Struggling with contact from my mother again

Hey lovely @Coco-star - first off, you'll see that I've edited your post, it's just because it looks like you accidentally pasted it twice, as your post repeated. All sorted now, I'm just letting you know 😉

Secondly, whilst I have not had to go no-contact with a parent before I have loved ones who have, and I know that for them it was a very difficult process, simultaneously freeing and anxiety-provoking. I think the emphasis of our modern society on this concept of 'family values' (but to the point of extremism where blood ties matter more than other relationships... which in my opinion is a very toxic ideology) means that it's not just the fallout of the relationship, but also the fact that a lot of people will shame anyone who takes this path.

For different reasons, I got a LOT out of a book I read called 'Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents' by Lindsay Gibson. Fair warning, it can be an incredibly heavy read - but it also is written in a very simple way, and does not shame parents, simply helps to explain why they may do the things they do, and how it can impact us.

Anyway the reason I brought it up is because it has a section on 'detachment' - a strategy for dealing with the conflicts and dramas and such, but without getting pulled into it. Just thought you might be interested 😊

I think it's amazing that you can recognise those moments when you need to step back. It can be tough to sit with that guilt but from what I can gather, it is one of those things that does get easier the more you do it.

Hope it's helped to be able to get it off your chest 💜

My experience is that the efforts to draw you back will dissipate and eventually stop if you stick firm to your boundaries

Good morning @Coco-star ...

Ugh what a doozy.

First up what I pick up from your post apart from your very obvious frustration and grief is this:

That your mother is showing very obvious signs of...in her head...."I'm a special person who doesn't need to follow the ordinary rules of society, nor display interpersonal respect/common decency within my relationships."

It's easy to go down a wormhole and ascribe names, labels and disorders with these people and with my own mother, I have gone down that wormhole myself. But, what's the takeaway with the situation?

---> The other person is oblivious to their greater responsibilities that allow priveleges to them, and that their need for control/emotional parasitism/"I GET WHAT I WANT WHEN I WANT IT" exceeds their ability to follow the basic courtesies of life.

I personally get a lot of peace from studying that "certain personalities" have extremely common and predictable behaviours. My own mother does the "COME AND GET YOUR STUFF" trick, and my stuff is STILL at her house because she made my life so horrible from birth that I never been able to afford the physical space to store my stuff, the time to sort it out, the space to reconcile EVERYTHING and last but not least....the physical cost of having a vehicle and time to pack, transport, deal with "my stuff".

So, they are each UNREASONABLE in their DEMANDS.

I am certain you would be familiar with the FOG, Fear, Obligation, Guilt mindset which is probably part of why you distanced yourself with your mother. Not to bring it back to be all about me but, I made a similar and utterly heartbreaking decision in my own life..."If I am trying to grow up from a completely dysfunctional person, and you keep attacking me every single breath I take...every move I make...."(you are watching me....do-doo-do-do, and lol-not-lol)......then, I have to simply remove myself from being a target of crippling mental, physical, emotional abuse because it was the same abuse that caused the dysfunction...and it's the same dysfunction holding me back in life......and when we grow up, LIFE IS HARD AND THERE IS VERY LITTLE SAFETY NET.

I have been in HORRIBLE situations due to my mother's behaviour and attitude towards me, lack of resources at home and in hindsight, I hold no guilt nor shame in fairly allocating the problem to HER. Yet, it is and always has been, always will be my responsibility to fix up my life.

Her attitude: You were born and ruined my life so you owe me and I am big you are small and I will doggedly compete with/strategise against you so that I am always bigger than you and you are always smaller than me, and that you're not allowed to need me but I am ALWAYS entitled to need you.

UGH. OK my mother had a bad childhood but, I am not her mother.

I suspect that in these people, if they were an empty bucket, they NEED to be filled up with a "mother substitute" before they can even function as an actual bucket. Combine that with self loathing/projection/woe is me victim attitude, Mothers and all people who take the same road will always have "an empty bucket in their head" and they will ALWAYS look for an external source to fill their bucket.

It's almost as if..........they were a tiny baby who needs an adult to take care of them and they will cry, kick, walk around looking for that missing piece until they fill it up or perhaps they are too far gone, their brains have formed and it's hard wired into them.

I suspect that if/when you outgrew your mother, the tables turned in her mind and she decided that "I gave to you, now you need to give to me".

TRANSACTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS. "I'll let you go to school camp if you be good and do all the chores for me and toe the line, etc".

It might be helpful for you to meditate, discuss, journal, etc, find a way to fully contemplate both what she has done and not done for you, and to also believe this: when your own grief is healed, when your own life is properly independent, you might have the strength to tolerate your mother.

