey @Dean21 It takes courage to confront those things with family members. It also often takes doing it a few times unfortunately. I had a similar relationship with my mother until I did just that a few years ago. It took a massive blow up and many more of those conversations to get to a point where I could calmly call her out on what she was saying. One of the things that used to get to me the most was that she would laugh at me. I learnt over time that that was actually her way of trying to avoid/dismiss things that were too confronting for her but I had to also keep telling her that things she said hurt.