Daughter Detox ~ Recovering from an Unloving Mother

I have made the decision to stop fighting to help her. I know I cant help her. She would rather stop every effort to help her and have a comfortable life than give up her hoard.

The hospital is sending her home this weekend, despite the fact that he can not get herself in and out of bed. Her medical condition is still serious and she will have another infection fairly quickly. I know she will refuse to return to the hospital, which means we have to prepare for her to go home and die.

Interestingly enough, I actually want this for her too. But not in a bad way of that makes sense. I know that she will finally have freedom and peace in death. She is truly a victim of her life and I know that in death she will find what she has been seeking for her whole life. It is not unlike someone with end stage cancer. You know that death will bring them peace and you do not want them to suffer any longer.

I feel angry right now that she has made the choice to dismantle everything we have done to help her the last 9 weeks. She has self sabotaged all of our efforts. Even though I knew it would end up like this, I still had that eternal hope that a daughter has for a mother. But that is for me to work out on my own. I will do what I always have done. Wait and then clean up the damage after the fact one last time.

My dad's health is disintegrating as well. We have known all along that his choice was to no longer seek treatment and die. I am surprised he made it this long. Luckily, I was able to provide him with some companionship and home made meals during his last few months.

In the mean time, I am buttoning up the last bit of my Grandma's care. Her house has sold and I have finally taken over legally to provide care and take care of her estate. That is a relief.

freedomfromthepast

Recently I've noticed an issue and I don't know if anyone has any thoughts on this.

I've noticed that I can't accept a compliment.

I worked very hard on a project someone asked me to do (school resources) and he came to me and said that he thought they were amazing and thank you so much. I immediately told him, it was no big deal, they aren't all that good and I could change them if they weren't what he wanted. He actually shut me down completely saying I should stop putting myself down and be nicer to myself. I was just shocked and went with smiling like an idiot then sat and had a cry later. It was... An experience.

It made me think.

Recently I've been told by a few people that I'm a nice person, that I'm contientious, that I'm giving or that they are happy with my work.. Each time I told them that, I wasn't really. Later I spent time thinking to myself how I'm not those things, not worthy of praise and not good enough.

Yet, I consciously make an effort to be those things. That's who I want to be. It matters to me

I also praise people all the time and I'm noticing that some people do as I do and look a bit miserable or simply don't reply.
Others... they just say thank you and go off with a smile!

I really want to be one of the others and be able to do what my boss did for me.

Then there is the other side, when people are critical or need you to be the bad guy to justify their behaviour.. I am defensive and absolutely won't accept unfair criticisms and will challenge them, yet I don't think that's healthy at all. Why haven't I learnt that the right answer is walking away from those people who have their own vested interest in trying to keep you beneath them. Why did it have to take half a lifetime to finally walk away from my mother? Why can't I just be ok with people not liking me when I keep telling the people who do like me that they shouldn't?

How is it even humanly possible for such a massive contradiction to exist in your own head?

I know this all probably stems from low self esteem as a result of abuse... Low self esteem can come in other ways too. Does this impact you too and have you found a way to change it?

I want to stop being my own biggest obstacle in my own life. I think I'd really be healed then

I can feel what you wrote in my soul. We learned from an early age that we were lesser than our parent. The narcissist always has to be on top an they will do anything they can to keep that record going.

It is so freeing when you get to the point where it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. Online or not, you can remove yourself from any situation that you do not care =to be in

Hi violetsky and everyone else here. I really joined gransnet because this thread was so appealing to me and I could see how much struggle people were having around this issue. I just wanted to be a part of it and support people dealing with the lifelong fallout of these painful early relationships.