That you are now finishing and fulfilling the independent stage of life where you NEED to learn how to survive as an adult in a very complex society.

That in your mind, from any available moments of history, you love and honour your mother for the times she was kind/nice/giving yet....current reality is that you are still completing the separation stage that she couldn't assist you with, and it's a matter of survival to do so.

A story from my own journey: When I realised some of above, I also managed to convert some of the shame, guilt, 'i left her alone, i am a bad daughter' feelings into "I need to complete my adult development in order to become the person whom I truly should have been".

After 7 years of distance which began with "After my life was at total rock bottom I asked you to simply stop attacking me so that we could have a 'nice' relationship if nothing else. You could not refrain from attacking me, I could no longer tolerate a relationship based on abuse, tension, obligation, where no one benefits.....she got validation she could control and hurt me, I got validation she did not care about my reality, AT ALL".

It was beneficial to me to realise there was a lot of pain there, and the same pain deserved to be healed and honoured within me. I used to cry at soppy songs or viewing happy families or wishing I had a mother, now I can say to myself "I love my mother for the good times, and I acknowledge she is a very damaged and limited person who does not have, and doesn't see the need to develop any skills in order for us to have a better relationship. I am at peace with the fact my existence burns her soul and creates pain within her that she takes out on me, but I refuse to play a part in a horrible blow for blow conflict because my values are that I do not wish to abuse people, nor be abused, and I cannot heal her pain by taking her abuse therefore we are both better off without each other."

Re Feeling triggered, some of the darkest moments of my life were saying horrible things, reacting from a place of deep anger, to engage in mutually abusive fights with my mother and other family members due to just.wanting.them.to.stop.and.go.away.if.they.cant.be.nice.

(exhausted....just stop....we need this energy for work....its illegal and immoral to treat people this way....I can't go to work and treat people like this, I just dont want it in my life. I have paid too much, lost too much, been unable to have too much due to this horrible behaviour which once was ingrained in me which caused problems all through my schooling.....please......begging......desperate............)

Not surprisingly, once you start getting treated with respect, it's VERY hard to go backwards!

Would it be too much, too far to notify police she is putting herself and others at risk by driving unlicenced? That would cause her to face consequences of her behaviour, and to stop it. It might give you peace of mind to have taken a big responsibility to stop risky behaviour.

One of the topics that looms large in my mind, is how much society has changed since I have been an adult - and how much it has changed since she was a child. What does that mean?

---> That society is so complex, consequences are so great, responsibilities so heavy that I can't commit to doing anything that doesn't help me engage with the current societal demands.

Choice: be my mother's daughter and probably be unhoused (no judgement to anyone currently, past or future unhoused)

Choice: rise up into everything I know I need to do and stay afloat, punching on, every single day.

I know and I can see that you're choosing to stay afloat.

I know from swimming, that if a person is drowning - before we help them, we have to make sure that we don't drown.

My dream is that one day I will be a strong swimmer and I can help my mother come back to shore.

But my reality is that she threw me out to sea a long time ago, blamed me for drowning then threw bricks at me. She didnt do it on purpose (I am not a victim)...she doesn't know any other way of life due to the way she has been treated.

But if I follow her footsteps and become a completely broken person, I have not honoured everything she has done and sacrificed for me.

If I break away and become strong, I have honoured all that she has done and sacrificed for me and one day I will be a lighthouse for her, IF she can overcome her own ego and come back to the person she threw away.

I hope that I have not made this too much about me but it's hard to be able to directly relate to an experience and NOT write about a similar experience, as it's relating that gives a feeling of 'i am not alone' and it's relationships that get us into and out of the hard patches of life.

So today, I hope you can find a way to feel strong, to blow off any emotional hangover, to stick to your guns and if anger/sadness arises, give those emotions time to exist, unpack whats there and turn dark thoughts into an identified thing that isn't chewing up your limited time and energy.

All the best, keep on making your own life the best it can possibly be, while knowing that a long journey requires frequent rest stops and can be hard and can bring up WHY DO I NEED TO DO THIS WHEN i WANT TO DO THAT? conflicts.

You need to do it to survive. Therefore you need to do most of this, and a bit of that, and keep on keeping on.

I FEEL so SEEN @Sugarshack

thankyou so much for sharing your story with me, not everyone understands it. It’s been so hard. I really enjoyed reading your reply as heartbreaking your path has been as well. It has helped me see it as it is. It feels like she tried in her last email to almost meet me in the middle but it’s so obvious that it’s not doable for her. She said she could meet me with my belongings where is suitable because I won’t let her know where I live so she can’t trample my boundaries and cause drama again with neighbours and my partner.

