Insane Parents!

In My Humble Opinion
21

My mom made me a doll when I was…fifteen or so. I can’t remember, but it was at a weird age to be receiving a doll. Still, I liked the doll, and I took her off to college with me a few years later. Anyway, I lost her, or she came apart at the seams, or something (I can’t remember now because this was in 1997).

My mom STILL brings this up when she thinks I am being ungrateful.

She made me a beautiful new quilt in 2004 (my mom is a professional quilter), which I received gratefully. A few months later, she asked me what I’d done with my old (also mom-made) quilt.

Me: Oh, I folded it up and put it on the back of my chair. I use it as a blanket when I am reading or watching a movie.
Mom: Oh. I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t thrown it away.
Me: WHAT?! Are you serious? You think I’d throw away a quilt?
MOM: YOU THREW AWAY THE DOLL!!!

OMG GOD. That was seven years ago! She never really thought I’d throw away a quilt, she just wanted to get mad about the stupid doll AGAIN!

The kicker is, when we were having another argument months later, I brought up that discussion, and my mom refused to believe/admit/remember that we’d ever had that exchange. Clearly, I was inventing new guilt trips because I’m yes, an ungrateful and bad daughter.

(Last time I saw my parents, my dad actually told my mom - in front of me! - to be nicer to me because I’m “the good one”. Thanks, younger sister, for being such a crazy rotten brat I look like an angel in comparison!)

22

Why on earth haven’t you put your foot down and told her that it is your life, not hers?! Tell her you love, and honor her, but you expect the courtesy of being allowed to live your life as best you can in return? Don’t give any leeway, present it as “Of course it will be this way, and I’m just reaffirming it with you”. Let her tantrum and guilt tripping wash over you, and away. Tell her that she’s not going to manipulate you into caving on this, and when she’s ready to treat with you on your terms you’ll be around. Tell her you’re not closing the door, and she’s welcome in your life. It might be a good idea to say this in front of at least one reliable witness like a sibling, so she can’t do the whole tittle tattle “She kicked me out of her life!” scenario. She knows that you have the right to choose your own friends, and it’s unmitigated gall to try to manipulate your life in such a way. How old are you? If you are in your early twenties then I can see that maybe she’s not yet realized you really have left the nest. If you are older, then this manipulation needs to be stopped now, before you have children of your own.

23

My mom was a real winner.

BiblioCat, once again it seems to me that you and I were separated at birth! My mother would never use the good china, because it might get broken! I inherited it 17 years ago, when she died, and have used it probably at least 30 times since then, and not a single piece has gotten broken. I don’t see the point in having it if I won’t use it. Lemme see, other examples of her insanity: once, when I was about 13, an aunt was visiting, and I offered my aunt a glass of ice water. After she left, my mother started yelling about the fact that I hadn’t offered her a glass of ice water to, announced that I was no longer her daughter, and threw a coffee mug at my head. She missed, thank goodness. Another time, when I was about the same age, she announced, in front of company, that I was lazy and ungrateful because I never emptied the dishwasher without being asked first. :rolleyes: Somehow, my sister who was two years older than me, always got away with everything in spite of bad grades and perpetually coming home stoned. Oh, one more example of her continuing insanity: one night, my sister and I had come home from work, and mom was in the kitchen fixing dad a bowl of ice cream. She very pleasantly asked my sister and I if we would like some ice cream, and we said yes. My mom was standing right next to the silverware drawer, and my sister asked mom to hand her a spoon. My mother shrieked something about not being put on this earth to wait on people, and stormed off to her bedroom, waiting to be apologized to. That’s what happened whenever mom was a lunatic bitch from hell. She went to her room and waited for an apology.

These days whenever someone asks me if there’s a history of mental illness in my family, my standard response is: “Well, my mom was psychotic”.

24

My mom was neither mean nor insane, but she did have a rather warped sense of humor. One evening I was sitting in the living room while she rinsed out a glass in the kitchen sink. She dropped the glass in the sink and broke it. After looking at the shards of glass in the sink for a few moments, she turned, looked straight at me and announced “I wish there was some way I could blame this on you.”

25

What stopped me from confronting my mother then was that my 8 year old nephew was there. I have very vivid memories of family blow-ups on holidays and its a “tradition” I don’t want to pass on.

