Has your mother cut contact with you?

If so, how do you feel?

My mom cut ties with me when I was 16 when she kicked me out. A year and a half went by before my grandma put her foot down. Either my mom would talk to me or she would stop talking to her. I felt bad about it. Who want's to be so ****ed up that their own mom gives up on them. That year and a half I did so much growing. I wouldn't have done under their roof. I had to move back in with them when I was 17. With in months of being home I OD'd on pain meds. I was clean and not cutting when I OD'd. It took everyone for surprise. Since then I realize that I was in a mixed episode where my feelings didn't match my affect.

I've forgiven my parents for kicking me out. I was so angry at them when it happen but the arguing had to stop some how.

No, not me, but the mother of my partner (20-21 years old) cut her off over an unpleasant dispute where my partner was bequeathed most of her Grandfather's estate. My partner was chucked out by her jealous manipulative mother when she was 16 and has been living with us the last four nearly five years.

My partner suffered her mother's downright nastiness, but after a couple of months released herself from the doldrums to really shine. She is self employed in accountancy and is doing very well, so congratulations and exultations to her.

Yes. She disowned me when I was 19. Its a story that still hurts me even though she's been dead for 10 years. We reconciled when she was terminally ill. She said she was sorry on her deathbed. Too little, too late sadly.

A good enough parent works themselves out of a job when their child finishes puberty and grows into an adult at 18 (legally) and becomes capable of taking care of themselves. A parent is to be supportive of their adult child's methods of finding usefulness in this world.

Those of us with disorders might want to live like children, but the truth is we are adults acting like children. Journey work, as I learned through compassioncourse.org, is feeling your feelings, finding your unmet need, speaking your unmet need into existence and then embracing your own action plan and doing so respectfully to yourself (self-empathy) and others (giving this same process to others, which is shared empathy).

Mental disorders do not disqualify any of us from this process. We adults are to organize our own chaos. We learn as we go. Look to your programs, rather than your mother, to complete this process, which will mature you in facing the consequences of your choices. That is the ONLY way you will be able to find your own dignity. The benefit is maturity, which has benefits that pass to our own children who pass it on to their children...because it is a timeless truth threading through all generations and is the same in every nation of the world.

For what its worth I 100% disagree that a mothers job ends at 18. I am their mother for life. When my children are old enough to move out, I will still be available for emotional support. I'll still be there when the world kicks their butt and they need me. They will always be able to count on me.

A mother abandoning their children has nothing to do with growing up. Its a life time job. If you can't step up to that, don't have kids. It is very damaging to have the people who are supposed to love you no matter what just walk away. If you don't understand that, lucky you.

Love doesn't mean keeping your kids as child dependents. Look at the original post: she grew during the hardship when she was out in the world. Then went home and crashed. She has the ability in her to grow during hardship.

Sixteen is the age of becoming legally emancipated. If a teenager is cooperative and gets kicked out due to parental neglect, that's abandonment. When a teenager lives without wanting parental consent and causes constant conflict, acts out, disrupts the infrastructure, particularly with younger siblings having to endure the chaos, and the parent cannot regain order...well that is the reason why kids get 'kicked out.' The world can be a very good teacher of what we are too hard-headed to hear when everything is done for us. The original poster doesn't give reasons behind her being kicked out.

Having someone 'count on you' means they can maintain their own dignity in finding their way while you listen and encourage and guide them back to the sacrifices necessary to get along in this world and growing up, which is the requirement for EVERYONE...because truth be known, a parent will die before the child and as harsh as that sounds, that's the way it works. Why? Because we parents have done a good enough job to not be counted on for infrastructure support because we have taught them the skills and trust them with the care and feeding of themselves. That's love.

As I read it this thread was for discussing moms cutting off contact, not judgment about it. I don't care why anyone's mother cut off contact, it hurts. I'd rather offer support than opinions.

It hurts to be pushed out of the womb and be born, too. But that's the way it is. We leave the comforts of what we know for the reality of harsher circumstances and yet we survive, thrive and carry on as our biology has designed it.

