Childhood Anyone else already stressing about mother's day

[Klo]

For those who grew up with abusive mothers, especially if your mother is still alive.

Every year I manage to avoid any insane conflict or drama by using the grey rock method.

Last year was a little awkward but grey rock worked. My golden child brother wrote my mother a 5 page letter all about how wonderful she was and all of the special treatment she gave him, which was read aloud in front of the entire family. There was a moment of awkward silence where people tried to feel out if I was going to say anything but I didn't. I just sat there in silence trying to have all the expression of a lobotomy. Worked, the events carried on and eventually the day was over without even having to really talk with my mother at all.

This year though my mother has given me specific orders of what she wants from my brother and myself. She told me first, that she wanted flower pots full of expensive plants. I just sort of ignored her because I don't have the money for that sort of thing. So then the next day she emailed my brother telling him to get her the pots and plants. He sent me an email with a smiley face informing me that he will buy the pots and plants and then graciously allow me to have my name on the "from" tag. I decided that I'll just ignore that, too. He can do whatever he wants for mother's day.

But then yesterday I got an email from my mother informing me that she has bought me a shirt with a quote on it that basically says I am just like her. And that she wants from me for mother's day is to wear the shirt for a photo so that she can put it on facebook. So far I have not responded to the email. Don't think I will. Don't think I am going to wear that shirt, either. Turning out to be like my mother is basically one of my life long worst nightmares. Announcing it to hundreds of people on facebook in a photo for which I have to force yet another fake smile is just a no-go this year. So there will probably be some dumb drama over that.

Part of me wants to write my mother an honest mother's day card. Part of me also knows that this would just be drama-mongering unto itself at this point and doesn't want to feed the beast. I am thinking I will write it but keep it privately for myself. Just for catharsis.

Anyone else dreading mother's day up in here.

 

[FireSign8]

Yes & even though my Mother is dead, I still remember all of her "orders" & "special requests" for "her" Day. WTF...everyday was HER day & now that she is gone, I can look back proudly on those years that I refused to talk to her or any other family members until they realized that I was no long their doormat. I stood my ground for almost 8 full years with my Mother & although I did not get that apology I always hoped for, I did get her to admit to a few of her own "faults" & that helped me to lift the ton of guilt I carried around my entire life because I believed that I was responsible for her pain & horrible life.

Stupid childhood rhymes , "Step on a crack & break your Mother's back" caused me to believe that I somehow caused my Mother to have a bad back!, When, in fact, her back injuries were the cause of early childhood trauma & poor genetics. I have it & so does my daughter. Mom was hooked on prescription drugs & she was a rage-a-holic who never drank! She left that all to my Dad. She married him, divorced him, remarried him & divorced him a 2nd time & then went on to give me the "joys" of multiple husbands & endless one night stands with odd abusive men who often came into my room at night & sexually abused me.

So, I overcame my distain of Mother's Day for many years until I was attacked on May 9th, 2001 & beaten to a purple color & left with multiple broken bones & teeth. It was 2 days before Mothers Day & when my daughter came to visit me, she got to see me at my worst & insisted that I come to live with her in a safe place. We never celebrate holidays due to the simple fact that all hell seems to break loose in families who stick to "traditional" American lifestyles. I, for one don't need or want a holiday to remind me I'm special. I know I am because I got to do the one thing with my child that my own Mother never seemed to master....UNCONDITIONAL LOVE! I didn't have a child to be put on a pedestal. How I got lucky enough to have such a great kid is beyond me, so if anyone deserves to be honored, I think it is the children of abusive & confused parents who never give up on life.

 

[Deleted member 41765]

I have not spoken to my mother for twenty years. Unless you count last mothers day when I finally cracked (a few moths before she had tried to friend me on facebook...it would take days for me to explain why this is so utterly absurd) and I sent her a message via facebook messenger (equally absurd) to let her know, from my adult self, what I thought of her lack of parenting. I was called a selfish little girl. I am very far from being either.

