Family Issues Support Group
Family issues is a huge range that go from minor conflict to major misbehaviour and even abuse on the part of individual members of the family occur. Whether you feel you are in a dysfunctional family or you're dealing with a very specific issue, this is the place to talk about it and find others who might be going through the same thing.
I wasn't really sure where to post this thread but I thought it could fit on here since I've received really good advice on the "Family Issues" page.
I posted a few weeks ago " I feel too home to live at home " about my struggle with living in my parents house as an adult.
I think there is something I really need to work on in my life and that is trying to recover from the criticisms and treatment from my mother. As a child I was more reserved and liked reading books and I enjoyed my space. My mother often made fun of me for being a "nerd" destined to end up all alone with many cats as an librarian. My entire life I was told that I was cold, heartless, and a mean b**** for no reason. Her criticisms begane when I was around 5 and continued. Just because I wasn't the child she wanted me to me because she wanted a little mini me.
She had me at 19 and was divorced from my dad by her 21st birthday. She began to be more focused on her love life and going out.
I truly have never felt genuine love from her.
Now as an adult I really struggle with my identity because of being told I was such an awful person my entire life. I isolate myself and I have a fear of getting too close to people because I'm afraid that they are going to see the same qualities as she does and basically because I feel like an awful person because I've been told that all of my life. I feel like a monster so everyone sees me as a shy person.
Eveytime she is drinking we always have a huge blowout so at least once a week. She picks on me and then throws all the blame on me because "I'm such an awful person and I'm so cold ". Recently she threw a big party on Memorial Day and I was talking to family and we were all joking around something and I said something as a joke and she took it the wrong way I believe it was a comment about how she is always losing her keys and she flipped out on me in front of everyone and told me to just leave and not talk to anyone because I'm so awful and she can't stand me.
Now here comes where I really need help. Since I've lived with so much conflict I have an issue where I feel the need to please everyone around me so I avoid conflict. I'm so worried that I'm once again giong to be rejected. I feel like I'm always walking on eggshells.
I posted a few weeks ago " I feel too home to live at home " about my struggle with living in my parents house as an adult.
I think there is something I really need to work on in my life and that is trying to recover from the criticisms and treatment from my mother. As a child I was more reserved and liked reading books and I enjoyed my space. My mother often made fun of me for being a "nerd" destined to end up all alone with many cats as an librarian. My entire life I was told that I was cold, heartless, and a mean b**** for no reason. Her criticisms begane when I was around 5 and continued. Just because I wasn't the child she wanted me to me because she wanted a little mini me.
She had me at 19 and was divorced from my dad by her 21st birthday. She began to be more focused on her love life and going out.
I truly have never felt genuine love from her.
Now as an adult I really struggle with my identity because of being told I was such an awful person my entire life. I isolate myself and I have a fear of getting too close to people because I'm afraid that they are going to see the same qualities as she does and basically because I feel like an awful person because I've been told that all of my life. I feel like a monster so everyone sees me as a shy person.
Eveytime she is drinking we always have a huge blowout so at least once a week. She picks on me and then throws all the blame on me because "I'm such an awful person and I'm so cold ". Recently she threw a big party on Memorial Day and I was talking to family and we were all joking around something and I said something as a joke and she took it the wrong way I believe it was a comment about how she is always losing her keys and she flipped out on me in front of everyone and told me to just leave and not talk to anyone because I'm so awful and she can't stand me.
Now here comes where I really need help. Since I've lived with so much conflict I have an issue where I feel the need to please everyone around me so I avoid conflict. I'm so worried that I'm once again giong to be rejected. I feel like I'm always walking on eggshells.
You also mentioned feeling like you're always walking on eggshells. Remember you are a worthy person. You are a good person. You deserve good treatment from people.
Please get counseling so you can overcome your insecurities. But remember, some of these are because you're still relatively young. But the earlier you can get counseling, the better off you'll be.
You are a fine person. Remember that.