Their comes a time when a child has to make the break from dependency on a parent to being on their own. That is the dynamic we are discussing no matter what causes the break. Blaming the parent for 'doing it wrong' is judging without having the deeper understanding of how things work throughout history on every continent. We may hope for the easiest transition, but whether we get what we want or not, it doesn't discount what still needs to be done...launch!

We 'get to' choose as adults whether we are going to go through life as bitter or better.

Wow. I think that I understand a little of what you're saying, herm but, the way you're going about it sounds pretty cold. Not everyone can just decide to pull themselves up by their own boot straps and go from zero to hero over night. Some people get damaged by the bad parts of life. Sometimes the damage is extensive. So much so that the person is in dire need of repair from the outside. We are not a race of androids with self repairing systems
that can handle anything. Organics (flesh creatures, humans etc.) don't function that way.
Humans have a natural need for love and support and without it they crumble and on top of mental problems you also have to take trauma into account. Trauma doesn't just create mental problems but, makes already existing mental problems much, much worse. Shall I copy and paste the definition of "compassion" here?

Journey work per compassioncourge.org is to feel my feelings, find my unmet need, speak my need into an action plan and use respectful self-talk with myself in learning how to take care of myself in a healthy way. Repeat. When sharing my feelings with a healthy empathy buddy, they are to listen deeply, asking pertinent questions that guide me back to my desire to meet my unmet need, and celebrate my growth with me. You do the same for them when they need a listening partner.

Where are the stories that mention feelings in a good way when victimized thinking is left behind and empowerment replaces the sadness with gladness in what has been learned in their experience. Meaning can be found in suffering. Anything less is cynicism. Without hope, victimized thinking wins.

Millions of people in history have gone through far worse in countries that have lost their infrastructure to horribly abusive leaders and have still found meaning and purpose in their lives to rebuild order from the chaos and move on.

I have a hard time believing you are on a mental illness forum with such little understanding of how mental illness works. Your comments are beyond insensitive. The attitude that people can just get over things is appauling.

Going from zero to hero is not what I said; they were on someone else's post, which you are choosing to go along with. Please reread my post more deeply and identify what I am truly saying in regards to hope as the basis for change.

Good enough parents give hope to their child so that they are able to function at the next level of development, otherwise we'd all still be in diapers still expecting someone 'out there' to wipe our butt. To organize own chaos and bring it to order is our journey work. Hope in a baseline (within our program/therapy/otherwise) is a value we each can be encouraged in and choose and go after until new brain wiring is produced--that's neuroplasty--and happens with good results when people work through the challenges. No one said life would be easy. That's my point.

I have had major depressive disorder, which is now in remission. As anyone knows, when the dark cloud hits, there is NO desire to leave the house and exercise. And yet, neuroscience proves that exercise changes the chemistry of depression, so when I leave the house and do my customized exercise plan, I am working with the management of my disorder. This is the counsel my psychiatrist gave me, which my mother didn't give because she was clinically depressed in a time that didn't heed this counsel.

Thank you for letting me know how my previous words came across...without the warm fuzzies(?). I will consider your counsel in meeting a possible unmet need within myself regarding the ways in presenting hope to a group in various stages and definitions of compassion. On a personal basis, true compassion for me is in not leaving someone stuck in a ditch when those of us watching have 'tools' of hope to offer. Aren't we recovery partners to one another? Or career whiners? It is far more socially acceptable to whine with one another of which happens everywhere...but here, we have hope of change for the better and that is what I am offering.

Thanks for that post. I don't know if it's gentler or I'm just not reacting emotionally today. I had two parents who abandoned/disowned me and then ended up dying. I have PTSD from the things they did and severe abandonment issues. This topic just opened old wounds for me. I apologize if I took that out on you.

Thanks for that, SadGirl, but please know I do understand and perhaps my words would have been warmer and fuzzier had I explained where I am coming from. I am 70 years old so have had plenty of time to work through my rage at the 'rents.

