Lost

Don’t know if you’ll come back and see this, but in my opinion your mother is incredibly self-centered and selfish, and much of your trouble comes from growing up with a parent who was oblivious to your emotional needs. Just because your parents feed you and give you a place to live and don’t actually *hit* you doesn’t make them good parents. The fact that she’s more concerned about other people’s opinions of *her* than of your need to be loved and appreciated shows that she’s – well, not a good parent.

Sorry, it may suck to hear that if you’ve never really thought in those terms. I’ve found the only thing that even *began* to break me out of a lifetime of depressive thoughts was to start getting really angry with my parents for how they treated me. It doesn’t have to be blatant for it to be quite damaging, especially if you’re a sensitive person at all In fact, the more subtle emotional stuff – passive-aggressive bullying, neglect – can be the *most* damaging because it’s so hard to name and get anybody to believe it even happened. If someone punches you, it leaves a bruise that others can see; but emotional damage is often invisible to others.

Also, as you said, people like your mom are so concerned about their appearance to others that no one believes you if you try to talk about it – they’ve never seen this side of her, because she’s made such an effort to look good to them. Which makes it even more crazy-making and impossible to deal with.

People are a bit like herd animals this way – they’ll tend to shut out anyone who’s been deemed an ‘outsider’ and sort of gang up on that person. It’s called bullying, and it can be incredibly vicious, cruel and heartless. Another name for it is ‘scapegoating’. If you feel like you often got picked on for no reason at all in ways that your brothers and sisters didn’t, you were probably the family scapegoat.

And there’s no reason for it – it’s not *your* fault, it’s that in a power-based family, somebody always has to be the ‘dog’ in the never-ending chain of having somebody to take it out on.

Sometimes the only way out is to just stay the heck away from people who treat you like that, be fierce about never letting anyone treat you that way. Do everything you possibly can to *only* be around people who make you feel GOOD about yourself.

Also if you can find someone – a friend, a shrink, the pastor at your church, some kind of counselor – who can help you begin to talk about how the way your mom treats you has affected you, maybe you can begin to break the spell she’s put on you. Because make no mistake, it’s a power trip, and a horrible abuse of power for a parent to pull this crap on a child, of whatever age. The parent *always* has the upper hand in the relationship because, for so many years, you were completely dependent on that person. It’s not something you can rationalize away.

Your mom’s tactics are all about shaming, making you feel bad about yourself, and this is powerful stuff. We all *need* our parents’ approval and support, as much as we need food, air and water. It’s not optional.

To discover that a parent has been feeding you the emotional equivalent of arsenic is – well, usually painful, hard to face, difficult, scary, and most of all, anger-provoking. There may be sadness about that, or rage, but I think the main thing is to begin to feel what you really feel about her, and find someplace safe to express those feelings with someone who accepts what you say as your true, real experience.

Sorry this is so long, but I’m trying to say that how you’re feeling is not your fault – your mom has done everything she can to erode your sense of self.

It may feel really difficult and scary to stand up to your mom, but I think that’s going to be the first step in breaking her death-grip on your psyche. You’re going to need some help to do it, it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to make this kind of change alone.

As long as your mom has any influence over you, she’s going to be like dripping acid that constantly erodes you. Breaking away from her is the first step. And you can’t do that if you’re living with her or are financially dependent on her in any way, unfortunately. She’ll always use those strings to manipulate you. And she may try to make you feel guilty if you try to break away. Just remember that *everything* she does is selfish, and has nothing to do with you at all. It’s almost like you’re something for her to feed on, for her to get her sense of self from. If you remove yourself, block her out, she’s eventually going to have to find someone else to pick on.