I am in counselling. My PTSD comes from things done to me by family 25 years ago. It's a horrible thing to feel like you will always be alone and abandoned and unloved. I know. I've been running from that my whole life and here I am on meds and with PTSD (so much for my coping skills--they worked great, tillt hey didn't!)
Please, ignore your mom's talking. Make it in your head that everything she says is in a foreign language you don't know or she talks like a cartoon. (This is a strategy that works sometimes for me, my therapist told me about it.) I don't know your mom, but she is probably an incredibly unhappy person and she blames you so she doesn't have to look at her OWN mistakes. Then you shut down and she has "justification". It's a weird cycle. It was that way with my older bullying sister.She'd be awful, I'd close down and hide, people would say "Oh she's right what a snotty little beyotch"... and around we went. Ugh. (We did not solve our issues. She died.) THe other thing---this is ME---I vented my anger and hostility without realizing it. And then my anxiety wore people out b/c they could snese I was so "needy" (I heard that a lot). Oddly, a few hugs and nice words would've been amazingly helpful but those did not happen.
I understand fear and having to please people. This is a hard road to travel to fix it. But I beleive it can be done. Please, seek some counseling and if you can avoid your mom, do that. My mom is part of my issue with PTSD and she lives with me b/c she is elderly and I am taking care of her. I wish I could hide from her.
Anyway, you are not alone. Good luck.
Leo (the lurking lioness)
I think you would be much better off getting out of that situation as your mom sounds like SHE has some serious issues that need fixed.............
But I also realize that you may not be able to just pack up and leave because of school and financial reasons. Maybe you could get a roommate somewhere............or even just rent a room somewhere??
Wish I could be more help.......but I would take Leo's advice if I were you:):):)
I had a part of my childhood that was a blank and I could never figure it out. My Mom was acting strange in my 40's and early 50's and doing some strange things. When I woke up at 2:00 am with terrible Charlie horse in my leg that wouldn't stop, I stood up out of bed, fell, scraped down the bureau and came down hard on my behind. It caused me to break the L-1 bone in my spine and the pain was horrible and I had paralysis from just under my chest all the way down. I couldn't move.
I yelled and at the time I had Mom living with me. She sat on my bed as I was sweating in horrible pain and she refused to call 911. For 5 minutes I was begging and explaining I was seriously injured and was paralyzed. Mom still wouldn't call 911. I then tricked her into calling my adult son and he screamed at her to call 911 and she did and as I heard her give our address I passed out.
I was in the hospital for a week and after the third day the paralysis lifted, but I needed a walker to walk. I had terrible pain and it had messed up prior back surgery I had.
I came home and Mom was a predator. She had all the large knives all over the kitchen counter (the authorities said it was a threat from her to me). She was punching me, throwing ceramics and different things at me and hitting me, I had black eyes and bruises all over me from her. I had trouble walking with the walker so I was a prime target for her torture. It was really bad. It was my home and she refused to leave. She would listen in on all my phone conversations and she had incredible strength apparently brought on by adrenalin. She would threaten me.
When she was out one day a friend called and I told them what was happening and they told me to call a number. I did, explained what happened and they transferred me to the State Adult Protective Services and they said my Mom was abusing me and they would be out on Monday and not to tell her.
They came out and she punched me in front of the man. He then arranged for all different agencies to come out including the City Police Crisis Intervention. My Mom was required to get out because she represented a danger to me. And an agency followed up to be sure she got out.
When the authorities put her out of my place, they didn't want to deal with an elderly woman and they closed the case when she was out. So Mom got an apartment and stalked me and went after me in a park. I filed a protective order with the court and it was granted and she wasn't allowed near me, my home, not allowed to contact me, etc. EVERY TIME she stepped out of line, I went back to court to push back against her. Eventually she learned she couldn't mess with me any more or she risked the judge sending her to the mental hospital for a confined mental health evaluation--she didn't want that because she knew she would fail.