Funny thing is that my fiance has the same last name as a talk-show host known for his outrageous guests. If I change my name at least if will be to something that fits :cool:

26

Actually this would be myself and my wife but mostly me. When we got married, we received as a wedding gift from my family a large amount of crystal varying in ages from new to one hundred years old. I don’t like to use it. I like using glasses that if they break, I’m out maybe six dollars. I also don’t like to each on the nice china because then I have to handwash the damn things.

27

Oh, Og, my grandmother (late and unlamented, btw)

She’d go in to graphic details of my grandfather’s adolescent angst (he’d get an erection and not know what it was) and then get mad a me because I wouldn’t discuss my teenage sexual angst.

She’d ask if I liked a pair of shoes, I answered her honestly no, then she’d get mad because she was going to give them to me and I was being ungrateful.

One day, my mom, dad, sis, and the grandparents were all in the kitchen. We got silly and my sister and mom started tickling my dad. They were laughing and carrying on and my grandmother urged me to tickle my dad too. I was busy doing dishes so I yelled “Wait a minute!” because everyone was laughing loudly, dried off my hands, and joined in.

Later (after everyone had left the kitchen except me) she comes in and asks if I’m going to apologize. Bewildered, I say for what? and she slaps me across the face with a rolled-up newspaper and says for yelling at her in front of her husband. I’m 13, stung by the slap and crying and upset, so I apologize.

My mother, also out of my life, never believed me when I told her any of this. The mind games my grandmother would play were cruel and vicious. I hate eggs, and she’d go out of her way to sneak eggs into dishes. One day they made quiche for dinner and gagging, I ate none of it and went to bed early. My parents took a trip once, and I had to ask permission to do anything. I had to ask permission to turn on the TV. I had to ask permission to turn off the TV. I had to ask permission to go to my room. I had to ask permission to turn on my radio once I had reached my room.

I could go on and on, but as I said, she’s dead and I actually danced a jig when I got the news. Why clutter up my head anymore by dredging up more memories?

28

Thanks everyone! Its nice to know that I’m not the only person with insane relatives. :smiley:

29

:smiley: My mom’s not quite that nuts, but she has her moments. She can’t make a decision to save her life. Because of that (or in spite of it), I’m very decisive. I know what I like and don’t like. I hate going shopping with her. I cannot stress the word ‘hate’ enough. She has to look at each and every option there is, and mull over any purchase forever. Me? If I see what I want and like, I buy it. Get in and get out.
We were at the mall once and I needed a pair of shoes for a specific event. I knew what I wanted. Black shoes, simple, comfortable, heels about an inch or two, nothing that screamed “Hooker shoes!”
She kept showing me these 5-inch strappy sandal things with sparkles.
Mom: “How about these?”
Me: “No, I don’t like high heels, and those are too dressy anyway.”
Mom: “Well, just look at them for a few minutes. Maybe you’ll change your mind.”
Me: “I know I don’t like them.”
Mom: “Just try them on.”
Me: “I don’t like high heels and I don’t like strappy sandals and I don’t do sparkles. Stop showing me shoes like that.”
Mom: “Just look at them for a minute. Maybe you’ll change your mind.”
Me: “I’m looking for something like my brown shoes, but in black. I don’t like high heels.”
Mom: “You’re impossible.”
Repeat ad naseum for anything we shop for together.

30

Until I was in high school, my mother was an unmedicated clinically depressed person. You can imagine the ups and downs I witnessed as a very young kid until I was about 14 and a doctor finally put her on Prozac.

One time, she was in the midst of yet another break-up from some random boyfriend. He had given her a vacuum cleaner during their relationship, and came over to the house to reclaim it. My mom was in the shower, so I let him take it. I was eight! What was I supposed to do? When she got out of the shower, I told her that Scott had come by to get the vacuum cleaner. She instantly–instantly–flew into a rage. Not only did she slam the phone down so hard that the housing shattered, she picked up a solid oak barstool and flung it across the room, barely missing me while I cowered in a corner.

Another time, when I was about 22 years old, my then two-year-old son and I were living with her briefly following the separation from my ex-husband. My mother has, as long as I can remember, always owned a handgun. She was always very careful to store it on the highest shelf of her closet (my son never even knew that she had one). One week, when she was in a particularly intense period of depression, she insisted on keeping the gun out on her bedside table. Despite repeated requests by me for her to at least get it out of sight, she wouldn’t move it. Finally, I told her that she had no right to own a gun if she was going to be so careless with it knowing that her grandson was running loose in her house. She got out of bed and chased me down the hallway into the kitchen where she proceeded to spit at my face while screaming, “I am a card-carrying member of the NRA, and I’ll be goddamned if you are going to tell me how to be a responsible gun owner!” I moved out within a week.

