I cant do this anymore

I know this is a book but I really need help and I just cant do it anymore, sorry in advance. Keep in mind that I am a 17 year old male and I am writing this over college apps due to the effects this all has on me. Ever since I was a kid, my mom has been a verbally aggressive person. She never did anything more than the typical spanking as a child. As I have gotten older, I have begun to notice her demeanor and how she acts around certain people. Over the course of the last 7 years, I have seen the absolute worst. About 7 years ago, something happened with our landlord. A garage door or something broke and was released on my mom’s car. There wasn’t really any damage other than the garage door. The landlord was saying that we had to pay for it and they went to court and everything and as far as I know, they lost. I never heard what happened with that but ever since around that time, my mom just completely tore into my dad. She was so disrespectful and just cruel. I have never wanted my parents to actually be divorced before but this was serious. Looking back, I didn’t realize it at the time but I was depressed socially and at home. I dreaded going home after school and on the weekends because there was just this constant hostility coming from my mom to my dad and inadvertently on my sister and me. There would be periods of time in the car where my sister and I would just be crying so hard when my mom was attacking my dad for not making enough money or not doing enough around the house or whatever it was and she would not care at all. One time she dug through the trash in his car and found a napkin with something red on it and asked very aggressively “whose red lipstick is this because I don’t wear it” when it was literally just some food that had red dye in it. She memorized what position the vents were in in the passenger seat and got mad and accused him of having someone else in the car that moved them. One of the times I remember, I happened to be in the passenger seat before she was and remembered moving the vent or shutting it because I was cold. The next time she got in the car she kept asking him who shut it until I had to say that it was me. She didn’t stop there though and went on another rant about how horrible everything is. Another time we were somewhere in a downtown area and she started on him again for whatever insignificant thing it was and she told him that she wanted a divorce and told him to stop the car. He didn’t until we got to a red light and she unlocked and opened her door and told my sister to get out and opened her door and started pulling her out (not aggressively) and that I can pick whether or not I wanted to stay with him or her. I was about 11 and she wanted me to pick which parent I wanted to live with. I don’t understand that at all. He just told her to please get back in the car and when the light turned green and cars started moving she finally did. This kind of behavior went on for about a year straight and I don’t really remember ever being happy that year or much of anything really. I do remember that Christmas though. I was about 11 or 12 I believe and my sister and I were going to come downstairs but they told us to stay up there until they said we could come down. So we did. We sat in one of the rooms together and heard my mom getting on my dad’s case about everything. He asked her a question about the video camera they use to record our reaction or something similar that was completely irrelevant to her answer that was very in a very harsh tone. “This is about the kids not about you *insert my dad’s name*”. Me and my sister cried upstairs because of the other stuff she said that I don’t really remember much of. He was shaking that entire day because of my mom. Every time my sister or I brought it up he told us to stop talking about it. I’m not sure what happened but everything kind of calmed down, at least compared to what it had been before. Fast forward about 5 years where I was a freshman in high school going into my 2nd semester and similar stuff started up again. It only lasted for a little less than a month but it was still traumatic for me. She would tell him stuff about how he’s a failure and doesn’t make enough money and stuff. At one point she turned back at me and told me to never go into what he does because there is no money in it and that I should never be like my dad. Again, she said “Don’t be like your dad””. The guy who I wish had been home instead of her, the guy that I kept as my favorite deep down so no one would know. The most respectful human on the planet I know. I shouldn’t be like him all because he doesn’t make enough money to keep her happy. She gets easily jealous of any friend I have that happen to be rich relative to us and makes jokes about me exploiting them to get things out of them but that’s another issue for another day. One of the times I got into trouble for whatever small thing it was and she went and told my dad and he came to my room and started asking me stuff about it but what he was saying was actually untrue and invented. I would tell him “that’s not what happened” or something similar and my mom would hear and come to my room and stand next to him and accuse me of things I didn’t do or extensively exaggerate what had happened in order to make it worse. After that I was in my room thinking and realized that there was a trend. That she has done that ever since I was a kid. There are countless moments I remember telling him that it isn’t what happened or how something happened but because I’m the kid and she’s an adult, they are right no matter what. And I mean im a kid so OF COURSE I would dispute it. Lol. I honestly think she could tell my dad that I punched her and he would believe it. Over the last few years I have noticed my mom to turn on me more and less on my dad. Still definitely on my dad but now also towards me. They held me back a lot socially because I would ask if I could do something and my mom would say no before my dad even got in a word edgewise. Whenever it involved one of my friends driving it was an automatic no from her. She has a bad paranoia of cars. She got in a wreck in her 20s when someone rear ended her at a red light while she had already been stopped for a while. She complained of her neck hurting but nothing became of it (this was back in the 90s so im assuming tech wasn’t around to figure it out). But basically over time it has gotten worse with age. Something happened with her neck and she has a dislodged or swollen disc or something but anyway she gets really bad neck pain every now and then from it and cant mover her head very fast or sharply because of it. She literally screams 8.5/10 times a car passes us on the road, whether or not she is driving. Her sudden and excessive reaction where she hurts her arms and hands hitting the car when another car gets nearer has caused more dangerous driving conditions and potential wrecks more than the other cars she is terrified of. I did not learn to drive from her because every time I was in the car she would terrify me by slamming her hand on the dash or the door or yelling when a car came near. She was extra scared due to the fact she doesn’t think im capable of driving so she rarely lets me drive when she is in the car (I think it has happened once or twice and ive had my license for almost a year and my permit for 2 years).
