P.S. When I started therapy for "Suicidal Ideation" in 1972, "White Trash Whore" was the mainstream diagnosis for female child sex-trafficking survivors. The names were/are even harsher for the male survivors.

"Toxic Mother" feels even less tolerant. At least nobody ever confused my "White Trash Whore" image with media mom images. I at least had some clues who and what I was being lumped with.

Can't speak for the male survivors. . . They sure are quiet on the subject.

This article says there are no toxic people, just toxic behaviors or toxic relationships (interactions) - for which both people need to take responsibility.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/02/28/whats-a-toxic-person-how-do-you-deal-with-one/

I have met toxic substances. I have encountered toxins. I have yet to meet someone whose mere existence qualified as "toxic" to others or the environment. Their actions or attitudes? Sure. THe person?.... No.

I ramble but this one haunts me, Arfie. Chocolate is my delight, and can kill a dog. Is chocolate toxic? Yes. No. Maybe. Situation-dependent. I don't know.

My label all my life is "Bad Dog". (Connote: Little bitch. That'd be my sister's spin.) Bad dog. I can sit, stand, beg, roll over, etc., but I am still Bad Dog.

Maybe we need to look not at ourselves but at the person giving us the Label?

I don't know. I'm tired. I'm confused. I would like to simply have my mom want to speak to me for more than thirty seconds, even about current events and the weather. On good weekends, she says "Good" when we hand her the mail that still comes to our houe instead of her new address, six months after her move.

I got a lot of supportive vibes going your way.

first, i am so sorry your children do this to you. its one thing for them to feel something and talk to you about it but another to consistently abuse you with it. yes, abuse you with it.

i think DW has a great article posted and agree there are not toxic people, just behaviors.

you do not have to tolerate it. ((hugs))

By his definition no one can be objective if they involved.
But if we can disassociate enough to just looking at the pieces in the box and what they are made of, then we can get as close as possible. ( this from my pdoc and 2 professors) It's what our docs want so we can sort the tangles of lines between emotions and traumas, like a fishing line tangle, it takes time.

Even more so than separate observer, since they would need the information of how all the pieces were made, as in every little detail.
Wanda is correct though we have to claim our own processes that made those pieces.

If there is one thing I have seen is that you don't mince words on how you grew through your traumas arfie. Your son, from what you have said has a bipolar effect in conjunction with his attachment issues. That is a chemical imbalance that is not regulated, so kinda throws his orbit into a wobble, when he is assigning responsibilities. Being your son, I am sure he has a good vocabulary so can sling verbal arrows , even if off balance.

As a mother I went through all the motions of trying to give my daughter a positive attachment, I don't have the capability to baby talk or gush praise in a matter of fact action. But her father did all the gifting and gushing for two, so she attached more with him. Just forgot what he did to me since it didn't effect her that much.
But being literal, meant my daughter is verbally adapt at slinging too, at me. It's what has hurt me a lot, but life is teaching her that Dad's world was not all real, so she is not releasing as many verbal arrows now. But she is not bi-polar either. It's bad enough as it is.

My heart and support, J.

I try not to feel that way about my mother, but her atrocious hygiene practices are often pretty gross. She refuses to see a doctor for anything. I cannot share any kind of sleep situation with her because her snoring is so loud. She does not ever clip her toenails and still bites her fingernails. She is facially hirsute and doesn't quite know how to tame it. She is a good cook, but she doesn't really get cleaning up after or food storage. It's like her self hatred for her body is manifested by these behaviors. Yet she loves shopping and picking out clothes. She once had a wart growing out of her nostril that grew to the size of a pea pod. It fell off eventually, but it was hard not to stare at it. Add to this childish voices and baby talk but then times of vicious anger.

At her best, she was on the cusp of using her potential. She was a bull dog sales woman, very smart. Somehow she lost her way.

You don't have to wear this arfie. Just because he says it doesn't make it true. I have been through this with my daughters but a psychiatrist told me I had brought them up with too much of a sense of entitlement compensating for my own upbringing. I let them think everything was my fault because I had no sense of self worth. True or not or only partly, who knows? We did our best according to what we knew at the time.