When I found a good therapist and started with him, I began having PTSD flashbacks in the therapist's office and it opened up the block on my childhood and I remembered everything. I also remembered that as a young child my Mom would beat me with a paddle until it broke. My bottom would be constantly black and blue and in today's world, she would have been spending time in prison for this.
She would beat me if she was in a bad mood, if my hair wasn't perfect (she had my hair down to my waist and SHE would perm it every 6 months at home), and she would beat me for any reason that she came up with.
I strived to become perfect and please everyone to try to avoid as many beatings as possible. My grades were straight A's and I was the joy of all the teachers because I knew if there was any problem, it would be another reason to beat me. That people pleasing carried into adulthood and into her living with me, me taking care of her every need and want, me supporting her financially and her putting her own money away.
With a person's help after the authorities got her out of here, we were cleaning out some of the stuff in the closet near the kitchen and found my Mom had over 25 professional box cutters with razors in them and the razors were up and ready to use. She could have killed me as I sat in a chair. I was so upset over finding them and the therapist felt Mom would have killed me eventually with knives or box cutters.
I want to tell you that this happened to me and your Mom can turn that way in an instant. When I sought counseling, it began the path away from the destruction that Mom has caused in my life, both as a child and then when I become disabled just years ago and she began to torture me in my own home.
The counseling is a gift you give to yourself and it's a gift that keeps on giving throughout time. It's going to help you mold yourself away from the perfectionist people pleaser to relaxing and being the person you really are. Life will begin to change for you and you'll start to enjoy life.
Mom really messed up my life and I've been diagnosed with PTSD and PTSD with flashbacks. The PTSD board will tell you there is no cure, but you can learn to help yourself through this.
Mom died in October and when I drive I still find myself at times looking over my shoulder to see if her car is following me and she's stalking me again. The Therapist said that in his patients that have had trouble with parents like mine, it is natural for the abuser to pass and it take a while for it to sink in "to the inner child" that the abuser is really gone.
GET OUT NOW. Get a room with someone, but don't stay there any longer. I never thought my Mom would do that to me. Don't under estimate your Mom and get out. Then get in therapy and stay in therapy. Many, many hugs.
i have been seeing a therapist for almost a year which cleared up most of the deep unresolved issues. both of my parents are toxic, try having your dad say 3 yrs ago, how he didn't care if me (and my mom) got hurt by him bringing in dirty icky gas cans filled with oil.
my therapist says i have PTSD symptoms from the traumatic abuse i endured. i am like you i avoid conflict growing up i was always fighting with my parents on issues that i was right about and how they were always wrong at the mistreatment and unfairness they have said and did to me. then again, all of us are lying yet they are telling the truth i dont see how a bunch of narcs can be telling the truth they are the biggest liars on the planet!
i would fight with other people for no reason, it became a defense mechanism and a way for me to punish you for upsetting me. i became argumentative which helps me in a way to argue my point when calling someone out who can't fully explained him/herself.
my parents hate each other they never have anything nice to say about their own kids unless it is my brother but my dad hates him. he said my mom made him leave home to join the air force and i found out recently it was my sister who told him to leave in the early 90s to join the service it was never my mom's doing but my parents dont know that and take credit for things they didnt say/do.
i read a book called mean mothers overcoming the legacy of hurt by peg streep and helped me more some things i didn't know yet my therapist is just one perception i have read when i have read many perceptions.
i am like you i don't have an identity and i am 27 yrs old still trying to find my identity. i told my therapist growing up ur parents are the ones who shape you and get your identity from them, but i have nothing.
The kids then struggle as adults to get on their feet, get into counseling and pull it together. I give the adult kids a lot of credit because they fight against the odds to overcome.
Many times the parents still engage in the conflict from childhood, so they are not supportive to the adult child, and it makes it so difficult for the adult child to "break out."
When you finally break away and lose that stress and strain, you will bloom like the most beautiful flower ever seen on earth. Many, many hugs.