Get the papers already and cut all contact if you can’t trust her. As someone said, show up with the police or give a fake phone number.
Life is too short to deal with assholes and anyone who would potentially keep your important papers away from you is someone you don’t need in your life.
I second this. The controlling person is much better skilled, and familiar, at this game, than the person trying to break free of the spider web. A long, hour-long debate and negotiation is just what the controller needs to keep the glue sticky.
This is highly unlikely to have satisfactory results.
A copy of a birth certificate does not necessarily “belong” to the person named; other people, including the mother, may have perfectly valid reasons to own and possess a copy. No police officer in his right mind is going to demand that mom turn over what may well be mom’s own property to daughter just because daughter wants it. This is a civil dispute, and the cops don’t like getting involved in civil disputes.
I would not make that guarantee. Having dealt with some difficult people in my own life, I can say that one possible response is “No, you are wrong, and you are crazy/stupid/disrespectful for even considering saying something like that. I demand you apologize, or I will tell everyone I know (including your friends and relatives and coworkers and anybody else I can think of) that you are a manipulative little bitch trying to insinuate that I have problems so you can get away with not doing this thing that I want you to do. Every time I speak to you from now to the Judgment Day, I will bring up how crazy and stupid and disrespectful you were even to suggest that there is something wrong with me, because there is nothing wrong with me and you are the person who has these deep-seated problems where you disrespect Your Own Mother!!” lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum infinitum.
If you are prepared to cut ties entirely, of course, that may not be so bad, but if you want and expect to continue to have some kind of relationship with her, giving her more ammunition to lob at you is perhaps not the best choice.
This reminds me of a call I heard on a call in advice show on talk radio many years ago: A woman was complaining about a family member who didn’t want her to just walk in with out calling or even knocking. The host said it was impolite to just walk in on someone unannounced, and asked if she would just walk in one of her neighbors. The caller responded “No, but she’s Faaaaamily!”. The host responded “Why would you be less considerate to your family than a stranger?”
I’m reading this carefully, because my sister is like your mom. Her kids have been constantly staging interventions, and we all think she’s getting better. But now that I read TruCelt’s comment, we might try the “You should get professional help” or at least meds. Sis will bend over backwards to show everyone she doesn’t “need a shrink” and it might just work!
Here it is:
But, if you HAVE to give her a number before she’ll “find” your documents (which means you’ve lost the first round)… I do like the fake number idea, or the friend’s number that can get blocked. Or maybe it’s the friend’s work number, and they work at the Control Freaks Anonymous Hotline…
Oh, ps, if mom balks, you can explain that you’ll need those docs to open a new bank account.
I wouldn’t go down the route of ransacking the house or calling the police or hiring a lawyer. That’s just useless confrontation. If you build up the level of conflict, you’re just making it more difficult to bring it back down. And by making a big issue out of the documents, you’re confirming that they are a means for her to control you.
I’d say go and ask her for the papers. Make it clear they are your papers and not hers. But if she tries to make an issue out of them and use them to try to keep control over you, just walk away. Contact whatever government agency is needed and start the process of getting duplicates.
You want to demonstrate to her and prove to yourself that you are in control of your own life.
Birth and Naturalization certificates aren’t irreplaceable. https://www.usa.gov/replace-vital-documents
But getting a replacement Naturalization certificate isn’t easy (you may have to get the police involved and report it stolen if you Mom doesn’t give it to you) or cheap, $555.
My mother was controlling like that. I walked away as best I could (it is no accident that most of my adult life was spent in other countries) but completely understand that it can be very difficult to take a hard line and “just say no.”
My mother died in 2013, and the only regret I have about our relationship was that I was cowed enough to let her occupy space in my head every single day of my life until then. (Hell, she still influences me every time a little voice inside me says I’m not good enough, or smart enough, or kind enough, or hard-working enough … but I fight it.)
You’ve gotten much good advice upthread, purplehorseshoe. I encourage you to be as strong as you can.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can tell you what I’d do in your situation (mind you, I wasn’t so clear-eyed and resolved when my mother was still alive). I might give her contact info for friends that was “accidentally” outdated/wrong somehow, and get the papers that belong to you. Or, maybe I’d give her the real contact info but tell my friends to block her number.
In any case, I’d get the papers by hook or by crook. She has no right to withhold them, and while people have suggested ways that you can replace them, there is no reason why you should have to go through the extra effort. Get the papers she holds however you need to, and feel no guilt.
This a million billion trillion times.
I’m having flashbacks to my many attempts at dealing with my own mother, dealing as in “making deals”, as in relating to her the way I relate to most other people. Starting from a position of mutual respect, reaching agreements that both parties will honor. In the end I needed to accept, and my brothers have needed to accept, that Mom only does what Mom wants to do.
I realize I’m projecting like a laser show on a historic building, but horseshoe, methinks the script you need is along the lines of “No… No… No… Because I do not want to… No… No… No…”
I respectfully suggest that you should disentangle yourself your mother. Do you live with your parents? And I completely agree with Ann Hedonia’s post; I’m kind of gobsmacked that a 40 yr old would have such a relationship with their parent (no snark intended).