Alright so that was the background here is the problem that is negatively affecting me, my family and my girlfriend and my girlfriend’s family currently. About 9 months ago I started going out with my first serious girlfriend. Around the same time, I found out that my best friend for 2 years had been messing with my friends (who were also his friends) who were girls and being a jerk to them. He knew one of them had a crush on him and basically he used her a lot. But I later found out from that friend that he had been saying stuff to her about me about how I was annoying and stupid and he really hated being around me. Before she ever said anything to me, I had been growing more irritated with him as we sat at a lunch table with some of our other friends together and he would pick apart and make a joke from almost everything I said and get other people to laugh. After I talked to my friend, I talked to other friends who had been at that lunch table and they agreed and had begun to notice what he was doing but said that it didn’t seem to affect me so they didn’t want to say anything and affect me and his friendships. After finding out this information from my friend and then also from another girl who told me the same thing, who was relatively new and didn’t know my other friend, In January I texted him and nicely asked about all of it and he got defensive and when I asked him about disrespectful comments he had made to girls, publicly and privately I might add, he told me to grow up. So after a little more back in forth I told him “good talk” and I haven’t spoken to him since. It was a huge weight off of my shoulders after that because he stopped picking at me. Well the reason why that is relevant is because at the same time this happened, my girlfriend came into the picture who had been somewhat involved and my mom blames her for losing my best friend. She truly thinks that despite me telling her everything he had done and about the conversation and then taking my phone and reading every text I had, she still wrongly blamed her. Me and my friend had kind of been the back bone of our friend group so it slowly disintegrated and fell apart and we stopped hanging out. My mom 110% blamed that on my girlfriend and said that shes trying to drive everyone out of my of life so she can have me all to herself. I don’t know where m mom invents this stuff but that’s what she thinks. As time has gone on, me and my gf got closer and everything and then my parents met theirs and it was all okay. My parents have a huge problem with planning and keeping the plans they make and when I have to run my entire life through them I makes it really hard for me and makes me look bad. So I will always ask them if I can do something, whether it be with my girlfriend or an attempt to get my friends back together, and they wont tell me until the night before because “they never know what is going on” or they will tell me yes earlier in the week and then tell me the night before that I cant because they “said so” or they’ll change everything about the plan I gave them and I don’t get a say. I will ask to go to x place between 12 and 5 and they will come back and tell me “no youre going to y place between 5 and 8”. (I cant ever be out past 8pm (IM 17 and will be at college in less than a year) bc they are afraid of driving of me and themselves driving in the dark). This creates problems with my girlfriend who dealt with it for a really long time and the both of us started getting fed up due to the fact that we could be using our time more wisely instead of waiting around for a forced cancelation or a complete change in plans less than 24 hours before it happens. Her parents have been more than generous on the subject although sometimes expressing their frustration. She was irritated one time that my parents had changed plans last minute again and my mom happened to be the one picking her up. My girlfriend got a phone call from her mom who, according to my mom, sounded mad and irritated. My mom decided to turn around and drive her back home despite my girlfriend telling her everything was fine and that she didn’t need to. We got to her house and her mom asked my mom if she could come in and my mom said “yeah” almost as if she were excited and then my gf’s mom asked her why they always change plans and make them last minute because it affects how they have to live their lives and how my girlfriend has to manage hers. My mom just acted confused and then tells her mom my gfs deepest secrets that she happened to read after going through several 100 if not several 1000s of texts. Not because she wanted her parents to know but because she wanted my girlfriend to be in trouble so she could take her away from me somehow. If my gf’s parents have to pick her up bc my parents refuse to drive her home or because what is going on gets changed so my gf’s parents cant leave and go where they had originally planned to go because they have to meet my parents desires, it creates many issues. Also with them being in their 50s, they aren’t used to having their lives controlled like that. They absolutely adore me and want me and my gf to be together and do this specifically because they like me that much, any other family or girlfriend would have been out at the beginning. My mom happened to find certain texts she didn’t like when she took my phone and read every text I had after I cut my best friend off and used it to shape my girlfrend’s entire morale and personality and refused to change. She wants to have a reason to despise her and she is very open about it. I will be up in my room crying after my mom tells me how terrible she is and everything and accuses her and her family of baseless and untrue things and she will wait a minute or two and then follow me upstairs and start yelling at me while im in my bed crying. My dad eventually comes up and asks whats going on and my mom tells him that im being a child and that im being a drama queen when shes the one yelling at me in the first place after I had walked away. Then my dad gets on to me for upsetting my