VS your sudden realization about not being able to take a compliment resonates with me so much. I see this so often and in so many people who had similar childhoods to yours. I sometimes think it is because compliments were few and far between in those childhoods, and always came with a hidden barb (either phrased negatively, or taken back at a later stage, or you were made to pay for accepting it in some way). Very often people have described to me that all kinds of gifts (compliments or things) were only given to them conditionally, or publicly, and then taken back or spoiled when the recipient and the giver were back in private. Fancy Christmas presents that got take or sold or given to more favored children after the unwrapping. A compliment “your hair is so beautiful…almost makes up for your spotty skin” gives and takes back in the same breath. Only by steeling yourself to hide your own leaping heart, your own natural pleasure, can you protect yourself from the extra pain of letting your tormented know how hurt you are.

Eventually what was a self protective habit that arises within one toxic relationship becomes a barrier, a real wall, between you and a natural reaction to a sincere compliment.

At any rate one way to start working on it is to try to gracefully and playfully accept that the person complimenting you needs to be recognized for the compliment because they are saying no more than (but this is important) “hey! You are on my team and I love the way you do X because it’s so great for all of us!” It doesn’t have to put you on the spot and trigger your “oh no! I’m vain and this person will hurt me through my vanity” module.

You can practice saying, simply, “thanks! I like that my invention/plan/action/note made things easier for everyone.” And then you can enjoy slowly recognizing your own worth without having to block the compliment for fear of backlash.

Oldladynewlife glad you are here and thank you so much for that. You are right completely, it is expecting what is given to be taken back again.

freedom That's exactly what I need, it isn't even what I originally thought it was, being a people pleaser and needing people to like me... Actually I don't want people I don't like to like me lol. It's more being misunderstood or misinterpreted and finding that I ignore my first instincts on whether that is a me problem or a them problem. But actually, if I do not try to explain myself in the first place, it wouldn't be a problem at all

The problem that often arises from these difficult childhoods is that the child lacks self esteem, and that translates into an adult who lacks self esteem. I was never praised or given compliments, it simply didn’t happen. The only positive thing I ever heard was that I wasn’t much trouble. That was because I had learnt that unquestioning obedience was the only way with my mother. Nonetheless if I did step out of line I was punished far beyond the actual ‘crime.’ My mother was still giving me negative feedback about my physical attributes when I was an adult. I was the plain one, my sister was the pretty one, the much admired one, the one who received empathy for whatever befell her. I received negative feedback for everything from how I looked to how I reared my children. She treated my husband disgracefully. It’s taken me my whole life to stand up to her. And I’m still not perfect at it.

@maddyone: I know a family with identical twins where the father started right in demonizing and criticizing one while praising the other from birth. One was assigned the role of fat and troublesome when they were literally identical and straight out of the womb. But to the child it is all they know and they can’t grasp how random it is.

That's just so sad. All the times we looked at ourselves and saw only faults that must be the reasons why a parent would treat usdifferently and the truth is that narcissists just need an emotional punch bag and there is no reason they chose you at all, it was just at random

My mother used to absolutely hate when another person (a friend of her's, a neighbour etc) would pay me a compliment or her a compliment about me (for being good, well behaved etc). When they'd gone she'd positively seethe with it, snarl about how much she wanted to tell them how awful I really was. I wasn't. She just found being a mother difficult and needed it to be my fault.

I too am working on accepting a compliment, because my kneejerk is usually to sabotage it (ie not just not accept the compliment but often i say something to rebuff it which makes me look worse than i did to begin with)

I made progress today because I got good feedback from a recent visit and said "that's brilliant, thank you for passing that on" but I should probably sue my face for slander lol

It took me a long time to be able to accept complements. Or anything really. Even gifts. We were raised to believe that we were not worthy. Or it had strings attached. It is a difficult thing to overcome. Once you do it, it becomes easier each time.

It was helpful for me to realize that her hatred of me is actually her hatred of herself. Every time she put me down, she was putting herself down for something she saw in me that she wanted to see in herself.

freedom I know what you mean about gifts, I had a massive fear of not being grateful enough and ended up just shutting down for a long time. Also the strings attached fear.