I had made an adult ritual of doing something special for myself on this particular "Hallmark Holiday", with last year being the exception. Of course I wasn't going to get what I needed (apology?) or wanted (remorse?). I've an underlying anxiety about this year. There is now no way for her to contact me, or attempt to, and yet...

 

[amosmorris]

Big time...yes to the pre-Mother's Day stress. I am still in the throes of uncovering the full impact of my mother's choices and behaviors, and in these last weeks especially I've had some "I thought that was normal" childhood memories return in a new and messed up light...It's all been deeply destabilizing (I wrote about this on another thread re "Mother Daughter Abuse").

My mother's "thing"--among others--is the belief that she's perfect, and we were raised to help support this need-to-believe...and in fact that we are really just human examples of her (@Klo the shirt kills me...!). While I'd say that both my brother and I are detached in various ways from her, he manages to keep up appearances more than me (calling her on his way to work each morning, for example)...I can't avoid her, really, as she lives nearby and has a role in my kids' life. This is hard/tricky and getting more muddled as I've continued to uncover the stupid, deeply hurtful decisions she made as a mother. She has backed off of me on facebook since I took down a pic she put up on my page of me as a child--she did it for my "birthday" but actually three days after my birthday...really it was for attention and I just couldn't stomach it. I also couldn't stand to see my clueless child-self up there as per her representation of me--really went right through my heart.

So--what am I doing for mother's day--? I don't know. I can't sidestep physically seeing her without an all-out, full on overhaul of our entire history together...and frankly as hurt and angry as I am, I'm not even ready to deal yet. I haven't figured out yet what I want from our relationship. I don't know that I have hope for things, or that I have a sense of "need" with her. I am touch averse to her thanks to her many boundary violations throughout my development. Mostly these days I just want space. I'd like to get to a place where I feel compassion for her--no doubt my mother herself comes from an abusive context; it's not an excuse, but she is a traumatized person who never did the work. I know that will make sense to many here.

I realize I haven't offered my answers or ideas or solutions @Klo , but I hope you at least feel less alone. It's so hard, I know.

 

[The Albatross]

No not stressing... It's just a Hallmark holiday. Just a day in the other 364 that make up a year. It's what I'm doing or dealing with for the other 364 that bother me or challenge me more. Now.

 

[Crow]

My mother is dying. No idea if this is her last year. Me? I'm doing an intown retreat for myself and not driving 10 hours rt to see her. She's such a disruptive, nasty (if not evil) being, I refuse to visit.

 

[Deleted member 41765]

I realize I haven't offered my answers or ideas or solutions @Klo , but I hope you at least feel less alone. It's so hard, I know.

I don't think there are any. And I agree, it is hard, especially if you still have contact.

 

[Kintsugi]

I've been stressing about this for a couple of months. Usually, I write a letter to her designed to fulfill every fantasy she wants to indulge in about her role as a mother to me. I'm a writer; engineering exactly what an audience wants to hear isn't difficult for me. But it's always emotionally taxing. I don't know what I'm going to do.

 

[Cleopatra]

For those who grew up with abusive mothers, especially if your mother is still alive.

Every year I manage...

I never longer have contact with any of my family. I gave up on them. Mother's Day feels very sad to me because I never really had a mother, so I try to ignore it as much as possible.
Don't forget,you have choices!

 

[lawmax52]

I am not stressing this year. Last year was horrible, I was in church and when prayers were offered and mothers were mention I nearly broke in to tears. I started taking an SSRI and seeing a therapist about 2 months ago. Of course we talked about my mother, the names that she called me and other abuses that she inflicted.
Then one day I recalled hearing stories from various family members about how cruel her family was to her. I realized for the first time that she had been a victim as well as myself. What she did to me still hurts, but for the first time I felt sorry for her, I felt some warmth about her (she is now deceased).
I was thankful that I hadn't taken the same path that my mother did in passing on the torment and more than anything I am happy that I seemed to have moved past the point of hating her.

