What do I do about my mother? (long, probably whiny)

In My Humble Opinion
21

[QUOTE=RedRosesForMe]
I’d like to explain things to her, but she won’t listen. I just saw her earlier, and she started in on the “why can’t you get your act together” bit, and I stopped her mid-sentence, saying, “I can’t deal with that right now.” She continued, I persisted, telling her that my therapist suggested I see her less because it’s so stressful and hurtful to me, but she kept it up. I even flat-out said, “Stop. That, right there, that you’re saying, hurts me. I can’t deal with it, I’m having a bad enough day as it is.” It continued even as I walked out the door, ending with a final “Stop it!” as I closed the door.

[/QUOTE]

You’re close, but you’re still feeding into her. When she starts in on you, don’t talk about ‘dealing with’ or ‘bad enough days’ or [under any circumstance] what your therapist says. Don’t offer excuses, or show any weakness, or imply the need for support.

‘Mom, I’ve asked you not to talk to me like that. If you don’t stop, I will leave.’
When she keeps going [and she will]
‘I love you, Mom, bye.’
And leave.

No tears, no parting shots, no slammed doors. Just leave.

Try it this Thursday.

22

[QUOTE=RedRosesForMe]
I’d like to explain things to her, but she won’t listen. I just saw her earlier, and she started in on the “why can’t you get your act together” bit, and I stopped her mid-sentence, saying, “I can’t deal with that right now.” She continued, I persisted, telling her that my therapist suggested I see her less because it’s so stressful and hurtful to me, but she kept it up. I even flat-out said, “Stop. That, right there, that you’re saying, hurts me. I can’t deal with it, I’m having a bad enough day as it is.” It continued even as I walked out the door, ending with a final “Stop it!” as I closed the door.
[/QUOTE]

Okay, what you need to do here is get one of those little squirt bottles they use for training cats. Every time she says something hurtful, squirt her in the face with it.

What you fill the bottle with, I leave as an exercise to the reader.

23

Exactly what j666 said. Also add to your vocabulary, “I don’t want to talk about it right now”, and “You really don’t need to worry about that”. And don’t wait until after she starts to needle you, you can end the conversation after her first innocent question about you or your boyfriend.

Since it seems like you’ll need to continue to work with her for the immediate future, I might suggest the simple technique of changing the subject. It can be done quite bluntly, as in “You don’t need to worry about it. Oh! I meant to ask if you finished that book you were reading?” or whatever – just have a few neutral topics set aside that you know she would give $0.02 on. It’s an obvious trick, but it actually works with my mom, I think because it gives us a way to back off without having to apologize. If she has grandkids or other small children in her life, I’ve found that they are wonderful tools to deflect the conversation away from yourself.

24

Draw lines. Tell her what you will not accept. Make threats, and follow through on them.

My mother still can’t behave like an adult long enough for me to visit for weeks over the holidays, like she wants me to, but I did manage to get her to behave for a day or two at a time, years ago. I took the bus down from school, arrived at 11pm on a Friday night, and in the car on the way to their house she began to pick on me for some piece of paperwork that, even had I been in the same ZIP code as my university, I couldn’t have done anything about until 8am on Monday. I told her I didn’t want to talk about it. I took the next bus back to school. End of visit. She behaved better the next time, although I still occasionally hang up on her because she thinks nitpicking is somehow more acceptable over the phone.

If you spend enough time in a room with a contagious flu patient, you’ll probably get sick. Likewise, if you spend enough time stuck in a room with a crazy person, eventually you’ll start acting crazy just in order to get by. Leave it behind for Thanksgiving. Spend the holiday with your boyfriend.

25

[QUOTE=Manda JO]
Your greatest issue with your mom seems to be that she is hyper-critical and insensitive and unforgiving of your particular weaknesses. While I have no doubt that this is true, is it possible that at times when the meaning of a glance or a statement is ambigious, you are quick to assume what she is really thinking is something critical or insensitive? If so, one way you can break the pattern is by trying to rearrange your own thought patterns to not be so critical of her–because if you look at her while thinking of all the ways she is inadequate as a mother, you are going to assume she’s looking back and thinking the same thing about you as a daughter. It won’t solve everything, but it makes an eventual olive branch more likely.
[/QUOTE]

Ehm, my mother can make any sentence be a criticism; the difference between “congratulations! :)”, “congratulations! :D” and “con-gra-tu-la-tions :rolleyes:” is quite evident. We were able to break her out of it after Dad died (with him around, it was impossible to have an actual conversation).

Congratulations on the new job, it definitely is a step in the right direction. And I think that, this year, you need to spend Thanksgiving anywhere else. With your boyfriend and his family, with friends or with the penguins in the South Pole… but someplace away from Mom. And keep your cellphone off. Next year, hopefully, things will be more civilized. And if next year they’re not, well then, maybe the next or the one after.