I really want to reach out and hold your hand and thank you for your words. It’s exhausting work and I was screaming at the sky yesterday, like why me? Why did she choose me to be the pet kid, the doormat, the emotional blanket, whenever I have tried to talk to her she hasn’t the skill to support because her childhood and mother were awful to her. She doesn’t have the skills for me, and all us three kids have been emotionally neglected in a way. My brother is her favourite but she doesn’t ask him for help. It’s been interesting stepping back from her and watching what she does and she went back to my older sister which was surprising again as they both talk about each other behind their backs. I can’t trust my siblings either, we have all been triangulated in a way and have our own unique relationship with each parent.

you are right they would be given certain names for their personalities. I see them as neglected traumatised humans who are not fully aware of their own behaviour. Set in their beliefs and ways. Not open minded. She called herself an angel the other email I received. She does think she is special. Here to help people but she is only really helping people for her own survival? I want to be different to her. I help people because I know what it’s like to not have emotional suppprt or a friend to lean on.

I am also a verbal processor which I only came to be aware of since covid. I struggle sorting out information and peoples actions behaviours in my head silently. My mum hates this about me and says Iam emotionally dumping on her too much. I try to respect that boundary and only do it when I feel like maybe Iam safe to open up with her. But get punished and shutdown. I think it’s just her neurodivergence. She never got taught the skills.

thank you for writing all of these I really appreciate it, I am a bit tired today but I will try respond a bit better again and process everything.

So it has been 7 years of NC for you? I really love my mum even if she hates me or abuses me I still love her and want a mother connection I just don’t know how to do that with this personality she has.

Thank you @Jynx

i do have that book! It has been very helpful and I pulled it out again to read where I left it. Thank you for the reminder. If I don’t talk to her or my family for a while I forget the behaviour patterns and it becomes easier to be pulled in again emotionally. I was quicker to realise the manipulative undertones of her email and I could tell she was stressed and needs help again but I can’t help anymore not for a while until I feel stable and confident in myself. She relies on me but takes me for granted and also liked to punish me if I don’t call her enough or do what she wants.

I can be stubborn too though and I’m wondering if I can eventually behave in another way that will protect myself from her words and energy or if I still have to go no contact so I don’t get sucked back in and self defeated again.

I really appreciate your reply and Thankyou for your support 🙂 I will try find that section on detachment.

have a lovely day 🌸

Dearest @Coco-star

I have only read your message but feel compelled to write straight away.

Yes yes. This is me. Iv had Years of therapy but I think because of my head injury it took me until I was about 55 years old to get it.

I have very little to do with my mother. It also took years longer for my husband to understand what happens to me if I hear from her.

I'm here. It's not your fault.

Can you have a nice cup of tea - or would hot chocolate be better ?

Iv been getting support from Sane Forums for a long time to feel like I'm safe writing.

@Jynx @tyme @TAB @Sugarshack @DogMan79 @Ru-bee @Glisten

Oh that's fantastic news @Coco-star I hope it's a helpful read/re-read, and it's good to hear you can recognise those undertones and take steps to protect your peace.

Along with detachment, I think firm boundaries is probably gonna help too. Can easily ramble about boundaries if it's something you struggle with (cos it's a common struggle) but essentially the firmer you stick to em the more likely she'll get the message and hopefully try to alter her behaviour.

All the best with it all, and please do lean on us/vent here as needed. We're here for ya 😉💜

And same to you @Sugarshack - thank you so much for sharing your story. You're not 'making it about you' in any kind of selfish way - being able to share our experiences when we resonate so much with what others have already shared is part of what the forums is all about!

Heya @Coco-star I am sorry for the delayed response, I have been really busy IRL and not had much energy. Thankyou for your lovely reply "I know you know how it is".

Your words hit me like a brick with this statement: "but she is only really helping people for her own survival"...........

Thats entirely what my mum does too, and it was sad that when we were talking I would say to her..."Can you please just ask for what you want, I know you are putting on a show to get me to do something.....just ask for what you want, and be honest and nice, and I will give it to you but please stop the games....don't make it all about me so that I make it all about you, how about you just drop the BS and we can make it all about you because I came to visit and I'll go home in 2 hours and this is wierd and horrible...." etc..............................

And this is where I can stack up the evidence in my head of them/HER being little kids in their brains, little kids that are jumping up and down manipulating and tricking and kicking and biting and "being sweet" and...next thing you know theyve gotten into the cupboard and broken something nice and they think its funny because they got a reaction.

