[Fiend]

I am a much more private person than my mother, and throughout my life she has had a bit of a problem respecting the fact that I don't want the entire world to know the details of my personal life. As a child, I caught her discussing my private issues with friends and relatives multiple times even after I specifically asked her not to. Still, I was a child and I can understand how the lines between my personal life and her personal life might have been a bit blurry in her mind. I implicitly trusted that she would respect my privacy as an adult.

In January, an MRI scan found a benign tumor on one of my kidneys. My primary care physician initially sent me to a surgeon, and while I was waiting for the day of my consultation to arrive, I told my mother not to tell anyone about the situation. I received a call from my aunt, who wanted to talk to me about her personal experiences with tumors and fibroids, literally the next day. After that phone call, I spoke to my mother again and made it very clear that I didn't want her to discuss my medical issues any further with ANYONE, asked her not to bring up the subject to my aunt again, and if directly asked about it, to tell my aunt that the surgeon decided to just keep an eye on the tumor and not take any action, no matter what the actual outcome of my appointment was. She agreed. It was definitely a very calm conversation and I came away from it thinking that perhaps I just hadn't been clear enough about my expectations in the beginning.

Long story short, I didn't need surgery, but rather an outpatient procedure called an arterial embolization. I scheduled the procedure for the end of March, got sick with a nasty cold a few days before the appointment, and had to reschedule the appointment for last Thursday.

At Easter dinner at my parents' house, a family friend came up to me and told me she would be thinking about me on Thursday. At first, this statement didn't click with me. She then asked me to let her know what time the procedure was scheduled for so that she could do meditations and chant mantras for me while I was under anesthesia, and that's when I realized that not only had my mother revealed my medical information to friends/relatives after I asked her not to, she was obviously keeping everyone up to date on new developments, since last Thursday's appointment was very recently scheduled. To top it off, my aunt called me the day after my procedure to ask me how it went, so she was obviously kept in the loop as well.

I have no idea who/how many people my mother has been discussing my personal issues with, but I really don't want anything like this to happen again. I only told a handful of people about my medical issue - my husband (of course), parents (my father is a doctor and very good about confidentiality, so I highly doubt he was the one who told my aunt or our family friend), a few of my in-laws, and my boss. My mother is the only person who went behind my back and disrespected my privacy. I don't know what to do - on one hand, she's my mother, and I love her, and I feel like I should give her one last chance (the next time something like this comes up in the future). On the other hand, she repeatedly betrayed my trust over the last few months, (in addition to lacking discretion at many other points throughout my life), even though I made my expectations very clear to her.

Should I sit her down and have one last very clear, direct conversation with her about this, letting her know that when I say "don't tell anyone", I mean not a single solitary human being on the face of the earth? I'm just not sure how much good it would do, and I'm afraid of getting burned again. I don't know how to be any more straightforward than I already have been.

Should I take the chance that next time she tells someone something that I don't want anyone to know about, the repercussions are going to be more serious than an awkward, overly personal unexpected conversation with an acquaintance that I'm not comfortable having?

Should I just cut my losses and take her out of the loop when it comes to personal issues that I don't want everyone to know about?

[ChipperMonkey]

You've set your boundary and she did not abide by it. Chances are she won't get it the second time around, either. Its consequence time, so yes I'd say cut her out of the information loop. She's been doing this her whole life, so the likelihood of her changing now is about nil.

[Keyslost]

Hello Fiend, wow does his sound familiar (even to the part of it being an aunt!) While it's not the worst thing in the world imo you totally have the right to sit down with your mom and discuss it. I've been there repeated myself over and over, now this is personal mom. But time and time again when I mess up the whoooole family knows about it the day after. This can have serious consequences on your self-esteem. So it's really up to you if you want to talk 1 on 1 I see nothing wrong with it. Good news- generally when you do that it does work then they know you're serious and it really hurts. Bad news? - it may not. In which case you may need to talk more. Feel free to keep posting or msg me if needed . As for that last part keeping her out of the loop should be last resort imo. If you really can't take it anymore talk ONLY to someone you trust and feel safe with. Then when ready open up again slowly. It worked really well for my sis and I use it every now and then. Hope this helps!