[CosmicRose]

I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at age 13 after years of abuse from my mother. I have carried this anxiety disorder with me even at my age of 22. It has created so much anxiety in my life and has held me back from accomplishing certain goals.
It might sound like I'm just blaming her for my own failings, but I know the emotional and mental pain she has caused me for years. She left when I turned 14 for another man, it was a very messy divorce and she was extremely inappropriate and crude. She was also an alcoholic and I believe she has a mental illness, either bipolar or narcissism.

She refuses to acknowledge any harm that she has caused me, yet she now expects us to have a relationship and she expects me to be nice to her. She cries on the phone to me about how mean I am to her, and I just roll my eyes.

After everything she has done to me and my family, she has the nerve to play the victim? Now every time her birthday rolls around, or mother's day, I feel like I HAVE to do something for her but I usually don't. Every time I talk to her she tries to pull a guilt trip on me even though she was the one who is a deadbeat mother.
I hold a lot of resentment because of her and it just makes it worse that she still doesn't get it.

My anxiety from my childhood has plagued me for so long. I just wish I was normal. It's even affected my jobs. I have an unhealthy fear of authority figures like bosses and I spend so much energy just trying not to have a panic attack at work.
It's ruined my relationships, with men and with friendships. I don't trust female friends, and I push away boyfriends until I eventually break up with them for no good reason.
Until I'm all alone and no one else can hurt me - except me, alone with my thoughts and my bitter feelings of abandonment and constant anxiety.

I shake sometimes, I grind my teeth in my sleep, I get flustered easily, I get paranoid, my heart pounds in my chest, I barely manage to hold down a job, I have no deep relationships, I always imagine the worst case scenarios, it feels like my flight or fight response is constantly running.

I've tried therapy - they don't help me, they barely even know what to say to me.
I've tried medications - they don't help either, I don't even notice a change, I might as well be taking a sugar pill.
I don't know what to do.
Meditation seems to help and other things like yoga but this problem just keeps on popping up.

I feel like my mother killed who I could have been.

[toolman65]

Have you considered Al Anon? Not just because your mother is an alcoholic, but because i believe the 12 steps may help you. Attending a speaker meeting may help you to see that you are not alone. Totally anonymous, so no worries of getting hurt.

what have you got to lose?

[AzulOscuro]

In the end, you will have to forgive her for your own welgoing.
Consider one thing, it's clear that you haven't got a good mum but she also struggles with her issues. She sounds as a manipulative person but perhaps she does it unconsciously.
I don't know if you have already done it but you need a long and honest conversation with her. You have to tell her the things that hurt you and how she has been in the past with you. Tell her that you need a different mum and that she has to learn from her faults.
Two things can happen. She doesn't show herself open to you're remarks. In that case, you will have to go on with your life as far as possible from her. But, you have done what you had to do, talk openly with her and perhaps, this can help you to forgive her.
The other possibility is that she shows you with an open mind and you both can begin a new relation. Good for both.

I did this with my dad and now we have a good comunication.

Luck!

[Jan1212]

I hate my mom for years of emotional abuse, not allowing me To have friends, telling me not to try because I'll fail, comparing me to siblings, growing up believing I'm a low life, not worth it, I eat scrap, my bro got rides to school but I had to take the bus or walk. I had to lend my car to my sister and missed work. She doesn't make any sense. I hate her for doing to me, a huge part of what I had become. First chance I got to move out, to get away for just a couple days, what a relief.

I've got mixed feelings. I am resentful, but I thought I forgave her, I though I separated her from her illness, but I can't forget. I know she loves me, i know she didn't want this. I took steps to independence but things aren't going so well for me. I jut keep my distance, and think about ways to make me better

I agree with AzulOscuro.
Sometimes things need to be said even though the words might not change the other person.
It's a kind of catharsis.

Possibly you're just venting and if you are I apologize.

[gloamingone]

I guess I'm kind of lucky in that my mother finally recognized that she abused me. It made things a bit easier.