But a little kid actually learns, when raised with compassion and education etc.

I know it's obvious and all the books say it, but logic and emotions are two different worlds. But I truly think my mum not only never really grew up (properly) and also went backwards/had a regression so she could avoid the responsibility and shame of having her life screwed up, and if the problem never happened....she doesn't have to fix it and she can stay the mental age of 4-8 and just never, ever acknowledge the outside world and never, ever do the work of fixing it and on the same level of denial....never, ever face the pain that a tiny little child inside her brain got married, had kids, did all sorts of things out of never losing face as an adult yet......having a life thats an utter mess.

And I think to the pain and disruptions in my life where I have realised how small/dumb/ill informed/mean I was in ways that held me back, and the severe levels of shame and distress which I rightly had to go through in order to learn, improve and not do it again.

But it sounds like your mother and my mother just kept going backwards to lala-land and pretending they were in total control OR just removing themselves from the situation by avoiding the emotions, in my mums case just rolling herself a joint and sitting down staring into space all night long.

Then there's the fact of the victim-persecutor-rescuer game, the Karpmann drama triangle.

My mum plays this like Wheel of Fortune where the wheel spins around and she shifts gears into whichever personality will 'win' the game of public favour or, not taking action.

Do you recognise that behaviour in your mum? The unregistered car driving to me seems like she's playing that game..."You did the wrong thing (persecutor) so I am forced to drive my car (victim) to tell you how horrible you are for leaving your stuff at my place so I drove to you to help you help me punish you so that you are wrong and I am right (rescuer of you so you rescue her)....."

Umm AAAAARGH that's so inside out!! What she's saying in her head is, "Your stuff in my house causes me pain because you ABANDONED ME so I decided to come and chase you so that I can verify I still have power over your emotions...."

AAAAAARGH!!! the "I'm right, you're wrong, I'm big, you're small, I'm powerful, you're powerless" crazy game right there in action.

So without going down Youtube wormholes etc I can see that this is classic personality disorder stuff where the small child mind has been so shaped and stunted by the poor relationship with their own parents, like an empty bottle they just have nothing inside BUT the emptiness of being a lost child who manipulated their way through parenthood who is now trying to use the same manipulation tactics on their adult child because.......little kids "manipulate" with their tantrums and emotions until they grow through it and develop much better resources and pro-social skills.

Some days I feel cold and gutted for what my mother must have endured as a child but, I'm not going to let her take it out on me and I stay firm in my commitment that "If i keep growing into a full adult, I can give back to the world that gives to and supports me, but if I stop growing to become her full time carer, thats 4 lives lost to domestic violence...not three. I am needed in the world, I am wanted in the world, I am never going back to the horrible chaos of domestic violence and family abuse. They all had their chance to learn and grow, my mother chose drug abuse over healthy family relationships and I am not stooping down to her level to ruin my life AGAIN, because of money and a hope that she might love me."

She didn't love me when I was small and cute so I dont see her loving me as an adult, but I do see her playing out her "angry inner child" against me for the rest of my life.

Do you have friends who have similar or relatable backgrounds? I have a few although I try not to trauma bond with people. One of my dear friends is putting his entire life on hold to stay "his mother's golden boy"....I love him dearly but, hes never going to grow out of his family of origin because he hasn't grown what was missing in his life....myself I broke away from the toxic mother to grow everything that was missing, he has nested right in to help his mum and never break her heart.

But, he cant hold down a relationship, he's old before his time, he's a fairly lonely eccentric and I worry for him because when he's an old man he won't have set his own life up , he will be getting around the hole where his mother (and father) were and he will own a house but he will never have made a strong mind, independent thoughts, a life to look back on and be proud of all that he has done.

I love my friend dearly but I want to shake him sometimes as he hasn't grown into a MAN who is independent and takes life on his own terms, he remains a boy who be's good for his mother.

And I can see my old self there, once more I love my friend but I also know that growing an independent life has been the key to my own self respect and happiness, and as I come close to sorting through "the mystery" of who my mum is, who my dad is, what they did and didn't do as parents I am blessed by life as it opens and closes doors for me and I get respect from other adults, I can carry a lot of responsibility and I am in control of my life.

Therefore I just say to you KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK because your partner and your neighbours are your people now, and I know how sad it would be when you want your mum to come and meet them, and be a part of your life, and celebrate your life but she turns up and throws a tantrum and not only creates a painful interaction but jeopardises your current opportunities, too.