 

[Laurie2001]

Boy can I identify. Except that I had the both fortunate and unfortunate experience of my mother at times taking almost full responsibility to be totally reactive, lying, pretty insane. I care about the past, but know I have to deal with it on my own at this juncture. She's admitted enough. But there is so much replay in the now. I'm an only child. My mother lives in a nearby city. We had family sessions recently because things had gotten somewhat better and then took a downfall and I felt to continue seeing her I needed help. I had distanced myself considerably before. Let me say when both during emails and sessions she would talk about how much I'm making her physically ill and that worries her, etc. She freaked out for three family sessions in a row saying things like "what is she a gorilla" that she can't take care of me. When will it be her turn - for me to be the caretaker, etc. Let me just say my mother is resourceful, self sufficient, has started a woman's group in her complex where they all help each other out and do special things together, a meditation group, has friends and developed new ones, vacations with a very old friend of hers and looks ten years younger than she is. I would take care of her in a minute if she was sick. Things worsened between us when my father died and I started dealing with my PTSD.

My family therapist who had been great and knows my mother well was blown over by the last 3 sessions and really didn't intervene so I just sat there because I too was blown over myself - guilt is her biggest weapon and it was overall a disaster. Yet I feel (and certainly because the guilt is so overwhelming) that i must increase contact with her. The truth is, if I'm very neutral in my exchanges such as what my daughter is doing, what I did to my hair, etc. at this point she's fine. I did tell her that if she was anyone else, i.e. boyfriend, husband, this relationship would be over. So she does know she's hanging on by a shoestring.

We won't be celebrating mother's day, but she will be sleeping over after my daughter's ballet performance in a couple of weeks. This will be the anniversary of a break I had when she slept over the last time. I ultimately ended up in Shephard Pratt. At the same time I am just not strong enough to end contact all together and am hoping that if I can separate the insanity and recognize where it comes from I can put it aside. I did get her to admit that when she is angry she can be cruel. It is just that even if she does nothing I'm so susceptible to being triggered. I'm in DBT so really working not only on emotion regulation, but mindfulness big time so I can focus my attention and not ruminate.

Sorry for this long email. I wish I had a sister or brother. But I also know that doesn't solve the situation. Its very hard. It was also disappointing that I couldn't find strength during those sessions to stand up to her but even more so that my family therapist couldn't dissipate her escalation and help me.

In a lovely move, a couple of years ago, when I had distanced myself a lot and my mother was hurt and mad she bought me dishtowels for mother's day. The best was that my ten year old daughter at the time couldn't believe it. She brought it up yesterday and we joked about getting her some for mother's day this year. Then on the other hand she offered to pay for shepherd pratt if my insurance didn't cover it. So you can see the back and forth. Although know one really knows what it looks like when it is bad except the family therapist really. Everyone loves her. Just want her out of my head.

 

[amosmorris]

Have some of the same, @Laurie2001 ...my mother is an "activist" and so much is about her public persona, and that persona is as a kind of champion for her causes, as a "strong woman" (in fact people will tell me how fortunate I was to be raised by "such a strong woman"), as someone always "doing" and "helping"...I've become very disconnected and distanced from this--refusing to participate as a kind of accessory or token of all her accomplishments (my brother and I have a long history of all that with her). She did raise me for "toughness" though--and many times that meant that I suffered through many of her choices.

I can remember over my years of growing up there were little flashes or moments when someone, a guidance counselor or a friend's mom or whatever, said something to me acknowledging my mother as a problematic figure for me...but I was in no place to contend with any of it or recognize, privately or publicly, the major and deeply negative impact she had on me. By the time I got to college I had a ton of anger towards her but--even then--I couldn't fully talk about why (even inside my own mind, if that makes sense)...and so instead I just felt like a bad person (after all, who else could have such rage towards her mother?)...It actually took me until these last two years, after the loss of a friend just broke me emotionally, that the rest of the flood gates have opened. It has not been easy--to say the least. The pain she inflicted, emotionally and physically, the choices she made, the many ways she put herself and her various needs and issues first...these things run so deeply some days that I worry I won't find the bottom.

So anyway: I get the "out of my head" desire too well--and I send you much healing and some clarity. I hope we both find it and that it all makes sense and that there is some relief from all the guilt too.