mom because he has learned that if he doesn’t take her side then hes going to end up in my situation. He sometimes asks me whats wrong and my answer always makes my mom explode and storm around the house and slam her bedroom door. Then afterwards my dad will leave and I can hear her yelling at him in another room behind 2 shut doors on an entirely different floor of the house. This is only one of the many many times this has happened. She will invent a reason to despise my gf and her parents (especially her mom because of the whole issue when she called her inside and asked why my parents do what they do) and then yell at me or my dad for it. After about 10 months of this kinda of thing and an exponential increase in its severity, we finally go to a counselor but then they never let me talk and just describe how awful they think my girlfriend is and how shes ruining my life and then they started crying and asked me if I was going to run away with her when I turned 18 out of the blue. When I heard that I was severely confused because there was absolutely no discussion of that they could have read nor a thought about that happening. Me anf my gf are both going to college and getting jobs and after that, we don’t know, maybe marriage maybe not but that was a ridiculous question to ask. The same day I was doing test corrections after school, which I had told her about but she got irritated that I didn’t answer her text and when I got in the car she started yelling at me and asking where I was and then started telling me how ungrateful and disrespectful I am, then we got into an argument and everything and then afterwards I decided to write down what had happened to tell my counselor and then she aggressively grabbed my phone, gritted her teeth and tried to force it out of my hand while I was typing. I pulled away and asked why, She reached for it again and said that because im telling my gf everything that happened and that I need to stop talking to her and so I showed her what I was doing and told her and she got irritated but gave up. Now, today, the last straw which is why im on here in the first place. It was raining realy hard in our area and thundering and lightening and a tornado watch (which I later found out that my mom knew all of this). My gf drove to school today but she parks at her work which is across the street that is also on the way to my house, we got up to the car and I said bye to her and I got in and then my mom gave me the evil eye and then stared at my gf while I got in. My gf didn’t look because she knows how my mom thinks of her and its detrimental on both of us and my mom drove off angry and before we left the parking ot (aka we could still pick my gf up and take her to her car) I said that I I was sad that my mom wont give my gf a ride because of all the bitterness that is going on and my mom then again blamed my girlfriend and avoided the question about whether or not she would have given her a ride if my gf had asked. My gf’s parents ask me if I want a ride home, which is out of their way, on sunny days “so my parents don’t have tom come all the way up here when they are already here”. My mom wouldn’t even drive 200 yards to get Milanna safely to her car in a tornado watch and lightning. I don’t care what you think of a person but that is just cruel. Then as we got home my mom told me how my gf walking out there in the first place was to try and prove some point that she couldn’t name to my mom and be disrespectful and defiant. I then asked her why she thinks my gf is always out to destroy her and she said in a very condescending tone “oh honey, she couldn’t destroy me if she tried” and then I said “okay fine, why do you think she is always plotting against you” and the only answer she could give is “because she is and wants you all to heself” Ive left out a lot of the parts where I have missed school bc I was in the nurse having my heart checked because I had what the nurse thought was a small anxiety attack, ruined occasions because of my mom along with the fact that my mom sucks the light out of my life and drags me and everyone else down when something doesn’t go her way and makes me cry for hours over the course of several days, which is not a new trend by the way. Along with my girlfriend having breathing problems and heart burn and crying for hours on end because of my mom and how no one can understand why my mom is the way she is. There is just too much that my mom has done for me to say and this would end up as long as an encyclopedia. Ultimately, my mom is very cruel and aggressive towards my entire family, my sister agrees, anyone who has ever met her agrees, she has no friends and she controls my dad and makes him support her and do everything for her. There have been 3 separate times over the course of the last 7 years where I have wanted to talk to my dad about getting her help but it never happened so im taking matters into my own hands because the health issues that im having due to her are not okay. I love my girlfriend more than anything and she loves me so we have endured this for 8 months because we love each other. I could get into how much we love each other but there are neither words that are complex enough nor words that could describe how much. Breaking up was never an option but my gf is afraid she will have to for her own health because it severely takes a toll on her and all of us almost daily. At some points I have had thoughts about jumping out of my window when things got really bad just so my parents and my mom would realize what they were doing to me but I realized that if I break my legs I cant get away from them. That thought scared me and I after some digging I figured out that my gf is starting to have similar thoughts. I have tried to talk to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline but I waited for hours and never got connected and eventually gave up after several tries. I Have wanted to talk to my school counselor but I don’t want word to spread at my school about anything and the counselor we go to, I never get to talk and then afterwards my mom tells me how they don’t have the money for it and makes me feel bad. I just don’t know what to do anymore and I constantly feel depressed at home. Ive tried to fix things with my mom but I really just want to tell her that I love and her and then never see her again. Please help me, im terrified ill lose the person I love most over this and be stuck with my parents and how they are forever. On another note, I did research and her symptoms are pretty much identical to a person with Paranoid Personality Disorder. Mental and control issues are sort of a trend among her siblings so it would make sense. Please for the love of God help me.

