Before I found The SP page, I would write all my thoughts down in my “journal”. I use the term lightly because really it was a death diary. I wrote all my reasons I cut that day or why I was feeling really down that day and since I found this website, I haven’t been writing in it. So I was going through my journal today and I read this one message I wrote a few months back and I would like to post it on here. So here it goes.
“It is summer time and my mom wanted to take a family vacation. So on July 15, me and her flew down to Florida. My father and brothers were going to fly down after one week of just my mom and me being there together for the first week. I first noticed mom not having a good time with only me with her when i asked her to go to the pool and swim at our hotel. I will admit though, that being there wasn’t the best thing so far, we changed hotels three times and it was raining for 4 out of the 7, so we could barely go to the beach and have a nice relaxing day. Me and my mom don’t get along 100% of the time i will admit that, but I was trying to make it better. I would let her decide what to do that day or i would let her choose what we were gonna have for dinner even though i din’t want that. It made her somewhat happier, but then her mood became so dark and gloomy all of a sudden. She would constantly blame me for not making the trip fun, and she would say that i was ruining everything. Today she came out of the post office all pissed off, and she took it out on me because I didn’t necessarily want to but some tacky necklace. She made us stop shopping and get in the car, where she yelled at me for not appreciating the trip enough. I tried to tell her that i was appreciative of the trip, but I couldn’t tell her why i was moody that day, because I wasn’t ready for her to know about my thoughts and actions. (the night before my knife broke and i couldn’t cut, so that was why i was in a bad mood.) In the car she made me cry my eyes out, and she didn’t even care. We drove down to the pier so she could cool off, and I walked ahead down the boardwalk, and as i leaned over the edge, there were these huge pointy rocks that the waves would crash against harshly. I thought what would she do if she saw me jump down from the ledge onto the rocks. I was standing next to the ledge when she walked by, and i turned to her to see what she looked like. Because i looked like a mess, my face was blotchy, my eyes were puffy and bloodshot and i had tears trailing down my face. When i turned around, I was honestly shocked, because her cheeks were dry and her eyes didn’t even look wet. She was perfectly fine while i was a mess on the outside and inside. I was imaging killing myself right then and there, and she walked by peacefully. She looked so calm. She looked happy.”
I never thought my mom would make me have suicidal thoughts, i never would have guessed that she made me cut as many times as I did. I thought a mom was supposed to love you for yourself and not make you feel worse than you already did. my mom makes me feel like i shouldn’t be alive sometimes. she makes me want to just drop dead. I have brothers, and i can tell she loves them more than me. Even as a young kid i knew i wasn’t the favorite or even the second favorite, To her i was just there, just another stranger she happens to know. Growing up i thought maybe her thoughts would change i mean i am the only other girl in our family of six, but i guess after 16 years of never having it, why should i have a mothers love now?
21 comments
I was raised by a narcissistic mentally ill woman. She is still that way. She is positively toxic, even 1000 miles away from her. Aside from going on vacation I could have pretty much written what you just wrote. Not to discount what you have shared with me. You are in pain and it is plain as day she is the cause.
I had to walk away, and even then I internalized this crazy selfish woman. I carry her with me to this day although most days I keep her bound and gagged int he back room of my heart.
Please keep sharing, I am listening and understand.
Hazy Day Sunflower, even though I don’t know you. I love you. you have really helped me along by replying and im forever grateful, every time i post i wait to see what people say if they have read it, and every time i see that you have posted, so thank you. I am sorry you had to walk away from your mother, just as i have to walk away from mine. I feel no one should be treated like that by their mothers but we were, most of are. But we are in this together, and i hope that if i write more you’ll be there because you’re comments really do help people, like last post when you said that douche of a best friend was the best label ever, i was in the best mood the next day and no one knew why except for me. Thank you again.
This is the sweetest thing said to me this week. Thank you.
