Posted by Wittgenstein on September 12, 2007, at 4:59:16
I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but anyway...
I wonder if anyone else has faced this catch-22 situation and how did you cope? Any suggestions?
I'm trying to get better - trying to work through the past in therapy. For 20 years I suffered a lot of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of my mother, all the while my father stood passively at her side, never sticking up for me, never daring to question her (on the occasions he did, she would walk out in a rage only returning hours later or she would set upon him instead, which I hated even more).
I'm out of that situation now but my parents remain the same. My mother still does her best to control my life - phoning/e-mailing and expecting me to phone/e-mail her. Everytime I speak to her it hurts me so much - I love her, she's my mother, but have so much hate and anger. I feel sick afterwards. The last months, as I try to make progress it feels like 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Practically every month I end up visiting them or they me (even though we are in separate countries!). I just don't know how to stand up to her - I'm so terrified of her I'd sooner let her have what she wants than say "well, actually, no, I don't want to visit you - it hurts me too much".
In May I had to get a letter from the psychiatrist in my home town for my university - first my partner and I arranged to visit while they were on holiday so we would miss them. I told my dad in secret of our plans but he let slip to my mum and then I had her screaming at me down the phone how I was avoiding her, didn't love her, hated her..., crying and sending manipulative e-mails. To make up we ended up staying a week :( - and there was so much stress trying to 'keep the peace' that she insisted I come back again some weeks later without my boyfriend 'driving a wedge between me and her' as she accused him of. And the story continues... visits in July, August... and now October... and they want to visit in December. Every one of these visits sends me back into a dip, which takes weeks to crawl out of.
I'm already having nightmares about the impending visit in October. If I were a bit better then maybe, maybe I might for once stand up to her and say "No!" but I'm nowhere near that. I wish she could just leave me alone for half a year. She's completely oblivious of what she's done to me all these years - it's like it's all 'forgotten', or never even happened as far as she's concerned.
This is the woman, my mother, who when she saw me after I'd tried to kill myself, scolded me for missing my dentist appointment the morning after and screamed "I'm so angry... if I'd been there at the time I would have finished you off! You couldn't even do that properly!"
It's so pathetic but this situation is destroying me.
Witti
poster:Wittgenstein
thread:782384
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070904/msgs/782384.html