What I didn't know and realized later is my mother acted very appropriately, spot on, per her diagnosis of schizophrenia of which we through was depression with a quirkiness. When I was 48, I found out what she had (she didn't even know and had to ask her pdoc who wrote it on a piece of paper and she still didn't get the connection).

Both 'rents had come from abandonment...sorta' given away, but not really so were never claimed by anyone person and all that goes with that. Dad was an alcoholic and mean. He was sadistic in his torture of us and our pets. He wanted to make us tough enough to get out in the world and make it without coming back home, which was not even an option. And really, who'd want to? He died when I was 25 and the world became a better place. Isn't that sad? He was a tortured soul who was sexually molested as a child and abused in every possible way. He was acting appropriately to his pain, but not good enough to be a nurturing parent because he didn't have it in him to do so.

Three kids later before birth control pills and we girls were wanted but not wanted. All of us were raised to be out of the house by 18, preferably married so the 'legals' would pass to a husband.

I wanted kids and had four and fought hard with my childhood issues, but didn't do well as my kids let me know when they got old enough to voice their anger. When I was 62 and had a breakdown with flashbacks like I've never had before and was diagnosed with chronic PTSD. Then I went through psychological testing at a behavioral clinic and found out I also have O.C.D. and major depressive disorder. Begin on an SSRI, got a PDOC, went through CBT for several years, learning how to meditate (a HUGE help), studied neuroscience in how the brain can rewire, which led me to attachment theory in why rewiring is darn near impossible if their was severe abuse from 2-4. Too bad for me because my mom was a Menchausen-by-proxy type, so I had my stomach pumped 3 times before age 4 from her experimentations and/or flat out neglect in monitoring me and then rushing me to ER to 'save' me.

My kids are successfully employed, pay their bills on time, are college educated without student loans, and marvel at the things I/we taught them about living a well ordered life. They have the willingness and ability to organized their own chaos into order, a personal and stable infrastructure, and can function well in society. The have close relationships, some have children, some not, but are happy and know what to do and where to go when they are not doing well. I listen and guide them towards better tools of wellness instead of old mentally impaired tools that I used to have. I want them to function well on their own because this world is a harsh teacher, just like dad said.

Back to CBT. My therapist specialized in child abuse and worked with adults coming out of such. She taught me how to play during play therapy and I didn't get it; it's like the wiring isn't there. I have NO memory of ever doing pretend play with siblings (way older than me) or friends or anyone. I played by myself and thought a lot about how unhappy I was, how unsettled our home was, how much I wanted to leave. I fantasized obsessively about an orphanage car pulling up to rescue me and take me away to an orphanage where I could feel secure. Group care seemed fine with me.

In the eight years since being diagnosed, I have been on citalopram, fluoxetine, escitalopram, xanax, gabapentin and wellbutrin. I had no problems while taking SSRIs, in fact, I thought they were a miracle of sorts in helping me rest my brain, tame the cortisol/adrenaline flooding throughout my body, and helping me sleep through the night.

And then my metabolism must have changed because the higher dosages agitated me, so I stayed on lower dosages...it took lower and lower dosages to make me feel okay until I was down to zero so I decided to stay off for awhile (PDOC okay with this). It's been 4 months since I have been on any type of psych med. And I feel great! Research shows that SSRIs can heal the hippocampus after 3-5 years of taking the med, and
perhaps this has happened to me because I don't have any symptoms like I once had. No mood drop, no compulsions, no obsessions that cannot be managed, no rages, irritation or anything. The tools I have I use on a daily basis...like the class I took called compassioncourse.org which gave me back self-empathy as a first step before any hope of passing it on. I also have had major turning points in listening to Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist on You Tube who talks of personality development and what it means to organize chaos into order given the mental capacities. Something in my brain clicked for the better and I feel wonderful every day.

