Mother issues

--trigger warning--




I need to get this off my chest and outta my head. To compound all the cr@p my mother said to me when I was growing up, all the "what makes you think YOU'RE so special?" (her response when I said I wanted to be a writer someday) and "You'll never amount to anything" and "Get out of my face!" and talking smack about me on the phone to her friends when I could hear and demanding that my dad beat me with his belt etc etc ad nauseum....

When I was around 19 or so I think and in college I was like a lot of people that age sort of "feeling out" who I was at that point, sexually among other ways. That was the beginnings of what I finally in the last year realized was my bisexuality. Anyway I fell in love with a woman, it was a tumultuous 'affair' I guess you could say, and at the time I was very close to my brother and I told him because I just so badly needed to talk to someone about the whole thing. Well, the dope went and tattled to our parents about it. My dad was ok with the whole thing he sorta was like well you're still my daughter and I still love you.

But my mother. Oy. She wrote me this horrid, horrid 3 page letter and mailed it to me at school basically disowning me. She wrote lovely sentiments in it like "I'm glad your grandparents are dead because this would have killed them" (this was HER OWN parents she was talking about!) and "You better hope the Girl Scouts don't find out because if they do you'll never work at camp again, since you might do something to the girls there" (Knowing full well that working at girl scout camp was something that I loved so very much, I taught swimming lessons and lifeguarded and loved being outdoors) OMG can you imagine reading that letter and hearing my own MOTHER accuse me of being a child molester?! WTF? I've blocked out most of the contents of that letter, but this part came back to me this morning as the dumptruck load of realizations keeps spilling over my head and I am bawling right now. I HATE that woman. I just mentioned this to my h thinking he might console me a little and what does he say? "It's wrong to hate your mother." EXCUSE THE F ME?! And it was right for her to do what she did? I really want to talk to t but I have to go to work. I am so upset right now. Just typing this out though has made the hurt a little less though already.

When I was seeing t1 for a short time, I did try to confront my mother about the letter and she sat there and bold-faced DENIED ever writing it. As if. I know your handwriting, you coward. I don't have it anymore, as I burned it the day I received it, but apparently the contents are seared in my memory somewhere as I have been recalling pieces of it this morning. Anyway I never mentioned it to her again.

Any suggestions on how to close up this stupid dumptruck that won't stop emptying $#^% all over my brain? Where did all my progress go? Why am I feeling like trash somebody took out to the curb right now? Why do I need my t so much it hurts? BAH!!! And ACK!!!! And I wish I could just go back to bed an pull the covers over my head. Thank you for listening if anybody got this far. Sorry to be a downer this morning. I really needed to get this out of my head in the worst way.

What a horrible thing for a mother to do. I am sorry Art- I wish I had some words of wisdom, but I don't. Hang in there.

Comments like that from people like that should be used as fuel to accomplish exactly what they said you cant. People reap what they sow... you can hate your mother, just because he doesn't hate his or feels like its a wrong thing to do , doesn't make it so. You each had 2 different mothers and 2 different relationships and experiences. I have no idea how to close this wound, but know you are not alone.

I'm sorry you are feelings these things and your husband dismissed them. I know exactly what you're going through with your mother, and memories, and your husband.

I wish I could say something to help but I struggle with dealing with bad memories myself so the best I can do is give you and say to try to think of the happy memories from working at camp. Thinking of happy memories usually does it for me.

I don't know anything that will help. The therapist has asked talked about how I still let my mother discipline me. And my mother is dead.

I get this, we still carry around the voices that told us no and called us bad.

I don't know that my mother was wrong about how odd and different she thought I was. It did not change how I think or much of how I acted, but she could have been right about me. I both hear her and I miss her.

I am so sorry, Art. I feel for you. I have a very similar mother and my husband will go to any length to avoid conflict and will not take my side even against my lunatic mother.

I feel for you and it angers me so much when parents bully their children in such ways... My mother has repeatedly done and said similar things, and every time I tried to confront her, she would deny everything and call me a drama queen etc etc. Unfortunately, I don't have any words of wisdom or comfort for you, but I think that by gaining confidence and learning to give ourselves the worth and acceptance we didn't receive while growing up, these voices will fade over the time. They will never go away, but I hope that we will learn how to tame them.. Hopefully..

Hi Artemis, sorry that you had a mom like that. Dealing with this stuff is progress actually. I don't think that there is any easy way to deal with it. I think that you feel like that ^ because this is how anyone would feel whose mother treated them like that. You are reacting pretty normally to a bad situation. You are not being a downer. You are dealing with something bad that happened to you.

I am really sorry that your mother did this to you. It is terrible that you had to suffer from that kind of response/abuse from your mother because of your sexuality.

I have felt like this many times about issues-- I get really symptomatic-- for me it is usually PTSD symptoms, which are not really different than what you describe-- about stuff that I feel I've resolved, or at least made progress in resolving. My T has consistently said that it can actually BE progress to struggle with stuff again. So I guess I would repeat that to you. There is no reason to assume that this stuff emerging for you is a lack of progress as opposed to a message that there is a reason for you to look at this again. For myself, if I get the reason why the symptoms are rising up again, I see that I am dealing with the old issue in a new way.

Thank you so much everyone. There is SO much wisdom here on PC. I did some really good writing at work today because things were very slow again and have put some things together to talk with t about on Sunday. Thank you all again it means a lot that we can all share like this. A LOT.

Glad you were able to get some writing done. It really helps. Hugs.