But even before that, I learned to forgive her. Not for her sake, but my own. It took time--it wasn't until I was about 25. Then at 39 I cut off contact with her. This was a year ago. We recently started talking again, but I REALLY have to enforce strict boundaries with her.

As for therapy not working, it took me 15 years to find a good T! Sad, I know. Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) has been very helpful. :-)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ChipperMonkey]

You'll feel a MILLION times better if you go NC. Of course, sudden unexpected contact can cause major spikes in symptoms, but overall you will feel much better. I kicked my mom out of my life and I am doing SO much better.....well, WAS until I had unexpected contact (not my doing). Now I'm trying to come down from that spike in symptoms.

I like who I am without my mom in my life. I never could say that before.

Forgiveness is up to you. I don't forgive those who don't ask for it. My mom was never sorry, so she is simply gone. I don't have time or patience for people who do me wrong with no remorse. If a guy came up to me on the street and sucker punched me, refusing to say he's sorry, would I want him in my life? Heck no! The only reason I was keeping my mother around was because she gave birth to me? Not a good enough of a reason.

[AzulOscuro]

What's NC?
Congratulations for your recovering. Perhaps, it's not as much forgiveness as understanding. I think people have to understand why something bad happen to them bc many times they blame themselves for a bad experience.

I go on thinking that the OP needs a conversation with his/her mum.

[mountain human]

Originally Posted by AzulOscuro

What's NC?
Congratulations for your recovering. Perhaps, it's not as much forgiveness as understanding. I think people have to understand why something bad happen to them bc many times they blame themselves for a bad experience.

I go on thinking that the OP needs a conversation with his/her mum.

Sometimes trying to work on a relationship with a sick person ends up undermining our own recovery efforts. We mostly all want a normal parental relationship, and giving up on that fantasy is very hard, I know. We have to be certain of our own strengths before we wander recklessly in that minefield of family dysfunction!

[CosmicRose]

NC means No Contact.
Thank you Chipper Monkey, I agree with the whole not-forgiving if someone isn't sorry. I also agree that forgiveness should be for yourself and not the other person but, when someone is just totally not sorry (and in my mother's case, shifts the blame onto me) so not only is she not sorry, she thinks I'm at fault....
yeah I just can't forgive her right now...if I forgive her it would almost feel like a betrayal for me, like a get-out-of-jail-free card for her.
I don't have any contact with her right now. I've gone years without speaking to her, and it's been about 3 months since the last time we spoke. It doesn't bother me, my life feels better without having to listen to her twisted way of thinking.

I do worry if I'll ever need to call her in case of emergencies or needing some sort of advice financially or whatever else...the thought of ever calling her asking for help just makes me want to throw up...because she soaks that up and throws it back in my face like "See, you DO need me, you can't be successful without me in your life!" and I can just imagine that narcissistic smirk that she would often have whenever she was being condescending.

Edit - I have had countless conversations with her, I've tried every technique imaginable, from being as calm and polite as possible, to being very direct and matter-of-fact with her. It's always the same outcome no matter what - she denies, denies, denies. It ends up becoming a screaming match or until one of us hangs up on the other. One time I was crying on the phone to her, and I heard silence on the other end so I thought she was finally listening, but I realized she had hung up already and didn't hear anything I was saying. Her ability to deny and switch things around is phenomenal.

Her favorite phrase to use in these conversations is, "I don't remember that ever happening." or "You're lying!" or "I never did that."
It makes me question my own sanity - which is a technique narcissists use called "Gaslighting".

And because I would often fight back against her abuse, she says I was a "brat". A brat for standing up to her abuse. One time I made the mistake of sarcastically saying "Gee, I'm sorry I was a brat" and she said "That's a step forward, thank you." It made my blood boil. She basically tricked me into apologizing when she never once apologized to me.
She will also say, "I have apologized to you." and I'll search my memory for a time when she ever apologized, I can't find it. I guess it's easier for her to say she already apologized without actually having to apologize.

[AzulOscuro]

Mountain, it took me a pile of years to get the strenght to face to my father, so I think you're right.