My kids have all been in therapy. We have made amends in the sad situation because they realize I gave it all in every area I could. I instilled in them the value of finding meaning and purpose in what they had gone through because that, to me, is the only way a person can heal. Now that I know what nurturing feels like, thanks to my therapist and many good stand ins, I have a smidgen of nurturing to give out. But mostly my words are intellectual in guiding towards timeless truths all generations have used to get through hard times. Victor Frankel, a psychiatrist, who was in the concentration camps during WWII said he noticed that there was one thing we have that couldn't EVER be taken from us and that was our choice of attitude. The Nazi's could starve a person unmercifully, but couldn't control the victim's choice in giving out his piece of bread as a showing of compassion and that infuriated the guards like nothing else. Powerful words.

Please know your comments will be taken to heart as I explore some new ways in finding and expressing warmer, fuzzier words as I post. I value the time it took to express your thoughts so well. Thanks for that...and more in the future because I plan to stick around for awhile and learn the next best steps.

Thanks for taking the time to share your story.

I disagree that a mother’s job ends when their child reaches the age of 18.

While my mother didn’t completely cut off contact with me, she did kick me out. I was forced to live many miles away where I knew no one. And this was very hurtful and, I feel, a selfish decision on her part. I would never do that to any child of mine. I wasn’t even a “horrible person”

The parents didn’t have any formal mental health diagnosis. Step maternal unit I would say has sociopathic tendencies if not the full disorder

PS when she was on her death bed my mother said “I appreciate you at long last”

The whole thing hurts to this day

I am so sorry Fuzzybear and the rest of us who have been hurt by a parent, and equally sorry for my kids, now grown, who have been hurt by me as I acted out my unresolved pain with my parents ...as my four children were watching and feeling my distress when they were too little to understand. We've since talked it out, gone through therapy, done the journey work, but gads, it has been harder than hard.

This is the first year in 70 that I haven't felt sadness with the holidays. Yea for progress, but boo for the first 69 years--it's all about perspective. Good to me for this year being better. My hope is good to you, too, in finding happiness in the making of new memories this year and from now on. (That seems to be the best gift I can give to my grown children as they 'watch' this play out. I like the feeling too.)

Okay I’m back, I’m not saying it was good or bad that I was kicked out at 16. My parents had an impossible job raising 3 kids with MI, each working over full time, different shifts so someone was home all the time and dealing with their issues. When I moved back I was there for less than a yr. I’m not saying everything went well but I got my GED.Then went to college partly because it had dorms, met my husband, had a son shortly after we moved in together and have been poor ever since.I don’t blame my parents I blame my mental illnesses. My parents didn’t believe in MI.
They didn’t know a lot of behind the scenes issues or they would have got me help. I was kicked out over a fight I had with them over requiring me to eat dinner with the family. I was anorexic and I got in a fight with them over dinner every night I was home at that time. So I didn’t have to eat. That night I just went to far. Between me and my nephew and sisters they just couldn’t handle my ****. So for my nephew’s and sisters safety I was asked to leave.
Did that end my ****uppedness? nope. I got worse but I learned a lot and grew a lot. By the time I was living with my grandma I was drunk every day, cutting and generally destroying myself. I stopped arguing and handled family dinner without much hassle, stopped being sexually active and was no longer on drugs. By the time I moved back in I had stopped drinking and just cut and starved. The cutting and ED carried over through college and into adulthood. Having my son made gain 70 lbs. I was mad at him for a long time over that. I wish I had a dr. sit me down and explain my massive mood swings and that my eating disorder voces would go away with an AP.

As a parent I only had one child partly because I was scared that one day I’d have to choose his safety or my other kids safety and I didn’t want that. I could never kick him out. He will in his own time complete his life goals. Currently he has a mood disorder that leads to negative thoughts. He’s 15 and a saint compared to me or my husband. It’s not our parenting it’s his nature. We parent vastly different then our parents. When I was 18 my dad got me SSI which helps immensely. If not for that I’d probably be homeless and hungry, without the medication.