Children of MI Parents

There's no category on here for this:

My mother has never been diagnosed with anything because she would never go to a psy to discuss what is wrong with her, nor does she even think there is anything wrong with her.

That being said, there definitely is something wrong MI about my mother.

There is so much in my whole family, both sides, that is pathological. Generations of MI.

Anyway-- I dodged a bullet this morning, successfully running the gauntlet of her toxicity.

I called and made the mistake of asking "How are you?"

She went on a half hour rant, from subject to subject of triggers and lamenting about how she has no control, she can't control anything in her life, because 'you need money to be able to control'...

I handled it like a professional stuntman driving a Lamborghini. Expertly navigating away from hairpin turns, ending the phone call with a smile, telling her to go eat something nutritious and try to relax.

Phew!

I first realized I had depression when I was 29. After I got into treatment and learned different things, I saw that both parents had issues as bad or worse than mine! I also learned that when you have acknowledged your issues and got help, forever after you are known as "the crazy one". Well, that never bothered me. When anyone brought up the subject that I had to have mental help, I'd say: I'm not the only one that needed it, but I am the only one that got it. lol

Add: Kudos to you for handling your call well. You can care as much as you want, but you can't help them if they don't acknowledge they need it.

Iris Bloom, what you posted sounds exactly like my situation, & I sure agree they can't get help if they do not acknowledge needing it!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I know my parents have MI issues. My dad is a chronic alcoholic and my mom is manic. So depression plus mania equals bipolar which is ME!

Yeah I know they won't admit it to themselves but its their life, they have to live it, and I will live mine.

I can speak from both sides of this stone. Quite obviously my mother was mentally ill. It made for a great deal of difficulty and difficulties I have in my own life can be directly attributed to her. So too am I a mentally ill parent. My now adult children seem to be pretty well adjusted but hindsight tells me I must have been difficult and so too their childhood as a result. I think the difference was between my mother's situation and my own is that I seemed to be aware something was wrong with me. That, combined with traumatic memories of my own childhood I think made me a better parent than her. Still, it can't have been easy for my children - especially having a perent whose behaviour they couldn't anticipate.

PD traits like magical thinking and distrust of others was taught to me by my family! We're just really old world ethnic!

Some things just come from the dysfunctional families our parents grew up in & passed along.

Others become obvious as we do our own research...as when I was trying to figure out what was the cause of the problems in my own marriage researching Aspergers (ASD), I realized that was what I had been dealing with from my own H but what hit me between the eyes was that it also described my own Dad perfectly. All the behaviors my mom rationalized about my dad all my life were perfectly summed up in the same thing I found I struggled with in my own H.

Had no idea because I had never lived around normal....I just knew that I had enough of it for one life time & if I didn't escape I was going to be the one ending my own life.

My parents swore they were wonderful parents & some day I would respect their wisdom. Sadly that never happened. As time went by it only supported my understanding of them not being wise though we included them in everything as our daughter was bonded to them as their care for her make it possible for me to finish my degree & have my computer engineering career.

What no one understood was that being nice didn't equate to being not dysfunctional in all the other areas of relationship. Just like I realized my H did things because he knew it was the right thing to do but did it without any emotional connection. My parents were the same but it's hard to judge the emotions NOT being there when someone does something NICE.

I realize just how dysfunctional I became trying to fight so hard to be nothing like my parents...didn't even realize later on (until 2years ago) that my struggle after leaving it all was not knowing what emotional connection ever felt like all my life though I realized something was missing I had no idea what it was or what it felt like until I finally escaped that life. So thankful to be surrounded by wonderful friends I can now emotionally connect with beyond just that surface level crap I experienced all my life that they all made me think was normal.

Lol...found out I wasn't as MI as my DX actually was. Much of that was depression & anxiety to the situation I was living in & had lived in ALL MY LIFE.

So true!!! My thoughts, too!

I'd like to complimetn you on your writing,Tisha. The stuntman analogy was good. Well done!

TishaBuv and eskielover - I am so glad to hear that I am not the only one. My mother does not have a diagnoses but has require one for decades. She is a negative, controlling narcissist. I have 2 siblings who took off as soon as they could (live on the other side of the world) to get away from her and I have been left to deal with her issues because of my risk averse and beaten down sense of responsibility to her. Don't get me wring, I love my mother but I resent being left to deal with her alone. To make matters worse, here are times when I hear her voice coming out of my own mouth despite a life long determination to be nothing like her. I am NOT like her but it is frightening to think that she's lurking in me somewhere.

Sula B......EXACTLY!!!! Trying so hard to be nothing like my mom, every once in awhile I heard things come out like here, but she died 11 1/2 years ago & I have been able to get rid of all the things because my environment now is so totally different than what it had been all my life.

I loved my parents (can't say the same about my H). When my depression & anxiety cropped up (situational) when I was in my mid 50's, I defended my parents as they didn't possibly do anything to create my problems. It wasn't until I left my 33 year marriage & moved so far away & got really good therapy that I have been able to start integrating the pieces & really understanding & finding the words that really explained what I had gone through.

It's really strange not having anyone alive in my life any more from my past that knew my family & the only close family I have is my own daughter. Sometimes I wonder if I'm making up what I experienced, but I know & can self-validate it with facts that I remember about my parents....but it would be nice to have someone else who knew them well enough I felt comfortable talking to about what I had experienced. Seemed that everyone ends up in denial about the bad stuff after someone dies, but it's still the stuff that had an effect growing up & needs to be dealt with or at least analyzed, integrated & let go of.

From as young as I can remember, I was grinding my teeth & talking in my sleep. Back in those days, they didn't realize that it was caused by stress. The only thing I can remember otherwise about the same time frame was how embarrassed I was to be with my parents in public. I didn't want anyone to know they were my parents & even as a 5 year old, I would walk as far away from them as possible so that no one would know I belonged to them. I can't remember back to any one thing that made me feel like that, but someone must have said something about my parents that stuck in my head along with how helpless my mom came across to me because she didn't drive & depended on everyone. She had bad eye sight, but she could see enough to read a book normally & the eye doctor told her she could see well enough to get her drivers license but she chose NOT TO & she basically trapped me inside the home without a way to participate with anything the other kids were involved in & I definitely resented her for that all my growing up life.

My parents had no friends so I had no idea what it was like to be sociable with friends.....all these things I didn't figure out until just a few years ago. Today both my Dad & my Mom would have had a Dx I'm sure but know my Dad would have never accepted it even if he had one because he would argue that things weren't what they were.

Honestly, I'm surprised that I had any normal inside of me to come out after 60 years old......it's sure nice

I was an only child & so were my parents, so I was the only one alive to take care of my mom with the cancer that ended her life. In some ways it was good, but the trauma her poor choices forced me to live through made me resent my mom at the end of her life. More like it just reinforced what I had already known about her. Wrapped up in her own concerns because of her lack of self-confidence (that she swore didn't exist) & making very poor choices in her life trying so hard to be independent though her thought processes weren't wise enough for that.

It's taken me several years after my Mom died to forgive her for what she put me through & for the PTSD her choices caused me to deal with. I can't say that I truly miss her because of the stress she created in my life (along with my Dad) but it didn't mean that I didn't love my parents.

i feel like i'm turning into my mother that i never would say or do in my life. i guess it came when i had my only son in 1991. i am bipolar with other things, but so far i think i've done a pretty good job. my son suffers from mental disorders that were probobaly passed down through genetics. it runs in the family. i know i'm to blame too. i hope and pray others will pray for my son.

I'm terrified of turning into my mother, too. I am copying her behavior regarding her anger at her men.