I was raised by a compulsive abused mentally ill woman. She committed suicide in 2002. She was often a pain in the ass, but if I was 60 miles or more away from her, she would mostly leave me alone. Sometimes one or both us would be cranky or negative or judgemental and we’d have the stupidest arguments and we’d stop talking to each other for one to three months. She was a pain in the ass but usually because I worried about her and I could tell she was in decline. I was lucky in that I didn’t internalize most of her craziness.
Long after Pops, my mother’s adoptive father, died, my mom had her adoptive mother move in with us. We called her Batwoman.
Batwoman was 110% negative energy. Everything she ate was the worst tasting thing in the world. Every person on the street outside our house was a criminal. Every TV show was the worst thing she had ever seen. Every pet we owned was seconds away from developing rabies and attacking her. I would laugh and laugh at her over the top negativity. She wasn’t a real person, she was an absurd character. My poor mom took everything Batwoman said seriously. On odd days she would hate herself for not being a good daughter. On even days she would hate Batwoman for being an emotional black hole. On Christmas, in the most sublime display of absurdism I have ever seen in my life, we would sit around the dinner table and be nice to each other.
I begged Mom to put her in managed care. Mom was already not the most stable person in the wirld
Your mom is … well, there is no point in figuring out what she is, the only thing that’s important is how she affects you. You need to get as far away from her as possible. If she needs driving around or help with shopping your brothers can take care if it.
*accidental post, sorry*
Mom already wasn’t the most stable person in the world, but being around Batwoman was ripping her soul to shreads. It was impossible for her to let go. She really did think she would discover some sort of magic word to turn Batwoman into a loving mother.
After years and years and years of this weird psychodrama, Batwoman had a very small stroke. She went into managed care, announced it was the worst place she had ever seen, and died.
Mom felt like she had been released from prison! But the damage Batwoman had done to Mom’s self esteem ran deep. Sometimes Mom would be a touch hypercritical to me and she’d suddenly clench her fists and yell, “get out of my head!” I knew she was talking to Batwoman.
Your mom is … well, there is no point in figuring out what she is, the only thing that’s important is how she affects you. You need to get as far away from her as possible. If she needs driving around or help with shopping your brothers can take care of it. Find a job in another city. Make up an imaginary boyfriend who is possessive and won’t let you go visit her. Sign up for an intensive cognitive behavioral therapy program. Allow yourself to find love. Allow yourself to be loved. Get your head into a safe place where you know you are a fine daughter, at worst you are average. Accept the fact that your mother is incapable of loving you because she is a loon. Don’t let her break you like Batwoman broke my mom. Don’t carry the scars that Hazy Day Sunflower has. Be free. You deserve to be free.
I’m so sorry for you and your mom, i know its no consolation but Bat-woman, as you call her, was a terrible influence on both you and your mothers lives. I want to be there for you just as your post was for me, but im not so good at that. But when I graduate I’m leaving this hell hole and getting as far away as I can before she decides my future for me. She wants me to be in the army, but i don’t want to do that but she won’t stop she will always talk about the army, or the navy, or the air force, and im like can i live my own life please. I really wish my mother was capable of loving me but i now realize she isn’t even capable of loving my brothers, not even her husband. thank you SeeSmith for replying, everything you wrote about really hit me and most helped me, I hope you find someone to help you in life. You deserve that and so much more.
I’m fine. I’m golden. Glad to hear you are running. Glad to hear you already know she is going to try to trap you. Very glad to hear you understand this is a situation you need to extract yourself from and your reply wasn’t filled with “yes, but”s.
Oh! Dirty joke, Sarah Silverman: Yesterday I was licking jam off my boyfriend’s cock and it suddenly hit me – When did I turn into my mother!?!?
I think I work with Batwoman.
Well said SeeSmith. Toxicity spreads.
More precise than “spreads;” “infects.”
The really interesting thing is that when I am unsure if I should do a specific action I think WWMMD? (what would my mother do) and what ever the answer is, if what I am attempting is the opposite, I know I’m headed in the right direction.
See how I did that? Nothing but lemonade here folks. I’ll be here all night, tip your waiters.