She died two years later. I don’t miss her as much as I probably should.

31

Hey, Mom got mad at me when I was 5 and still hadn’t forgiven me 12 years later!

I know I’ve told the story before. The blow by blow gets quite long; short version is I’d been praying for a baby bro and since God evidently didn’t want to answer I decided to stop talking to him, so THERE! Mom got angry about it and like I said was still incredibly angry about it when I was 17… at which point the story came out in front of one of the Catholic Church’s foremost theologians and after hearing both our versions, he congratulate her on having a daughter who understood “God is your friend” better than most of his students. I’d just been treating God like any 5 year old treats any friend who won’t play :stuck_out_tongue:

32

Crazy mother shit, where do I start?

  1. Made me, the only daughter in the family, clean the bathroom of my four brothers, who purposely pissed on the floor cause they knew I would have to clean it up. Until I moved out at 17.

  2. Refused to support me in any way in college because my brothers needed the money more because they would have to support a family. Only one ever had kids and he did not go to college. I was supposed to marry prince charming and he would take care of me. I have two kids and a PhD, but I did end up marrying prince charming :cool: .

  3. Told me when she discovered I was using birth control (with the above named prince charming) that she wished I was doing drugs instead :eek:, because that was better than having protected sex.

  4. Did not understand why I refused to let my kids sleep on top of cushions that covered three rifles in her motor home. :eek:

  5. Did not understand why I refused to let her call my husband and children M-Fer’s. Because all mother’s have that right and of course I used such language with my husband and kids too. Umm, no mom, we try to be civil :frowning: .

  6. Continues to rant and rave about an affair my Dad had 35 years ago. He’s been dead 10 years, get over it for God’s sake. I don’t want to hear it anymore.

33

  1. Icky, very icky, and I can relate. In my teens my brother and I lived with our father. As the only girl, nothing got cleaned unless I did it, or when my father had a woman over. :rolleyes:

  2. Also didn’t get any support, financial or emotional, when I went to college. Both parents said,“You’re 18 and not my responsiblity anymore.”

  3. Congrats for having more sense than you mother!

  4. Again, I can relate. My mother still goes on about what a bastard my father is. They’ve been divorced for 24 years!!! My brother and I have been out of the house for 11 years. Move on!!!

Even though you have a crazed mother, sounds like you have done really well. Kudos to you :smiley:

34

Mouse;

I think we’re sibs seperated at birth and sent home with the wrong family :slight_smile:

35

I am glad to hear there are a few other mothers out their holding on to things that should have long been forgotten. ( Although I feel bad for the kids who have to deal with it)

When I was about 13, my mom said for her birthday she wanted a magazine called The Writers, that told where and how to submit short stories for publication. I went to the bookstore, found a copy, bought it and sent in the card for a year’s subscription. I wrapped up the copy of the magazine, and enclosed a note saying a subscription was included also.

She had a fit, yelled, screamed threw things, then wouldn’t speak or even look at me for three days. She has done this many times before so I knew to wait it out. She finally told me why she was mad. I had gotten a magazine called The Writer, by mistake. The Writer magazine was about how to write stories. She insisted I did this on purpose, to insult her, my way of saying she didn’t know how to write. I was 13 years old, I had no idea there were two magazines with a similar name, much less what either was about. She still brings this up, how mean I was to give her a magazine about how to write. That was why she gave up writing, all my fault. :rolleyes:

One year when I was away at college I sent her a birthday card. She was furious. She sent it back. The card had said something like, “Having a mother like you is a blessing.” She wrote on it in red pen, “A mother LIKE me, but not me. How could you insult me like that? You don’t think having ME as a mother is a blessing, only one LIKE me. Don’t bother contacting me again if that is how you feel.” Believe me, many times I wish I had taken her advice and not contacted her again.

Then when she turned 80, I gave her $500 for her birthday. I usually give her $100. I told her that I couldn’t give her $500 every year, but turning 80 was a special occassion, and I wanted her to get something special with the money. The next time I saw her she was mad. She said that I only gave her the $500 in order to throw in her face how old she was. Did I really think it was necessary to mention she was 80? She complained about this for some time, but never did give the money back that offended her so much.