That's a really useful thought actually. Even if you take it to bare bones, they hate us to be happy because they can't ever be that

I think we have a tendency to internalize any interaction with a narcissist. But it literally has nothing to do with us. WE are not the problem. Once we realize it, it makes it easier to walk away from toxic people in all areas of life. Family, work, even online.

Walking away is the ONLY way to win against toxic people.

Lovely insight! It’s hard to break the habit of pattern seeking and responsibility—we are pattern making monkeys always trying to figure out how our actions can influence our world. So we are always guessing, as children and as adults, which behavior or action we took might have influenced our parents to treat us better. It’s shocking when we realize that our actions or our presence were not the cause of our treatment at all, but their own demons.

Trigger Warning for those with abusive parents

oldladynewlife, that is great insight. It was all the guessing that we went through that caused so many problems and why so many children of abusive parents end up with Anxiety disorders as adults.

Always guessing and questioning.

Will there be an outburst today?
Did I cause the outburst with something I did?
Or what didn't I do that she had decided I needed to in her mind that I cant read?
How much harder do I need to try to get her to love me?
If I was more (insert whatever), would that help?
Am I a bad person/daughter?
If I am not good enough for the world, as she says, how will I ever take care of myself?

And on and on.

And because this damage was caused by the person/people who were supposed to love us unconditionally and help us grow into confident loving adults, it is ingrained in us. Ever the people pleaser. Never thinking we are good enough. Always second guessing. Always seeing the looks we get from people who did not have abusive parents when they cant understand why we would ever cut off a parent. The comments, the judgement.

Jeez, I added a trigger warning because, even though I have had years of therapy and am confident in myself, I still felt that tightening in my chest of anxiety. It never fully goes away does it?

It's definitely made me think a lot the last few days.

I've been concentrating since estrangement on the positives of having anxiety which has helped me a lot.

I've worked on the obvious issues of having it, like shutting it down when I have imaginings about the outcome of situations I'm worried about. Or when I've said something daft, instead of overanalysing myself into a state where I think people must think I'm an idiot, I've just laughed at myself and reminded myself that these people have said daft things too and they like me so it's fine.

There is a lot more to work on here than I thought though and I think like everything else it's just going to take practise.

One thing in counselling that I'm starting to think hasn't helped me is assertiveness training.

This idea that I have to assert myself. I have to make myself heard for what I actually mean. I have to speak up when other people's behaviour is having a negative impact on me.

It doesn't work in some situations and doesn't help.

I think I've taken it too far and crossed a line into aggressive. I think it's actually best to just be myself.

Is there any point in pointing out to someone that they have hurt you when they intended to do that? Is there any point in pointing out to someone that they have misunderstood you when they intended to do that?

Surely it's best to just be myself, just carry on being myself, in the face of those who want to see me as something I'm not for their own needs?

Ever the people pleaser. Never thinking we were good enough.

Yes this. This is how my mother affected me.

@violetsky,

I think if you can be yourself, it’s always better to be yourself! But if you can’t be yourself be someone brave and assertive who protects that self and others like them.

Sometimes we think that being assertive is aggressive because that has been our experience, because people around us act like stating a simple preference is an act of war. Other people get to say “no I won’t go ‘round to the shops because it’s raining” and it was accepted without comment. When we said it it was tested as a dereliction of duty.

Like any trauma response we get in trouble when we take our fight or flight reactions out of the original setting and apply it indiscrimately to a new setting (like taking a sibling quarrel into a work setting). But I have noticed a real fellow feeling with the bullied and rejected by a lot of people who suffered as children. Sometimes what seems like an aggressive response is just belated firmness in defense of the vulnerable.

It’s good not to go overboard but sometimes it’s a wonderful thing to be the one who is brave enough to speak up for the defenseless.

I see what you mean...

Some things matter too much to let others who don't agree use your history or your vulnerabilities against you.

That's a reflection on them not us

@violetsky: yes! Exactly!

Happy Mother's Day!

mommyish.com/estranged-adult-children-mothers-day/

Happy Mothers Day to everyone in the UK!