I'm having trouble understanding something. All my life, my mom has had a super positive attitude, to the point where she repeatedly mimized or completely ignored my problems growing up. So many times when i was hurting and she could have been there, and i needed her to be, she wasn't. She has also continued to be this way in my adulthood. Like for example, i struggled with major depression for years, even got hospitalized, and my mom never even brought it up. When i would see her, she would never ask how my depression was going, or even what i was depressed about, or if she could help. In fact, when i told her a couple of things from my childhood that had caused me problems (including SA by a neighbor), she claimed nothing happened in my childhood that would have caused me to have depression. She said it was just my hormones, and "one day, you'll wake up, and it will all be gone." Back when i was a kid and told her about the SA, she did nothing either. Did not even confront the neighbor.

So anyway, MUCH of my therapy today centers around my lack of feeling cared about and protected by my mom growing up --and how it has affected my life today.

So. . .2 days ago, I was talking to my mom on the phone and she made a comment about how parents "always worry about their kids. Not like when they were little and they had to watch them all the time, but still. They continue to be concerned about them." I found this statement to be completely uncharacteristic of my mom. She has never said anything like this. She has never lived her life in a way that has ever showed she was concerned or worried about me. There were many times my dad would emotionally abuse me (both as a kid and now), where my mom would sit in the room, knitting away, not saying a thing to help defend me. And. . .just so many other times.

I find myself feeling very confused, and also angry, that my mom claims that as a parent, she has been and is concerned about me. How can she say that? How could it possibly be true if all my life, she has turned a blind eye to any sort of problem or suffering i've had?

I just don't understand at all. I wish my mom was that way. It's what i always needed growing up. But she wasn't. And now she claims she is that way.

I don't understand at all . . .