Arfie- thanks for this post. Just had an epiphany. I don't think Mom quit seeing doctors because of her weight like she says. I think childbirth was traumatizing for her and she may have had feelings of being raped. That also might be why she neglected us. She won't even let anyone touch her hair. But I don't think that excuses her abuse and neglect, which she does not feel guilty about. I can't forgive her for letting our dog suffer with mange like that or destroying the house or making my fragile brother unable to function in the world. Sorry, mom, your trauma did not give you the right to hurt others.

It does sound like your kids are mean, my mom issues are different. Hugs! You're awesome and so supportive of me!

Keeping it strictly personal, one specific adult son to one specific retired mother, I have been watching my son repeat this cycle for well over two decades. I mark Junior High as the beginning. My personal Narcolepsy research indicates it was a classic onset of Narcolepsy, all the way to needing years to find the diagnosis.

By my just-a-patient mom-sense, "Name calling" is a distinct, repetitive phase of his cycle. He has a "They Name" for everybody. He still hasn't out-grown the "F Names." It is almost refreshing to see him expanding his vocabulary. Almost. The name calling is always in sync with the current fashion of whatever crowd he is running with at the time. If my ifs are in alignment, he has been running with the "Toxic People" crowd during his last few cycles. Just guessing. Fact is, I don't know his associates any better than he knows mine. He has been a legal adult for a substantial length of time.

Reminding myself I am just a patient. Not qualified to diagnose, much less therapute. I just the effing-mother.

Vent, vent, gnarl, gnash. . . Some things is just plain hard. Enough to wear a wiley, old Silver Fox to the last nerve.

Arfie...

My mom wasn't the kind of person who "needed' or took that "kind" of help from social services, either. Still isn't. Almost a year after we first decided we should find their number. That doesn't change reality. When social services checks in on her, she gets a bit of reality check, and while she'll never forgive me, she is taking better care of herself off-and-on, rather than "not at all"...

You were amazingly supportive to me, as I went through my mom crisis. I wish I had better for you than the fact we sometimes have to give them th emoney to move to an apartment, then only contact them once a week, and let social services and reality do the rest. I hate it. I always will. Guilt will hang around me like a dead albatross. But you have legitimate concerns for *your* well-being....

COntinued support and purrs (shiba inu style) to you

Wow. . . Insert Twilight Zone theme here. The Seeba (the shiba) reference hit a seriously mystical place. Seeba's shiba inu ( https://i.ytimg.com/vi/g2ag8t7AvX8/maxresdefault.jpg ) purrs were . . . ?Therapeutic? I still miss Seeba.

So does eldest son. Both of us believe Seeba is still visiting our dreams.

Thanks for that connection, Leo, spooky as it is.

Silver Fox, I like that. Forget the adjectives, they are as temporary as the thought. Wiley is learned in self sustenance, and old or age is a state of mind, you are neither yet. I know I don't identify with my age, so it's just an anniversary of the number of years I have survived. If I have learned along the way then they all count for something.

As a mom, though I know how hard it is to watch your child flounder for lack of a better word, because they don't understand what it took to survive all that those years gave you, as they did me.
So letting go at some point to see if they figured out how to swim may be needed. You can't always save them when they don't see what they are carrying that bogs them down. Maybe he will get help if he has to, but not if he has a buoy to hold on to, no matter that that buoy is itself fragile in some ways. He will need to swim if he sinks it one way or another.

Hugs of support.

There are quite a few performers who have claimed the moniker, "Silver Fox." In my esteem, one of my musical heroes grew into THE Premiere Silver Fox as she aged, refusing to cover-up her years and experience as she aged. She will turn 70 next year and still gives one hell of a performance. Beautifully. Still gets my juices going. . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOIKXwnJEpk

Thanks for the support, Jewells. Accepting adult-smelling critters in the places where my children used to stand is the hardest thing I have ever done. Especially when they are asking for car payments instead of ice cream cones or designer shoes.

OK, that was odd, I just randomly recalled a shiba inu discussion we'd had forever ago, and... Huh...

Leave the labels to the soup cans, perhaps?