I could go on and on about her going postal over presents I have given her. Many years I just didn’t bother, but then she would complain even worse over that, so I can’t win either way. And the funny thing is, she has never given me a present. Growing up, when other kids were getting gifts from their parents for their birthdays, my mom made it clear that it was HER, that did the remarkable thing that day, giving birth. Why should I, who did nothing that day except be born get a gift for it? I always give her something for Christmas. She takes it, complains, but never gives me anything in return.

I know I have never purposely given her a present or card I thought would make her mad. But they always do. So I am thinking maybe this year for Mother’s Day I will try to find something she will hate, figuring since I have been wrong so many times in the past, maybe this way she will get something that will please her. Nah, on second thought nothing would ever please her.

36

So maybe that’s what you should give her.

The funny, ironic thing in my little universe is that I have a grown daughter that I get along really well with. We vacation together, I love her husband, etc. My Mom is always like “Why do you two get along so well together?” I always think ummm, “We respect each other. We like each other. What part about this do you not understand?”

37

It wasn’t my mother but my mother’s mother that did the exact same thing. Family would give her presents and she would say things like: “guess they were all out of the good ones huh?”. She did crap just like you described all the time and especially with presents. Why don’t people just stop giving them stuff. I damn sure would but I couldn’t convince my mother to stop playing those games. I believe that grown children with kids outrank their elderly parents and need to discipline them from time to time for stuff like that.

I got a phone call one morning before work and my mother said: “I have terrible news. Your grandmother died last night.” I almost had a heart attack because I was half asleep and thought she meant my other grandmother who I adore.

A few seconds later, I figured it out and said" “It was Grandma Connie?” My mother said yes. I said “Thank God! I thought you were talking about my other one.”

At this point I was in a bind because I love my mother and for someone reason she loved her mother even after years of abuse just like people are describing. I did not love that grandmother at all and tried to explain that without hurting my mother more while she was grieving.

38

Well I am not sure why other people keep doing it, but for me I know when I withheld the presents, I did so wanting to hurt her, hurt her the way she hurt me. But then I felt that meant I was acting like she would act. I never want to do that. So fill my role, I give her stuff, and she fills her role of complaining about it.

Now that I am older, she no longer hurts me when she complains. I expect it. My husband and I even make bets on what she could possibly find fault with. We are never right though, she always amazes us with something new.

And I do agree that adult children should draw lines over the important things. There are lots of things she can pick on me about, it just doesn’t matter to me. But she knows there are certain areas that if she crosses, I won’t play anymore. So maybe by our continueing this dysfunctional present ritual, she gets to be mean, I am not really bothered by it, and we can go on from there.

39

Grits, she sounds bitter and hateful. I’m sorry you feel you have to put up with it.

You want to drive her completely nuts? Remove yourself from the equation. Picking on you makes her feel better (or at least martyr-like). Take that away and she will shrivel.

I remember another anecdote about my late and unlamented grandmother. They visited every year for Christmas. That summer, my sister and I (elementary school-aged and younger) made their presents. With my mother’s help, we had outlined a drawing of something (a cat or a flower, I don’t remember) in yarn on a piece of wood. Then we filled it in with colored popcorn kernels that we glued in. It was quite a project as you can imagine.

On Christmas, for some reason, my dad had pissed her off (probably making a comment she took the wrong way) and when we gave her our gifts, she mumbled a Thank You and barely looked at them. I remember feeling something was wrong, and thought she didn’t like the “mosaics” we had made.

I know now that she was a self-centered, vicious vindictive control freak, and I’m glad she died bitter, alone, and suffering from dementia. Karma and all.

40

cruel butterfly, My mom was clinically depressed & unmedicated my entire childhood. Long live Prozac!

Grits and Hard Toast my mom used to remark that we should give her flowers on our birthdays with exactly the same sort of reasoning. She has never liked a present I have given her but she usually expresses it by saying something like “Oh. A diamond bracelet. I already have one.” I had the TV news give her a certificate thingy for her last birthday, announced on the TV, she got to see it and everything. She was unhappy because now everyone knows she is 80 years old. :smack:

Kyla My mom still gives me hell over a bathrobe she gave me. She saw it **15 years later ** and it was really ratty, which just proves I don’t take care of my things. :dubious:

Actually, this isn’t even scratching the surface of the crazy, but I do try to remember that she is mentally ill and cut her some slack when I can. She is my mom and I do love her despite it all. The rest of the family gets together and laughs about some of this stuff which helps sometimes.