I can only second what SeeSmith says. Having a mother that freaking ruined my childhood and a big part of my adult life, i can only recommend that if you can’t get along with her, you look for your own happiness away from her. If you do that you might patch things up eventually at some point in the future, because distance does help with family ties in some cases.
Heck, i barely started having a decent relationship with my mother now that i’m 33, and that’s only because i keep some distance in between and i know what to expect from her. Not that i’m the perfect son or anything but… yeah, troublemaker mom’s are something else.
I continually expect her to take the high road now that she is positively ancient. But nope, no high road for her. She will always be trapped in a petty narcissistic bubble that she manipulates to get what she needs from her family.
Heh, i hear you on that one. I stopped hoping for my mom to wise up, now i just know what to expect so i can handle the mess in a better way. In my case? try a mythomaniac woman that has ruined her life (plus a big part of mine, funnily enough not my stepsisters life) because of an affair with a married man that has lasted 27 years (he’s not married anymore, but keeps using her). She also manipulates situations in order to play the victim most of the time (which has also put me in some pretty bad situations… some of the worsts in my life, heh).
Only last year i found out that the long affair was the real reason my dad walked out on us, and she has no problem on blaming him to this day (she doesn’t know that i know)… always suspected it tho… can’t blame him if you ask me.
You ripped a page out of my life right there. Just this year my brother and I compared notes and he was floored by the disparagy between how she treated each of us. He had no idea about the batshit crazy she unleashed on me and continued to unleash by calling him and making up all kinds of crazy shit about me. I mean who fucking does that? He was furious. Now we are on the same page and he calls her out, which makes her even worse. sucks to be her.
Haha that’s pretty funny, not the situation, but the ripped page thing, because you ripped a page out of my life there. One of my stepsisters just said to me earlier this year something along the lines of “i can’t trust mom, she’s a pathological liar” (she’s 20, so it was a bit striking to hear that)… and we started talking… funniest talk ever. There were lots of made up stuff about me as well (i do suck as a son, can’t argue with that, but lying is something else completely), so i’m guessing we either have the same mother, or it’s a pretty common scenario, lol.
I don’t know, my family is pretty fucked up, there is a very good chance we have the same mother.
True story, I graduated from college with a 3.87 after switching schools a few times and switching majors. She wanted to know why I didn’t graduate from the original college I started at and why I failed.
I kinda thought having a fucked up family was a requirement to be a good psychologist, lol. I have… let’s see, a cutter sister, an anorexic sister, mythomaniac mother and aunt, another narcissistic aunt, plus a distant grandfather who’s answer to everything is a joke (seriously, even when some died he said CONGRATULATIONS to the widow). My father was one of those guys that have no drive, an atom bomb could drop and he wouldn’t move. So… yeah, we might be related! lol.
I kinda also graduated badly btw, but i studied engineering (influenced by my family… didn’t even like it). Now i’m studying psychology because in the words of my mother (not exact ones, but the general idea): “you’d be an excelent psychologist because your life has sucked pretty badly” lol.
That is awful. It cracks me up, is that wrong? Nah the narcissist runs deep in my mother, it’s like the dark force, it’s strong in her. She would never admit that it was pretty hellecious growing up with her. Just this summer in front of me and my brother (and I kid you not) she took credit for how well adjusted we both are stating it was her excellent parenting. I just kept drinking. Nothing to see here folks, no need for sobriety, I’m not driving.
Actually it cracked me up as well when she said it, lol. I almost replied “yeah you did a fine job screwing me up so i can be a great psychologist” but i just held it in and giggled for quite a while. I don’t know man, honestly, some mothers are a real ripley i can’t believe it case. Most amazing thing is the denial they live in, as in they’ll wear their N#1 MOM shirt and drink from their BEST MOM EVER cups while their children are caught in a fire inside a cage full of snakes, lions, rhinoceros and scorpions. Plus, justin biever in concert.
Not even the young Justin b but the shitty older one. Shivers…