My mum always says "IN MY FAMILY WE JUST GOT OVER IT!" and I say good for you, but I have not gotten over nor gotten back dozens of opportunities which I personally lost due to her tantrums. The real world has zero time for tantrums and BS behaviour, and I am learning that every single day in my new job as my own immaturity leaks out at work and i think, well I learnt that at home and today I learnt that it was an excuse that is shot down by my amazing boss who demands a lot from me, because he believes I can do a lot.

And that's where I can see from your post you are yearning to move on and live a peaceful, comfortable life where you're not dealing with tantrums etc. Just like a parent loves thier baby but wants them to be at the point of being toilet trained - you, and I, and others are similar we just don't want to waste our time on the tantrums and stuff, we have outgrown it and want our mothers to meet us in a better place.

I sure hope yours wakes up, and if she doesn't, at least you did wake up and can manifest change into your life while always having the sad fact there, that a person you love so much is absent.

My mother has moved herself away to "become a grandmother"........and....ugh. Her own mother was overbearing, spoiled the grandkids (me and my brother) and robbed my mum of the opportunity to learn how to parent and be responsible for her kids, while loving them too. Realistic relationships etc. Now my mum is "babysitting every day" and telling everyone she knows how much she "loves being a grandmother". Some years ago I would be so jealous, burning with jealousy why isn't she proud of me?

But I know for a determined fact that she does not give a brass razoo about the grandkids, its all about her having someone to fixate on, someone to dominate, someone to train into her perfect mirror image, wanting to be the centre of attention and relive both her own childhood and the power she used to have over myself and brother as little kids. She will definitely be undermining the mother, she will be doing wierd secretive things to and with the kids, she will be using her money as a tool to prove how much power she has over the emotions of.....little kids.

A part of me is sad both for her and the kids, a part of me thinks that "water has a way of finding its own level". I would be sickened to watch the whole debacle unfold, I would be wasting my breath and my life saying things like "they're 2 and 5 don't feed them so much chocolate"...and her saying "but they love chocolate so much, im their grannie and i love them i just wantt hem to be happy" etcetc. NO! She wants to make herself happy because she is so damaged that shes giving the chocolate to HERSELF and she's gloating how powerful she is and "how loved she is" when...love is discipline and caretaking and including the mother and teaching the kids to be responsible and all those difficult things that are filled with conflict and difficulty and long discussions and all the boring things.

So yeah some years ago I would be sad but these days I'm like....yep, shes predictable and she's bashed my reputation into a pulp and continued the scapegoating of decades...and, she can have her life of BS and denialism, she hasn't changed at all and she would be secretly loving every and any conflict that arises cause then she will be able to play the Drama Triangle.......

And in my life I go to bed every single day thinking, well it's not perfect but I showed up for everyone today, and my brain tells me things are ok, and I havent abused anyone, and I have overcome a lot of problems, and I enjoy strong relationships and I walk tall and proud in that life because I felt embarrassed to be childish from aged Kindergarten til last week, but my former "best friend" who is now my self declared "nemesis" is STILL falling back on childish games and it's humiliating to be around. She gave herself up once, she screamed at me in baby talk "I DONT WANNA DO FINGS TO BE LUBBED I JUST WANT TO BE LUBBED FOR BEING MYSELF" and..........it took me years to figure out what she meant but, in her mind, acting as an adult is all a manufactured image that's quite hard to sustain, and "being myself" is trying to be small and cute to get unconditional affection while being 30-60 years old with a cigarette in her mouth screaming at everyone until they fall into line and kowtow to her tantrums, and tolerate her babbling chatter while she watches tv and chainsmokes and woe betide if they want a turn of talking....no way nosire there's one person who gets to talk and all others have to listen, agree or face a tantrum.

PHEW apologies if that was rambling on and on and on...I feel it was too long.....all I was trying to communicate is the maddening madness of an adult acting as a baby treating you as a baby when you're an adult and AAAARGH!!! They can't understand us in the same way a toddler can't understand why Mummy is talking to the lady at the shops, as the toddler throws it/self on the ground at the shops when Mummy is talking, our Mothers "throw themselves on the ground" in symbolic ways which are the very same limited and frustrating actions of a person who's desire to self destruct is stronger than their ability to use their big brain to wholly understand the situation.

*deep breath* Thankyou so much for sharing as I can just understand, see and vicariously bash my head against the spectre of 'immature mother' vs 'I miss the person I thought I knew and I wonder if she might come back"....

I dont know if mine will ever come back but I do know, it helped me to put a fake mother into my heart whom was the seconds and minutes of any time my mother was nice to me. The real demon caused too much damage and pain for me to love her, but I can still love a thimblefull of memories which help me to feel less pain and absence inside.