8 years ago, I couldn’t spend one day with my mother without wanting to tear her eyes out. 3 years ago, make it five days. 1 year ago, we’d improved to two weeks. I’ve now been “home” (my flat is rented out, since I spent the last year working out of the country) for two months and no murder has taken place; we can even tell each other “cut (whatever) out, you’re starting to piss me off” and she’s learned to take what I say at face value and to not make promises she can’t keep; I’ve learned not to ask for things she can’t do.

26

Does anyone have any suggestions for books that might help my mother understand? I’m not ready to completely cut her out of my life, but I will be explaining to her exactly what she says that bothers me, how I’m not going to tolerate it anymore, and how if it continues I won’t speak to her anymore.

It’s just that, knowing my mother, she’ll refuse to admit that she’s wrong. She’ll probably think I’m overreacting, or that my therapist is a quack, or something, anything, besides admitting she might be at fault, even a little bit. I’d like to be able to point her in the direction of a book or two, so that if she’s interested, she can read about it and maybe see why what she says is detrimental to my well-being. I’m sure that she thinks what she says is motivational in some twisted way.

This is a long shot, but I figure it’s worth a try. My mom’s a voracious reader anyway. Any suggestions?

27

RedRoses4Me, whilst I understand that you’d really like your mother to ‘get’ you, and to understand what impact her behaviour has on you, but I have to be really honest here.

She. just. doesn’t. get. it.

Yes, there are plenty of books out there that she could read. But I don’t get the sense from your posts that she’s remotely interested in understanding why you have such an issue with her.

If she’s not ready to accept that she needs to change in order to improve her relationship with you, then she’s not going to get any value out of reading a book.

You can’t change your mother. You can change you. You can set boundaries about what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour from your mother. You can tell your mother what those boundaries are, and what the consequences will be when/if she breaches those boundaries. You can carry out those consequences.

But she will only change if she wants to, not as a result of your boundary setting.

The first aim of boundary setting is to minimise the stress you are feeling as a result of her actions, by removing yourself from her company when she engages in those behaviours. That in itself will have a HUGE impact on your mental health, not least of all because you are finally taking control over the impact others can have on you.

A nice to have, but not necessarily guaranteed, outcome of boundary setting is that your mother realises she needs to change the way she interacts with you if she wants to have an ongoing positive mother-adult daughter relationship. But, this ain’t guaranteed and doesn’t always happen.

On the other hand, if your mother shows an interest, there’s nothing to stop you offering to lend her a book or two. You can give her the exact same books that you yourself read, and I’d be happy to give you some book suggestions if you like. But all you can do is make the offer.

I feel in a wee way that you are saying ‘the problem is all my mother and she needs to change’. Yes, life would certainly be easier for you if your mother changed, but you have an immense power to heal yourself with absolutely no change from your mother and that is the far more likely outcome.

28

Ditto sandra nz. You cannot change your mother. You can, however, change how you react/respond to her.

Work on you. Don’t work on her.

29

[QUOTE=RedRosesForMe]

It’s just that, knowing my mother, she’ll refuse to admit that she’s wrong. She’ll probably think I’m overreacting, or that my therapist is a quack, or something, anything, besides admitting she might be at fault, even a little bit.
[/QUOTE]
You are correct. Your mom will accuse you of overreacting and say your therapist is a quack. But the whole point is that your mom is wrong, and you don’t have to listen to her. Sandra_nz is right. Don’t spend your energy trying to help her see the light. If she does that, it will be on her own (and not for a long time).

30

I’ll recommend a couple of books. For them to work, you and your mother will probably need to discuss them together. I doubt she will read them and be instantly “healed.” Nevertheless, these books provide good insights into human nature and sooner or later the concepts may click with her.

Two books that are so classic they are almost cliche are *The Road Less Travelled * and Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. *The Road Less Travelled * makes some good points about getting the balance right between thinking you can control everything and thinking life is completely out of your control. *Seven Habits * has a good section on seeking first to understand, then to be understood.

31

One thing you can’t do is refuse to accept who she is and cut her out of your life, then when you need her, whine about how she refuses to accept who you are and expect to be let into her life. She is either toxic always, and therefore any goodbye should be seen as permanent - pending some major catharsis on her part, or you need to accept her for what she is - even if she hasn’t learned to do that with you.

Changing the dynamics between parent and child to two adults is tough. It doesn’t make it any harder when one of you is facing mental illness. But you need to be a grown up - as does she.

My mother is on a reading kick to try and understand my depressed alcoholic sister. The problem with that approach is that none of these books were written by my depressed alcoholic sister. They may talk about depression or addiction. They may talk about someone’s personal experiences with that, but if your mother picks something up and can’t generalize about it, what you’ll get is “well, so and so in this book I read got over it, and wrote this book, why can’t you do that!” (My mother is doing a better job than that, but I’m not sure that all the reading she is doing is productive for her relationship with my sister. I do think its helping HER process what she needs to process - so she gets rid of her undeserved guilt.)