My mother and I don't get along very well

[WallflowerGirl83]

For the longest time I've been trying to communicate with my mother but it's very hard to try to open up to her. Anytime that I do try to talk to her; she looks at me like I have six heads like she has no idea what I'm talking about. Once I notice this I shut myself off in my room and won't try to talk to her again for a few weeks. Once I feel better, I'll try again with it ending up exactly like how it happened last time.

I've always been a very sensitive and emotional person growing up in life and I heard many times from her how, "I'm too sensitive!" This statement itself gets on my nerves and I've heard it from my ex boyfriend many many times but he was abusive towards. That's besides the point- back to my mother again- she's been saying this to me and a lot of other comments she says are very insensitive and hurtful. If I mention to her that she hurt my feelings she ends up saying, "You know what, I'm just going to run away." "I always do everything wrong." This happens anytime she messes up in life; always wanting to run away or escape by going on vacation.

She's not too good handling stress at all and yet she looks at me like I can't handle anything but I've never wanted to run away. No matter what happens in my life I face it, cry, vent in my journal and overtime I eventually do deal with things better. There's been a lot of traumatic and stressful events in my life and I felt like dying but in the end I came out of it alright. My therapist continues to keep telling me to talk to my mother cause she thinks having a relationship with her during my healing process. It's not helping me at all though, it's making me stressed out, angry, bitter and now I'm starting to resent her cause of the way she acts towards me.

When I was younger, she continued to call me a Drama Queen and those words stuck with me through out my life. She gets along with my brothers but when it comes to me things are very awkward. If she hears my music or see's what I'm watching she'll watch for a min and than leave quickly. Can understand if she's slightly interested but she never tries to attempt to reach out to me but I always try to reach out to her and in the end it doesn't work well. Right now I just want to give up on trying to communicate with her cause it's way to stressful for me to deal with. Is this wrong? Should I continue trying to communicate with her? I'd like to hear you're thoughts and opinions on this please so I can relax. This has been on my mind for a few weeks now and it's driving me crazy.

Another thing I've been noticing lately is how I communicate with my step father a lot better than my own mother. Sure my step dad says a lot of off the wall comments at times too but he's more reasonable. He only said a few things to me that truly upset me. I understand he's stuck in his ways the way he grew up, but he communicates with me a lot better. I would never tell my mother this however cause I just know in the end she'll feel horrible and say how she wants to run away again. *sighs*

 

[Outcast]

In a way, I can relate to the relationship you have with your mother, and your father. Just a week or so back I found out my parents are getting a divorce after 20+ years of marriage and my mother is the main culprit. She's very self centered and always plays innocent like she's never done anything wrong while always saying "It's always my fault" "You always blame everything on me" which definitely isn't true. She treats my dad pretty bad after he has done so much for the family and puts him down. Just the other day he told me that "She makes me feel bad about myself" which makes me extremely angry towards her.

So I find myself in the same boat, wondering if I should even try to talk to her. I haven't brought myself to talk to her about how she treats my father, and at this point I don't think I will say anything, the damage has been done and its over. But personally I think you should always have some sort of relationship with your mother, you don't have to be best friends or talk all the time, but if you need her she should be there for you, and you for her. So I myself will always have a relationship with my mom in a good way of sorts, but I will always be keeping my distance due to her actions in the past. It's not easy to forgive someone that hurt you. Every situation is different.

 

[beautiful loser]

"If I mention to her that she hurt my feelings she ends up saying, "You know what, I'm just going to run away." "I always do everything wrong." This happens anytime she messes up in life; always wanting to run away or escape by going on vacation."

I know the feeling quite well. Now, I love my mom and we generally get along, but when we have a slight disagreement, she is never wrong. I don't understand how she can turn things around and then say "I guess I'm never right", or "I guess I'm not as smart as you." Almost as if these excuses are programmed into her and there is never a thought process. She never looks at things from all points of view...never.

Honestly, you are in a lose, lose situation. If you do try to talk to her and it turns emotional, she is only going to pull her runaway stunt. If you ignore her, you are the drama queen who is too hard to understand.

My advice, I would still communicate with her, but sparsely...daily events, just enough to care but not enough to try and open up to her. I know the feeling, stuff like that just leads to more squabbles. People rarely change and at her age it's not going to happen. Be cordial, but don't get feelings involved...I know, easier said than done. You can always PM if you want to talk more about the situation.

 

[Jazzbird]

My mom and I never got along as well and i'm still trying to fix our relationship after all these years of fighting and throwing chairs around ( lol ).

Our mothers are practically the same.She probably does know what is wrong but she doesn't have the power to stand up and face it.Some people would rather ignore their problems and wish they'd go away instead of facing them and fixing them for good like you and I do.

"I always do everything wrong and I'm going to run away" is nothing but an attempt to make you feel guilt in my opinion.

If you want to fix your relationship you have to make her see what you see.Talking won't do much by itself.I can't give you a direct suggestion as to what to do because I haven't fixed my relationship yet but she probably doesn't see the problems that you see and instead prefers to turn a blind eye.

I don't think there's anything you can do about it at this point.Speaking from personal experience,if SHE doesn't want to do anything than nothing you do will change that.

Best of luck to you,wallflowergirl