Hello meerkat: I'm sorry you & your gf are having such a difficult time. From what you wrote, it sounds as though you both are struggling mightily under the weight of your mother's behavior. It's so unfortunate that you tried calling the suicide prevention line & were left hanging on-hold until you finally gave up.

I can't tell you what's going on with your mom, of course. That's something that would need to be determined by a mental health professional. And it doesn't sound like there's any chance your mom is going to seek professional mental health services for herself. So the reality of your situation may well be that things just are not going to change much in the foreseeable future.

You mentioned both you & your gf will be going to college soon. I don't recall you mentioning if either or both of you plan to live at home or if you'll be living at school. I recall, many years ago, I lived at home for the first couple of years I was in college. I then moved into a dorm at school & for me it was a breath of fresh air. The reality here may be that you & your gf are simply going to have to tough this situation out until you can get away from your parents' home.

Some couples counseling might be beneficial for the two of you if you could arrange it. But, of course, there would have to be some way to pay for it. I presume your parents would not. If your gf's parents are financially well-off, might they consider doing so? Of course where you live also makes a big difference. If you live in a metropolitan area there are likely to be a wider variety of services available. In a more metropolitan area, you might be able to locate some counseling services that are geared toward teens. If your area is more rural, your options are going to be significantly more limited.

I wish I had some more specific suggestions to offer you. There are other hotlines you might consider trying. Here's a link to PsychCentral's hotline list:

https://psychcentral.com/lib/common-...phone-numbers/

And then continuing to post, here on PC, can help too. I wish you both the best.

It is an extremely difficult struggle and I am starting to notice the actual irritation and annoyance in my moms eyes everything my gf gets brought up. It is like her existence angers her and its very upsetting considering this girl and I would love to be long term if possible but if things do end up working out later on in life and we get married several years from now then I don't want her to be miserable when my mom is around or anything. I also would strongly much rather prefer to not be close enough to live at home or even be able to take a day trip because I'm sure they will show up unannounced and create a whole other realm of issues. Hopefully we will be away from them sooner than later. There are counseling services in my area but the downside is that it both looks bad for a teenage couple to be attending relationship counseling and my parents barely let me out of the house as it is so I'm sure they certainly wouldn't want me to try to help a relationship they do not like. Besides neither of us have the spare funds anyway and around here it gets expensive very quickly and with college coming up for their daughter, they may not have the funds to spare. We have considered school counseling but don't see it as beneficial. School counselors where I live are rarely actually used for counseling students and more for college questions and such, which is very unfortunate but it is the way it is I guess. We may still go. Not 100% sure.

Well at least ubare about to be 18.sounds like your gf and her family are great people..well after u are an adult stand ur ground.always let ur mom know u do love her.but let her know u are a man that will defend the woman he loves.after u are not there living and u go visit.and lets say ur mom starts on anything with ur girlfriend..nicely say to please dont talk about her..and if she does keep going..just nicely leave..then call or text her let her know u love her but u will not tolerate the woman u love being talked badly about..just tell her let u visit and dont bring her up or everytime u will leave..and commit to this..each time put a little more distance first time maybe a week of ignoring 2nd maybe 2 weeks..and so on..maybe your mom will eventually catch on.
My husbands mom is kinda the dame exact way to me for no reason.my husband doesnt really talk to her much because she likes to control my 34 yr old husband and his kids until me he let her comtrol him and his kid's..she easily manipulated him..stand ur ground now cuz when u have kids it wont end with u..there are some serious mental issues my mother in law is diagnosed with..she makes stuff up on me..i even took a polygraph test 4 times and passed..yes on a talk show too..my husband was a teen who had play in the yard and ldnt go anywhere unless she was there ..ill have to keep up on ur post and let u know more..best of luck