And to Pullin, if I had a disaster on a trip, my parents (if they were still alive) wouldn’t even come to mind as people to call - why would I?
Maybe I’m an asshole, but I’ve never had to deal with someone refusing to take “no” for an answer. They might have been left screaming/ranting/crying, but my “no” was a firm “no” and I went on with my life.
Damn, I need to channel me some **kayaker **in my life.
Far from being an asshole, I think that’s kinder in the long run. I’ve always been the opposite: “let’s pull off this Band-Aid a little bit at a time, and ten years later, look, it’s halfway off! I’m making progress.”
I’m guessing you’ve never tried saying “No” to an LEO on your tail. I mean those guys don’t give up even well over 100 mph.
Let’s not be hasty, here. I’m not sure your first clause is necessarily dependent on the second! 
I should be ashamed… I am ashamed… for taking the example of Alexander and The Gordian Knot.
The answer is not to spend hundreds of hours on minutia and details, but to slice the knot open with one decisive and final stroke, freeing both of you*.
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,
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*Taking over the civilized world sold separately.
I agree with all of this. You will also be able to use this as leverage with your mom.
Mom: No number, no papers.
You, cheerily: Oh, OK! I’ll just write in for replacement papers. No biggie. Have a good day!
Mom: But won’t that be a pain?
You, cheerily: Yeah, it’s kind of a pain in the butt, and it costs $$ and will mess up my Real ID application, but eh, sounds like that’s what I’ll have to do. Bye!
The other pitfall here is that your mom will want to draw you into an argument. If she says ANYTHING after that except “Wait! Here are the papers!” (like, I can totally hear her saying “But whyyyyy is it so unreeeeeasonable for you to give me the nuuuuumber?”) then you LEAVE.
But I’ve noticed with my mom – who is a lot like yours – that using the “But I’m your mom!” argument is highly correlated with wanting to look like a good mom, and “my daughter will have to do this obnoxious thing because I was even more obnoxious” is low on her list of things she wants. If it were my mom, she’d not give in the first time on principle, but after a while she’d probably give in.
In general I have had to train my mom. With my mom, it was that I had asked her not to criticize my parenting in front of the kids and of course she did it anyway.
Mom: You’re so lame for doing X with the Raspberry Kiddos!
Me: Oh! Gotta go, mom! Bye!
I’m not burning bridges, I’m never anything but scrupulously polite when I do this. But my mom’s not dumb, and it only took a couple of times before she got the hint. Now she doesn’t do that!
I will say that the first time I hung up on my mom – because even if I was polite about it that was essentially what I was doing, and we both knew it – I was literally shaking. I was really emotionally distraught that I had Done This Thing. It’s reeeeally hard when your mom has programmed all those buttons. But it’s really the only way if you want to both have a relationship with your mom and not have your mom trample all over you.
I’m sure it was tough. But it sounds like you were able to handle it. And it sounds like your mother was able to come to terms with it.
Just to emphasize this. By leaving important papers etc. in her possession, you are giving her leverage over you.
At some level, both of you probably know this, and both of you probably get something out of the current arrangement. But what you’re getting out of it isn’t healthy. I think I recall from another thread that you’re planning to move far away. Good plan, but don’t leave things like a birth certificate behind. Show up with a police officer if you need to: she has no right to those documents. (Edit: acknowledging the point about the birth certificate upthread, but the naturalization is PH’s alone.)
She probably has a lot of your stuff. It’s just stuff. Don’t worry about anything that is notionally replaceable. But don’t leave anything there that you will need.
I instantly thought of Captain Awkward when I read the title of this post, lol. Lots of very helpful scripts, indeed!
purplehorseshoe, I agree with the posts that you should tell your mother firmly that you will not give her your friend’s contact information. You do not need to explain to her why. You are an adult who can make those decisions for yourself. If you wish, you can explain to her that your friend’s contact information is your friend’s to give out. If your mother wishes, you can give your mother’s contact information to your friend and your friend can choose to call your mother if she needs to speak with her.
I agree that it sounds from your post that your mother has anxiety and control issues. I don’t think raising those issues with her is going to help you at all. Just firmly say no, and stick with the answer.
You mentioned that your mother holding your immigration papers as an area of concern. I’m curious, has she actually threatened to withhold these documents in the past: Or is this just a bad consequence you imagine could happen if you stand up to your mother? Because, if it’s the first, you need to get your papers from your mother as soon as possible or otherwise get replacements. She is a terrible person for manipulating you that way and that would be enough reason to cut her out of my life even if I chose not to. If you are just afraid she’ll withhold the papers, it seems you might also have anxiety issues you need to address. The undercurrent of this thread is that you cave to your mother’s unreasonable demands perhaps because you are afraid of what will happen if you resist. Being an adult means being responsible for one’s own welfare and not caving in to irrational fears.