Recovering from a lifetime full of gaslighting.

[Outdated]

Smile and tell her "Yes, you're probably right." and walk away. When she wants to come over to visit say "Not tonight Mum, I've got a whole heap of gay friends coming over for an orgy.".

Try asking her embarrassing questions about her sex life, but do it in public so everyone else can hear.

You get what you give, but it's also part of your responsibility to give what you get. Letting people get away with this sort of carry on gives them validation and encourages them to go further.

My parents probably whinge to people about how much they miss their lost son and daughter and probably claim to be victims in the whole affair. Not my problem. Not any more.

 

[Metalhead]

And I know for a fact my mother seriously resents the fact I was born to begin with. She explicitly told me that on more than one occasion. The doctors told her I was supposed to be a miscarriage and that she would give birth to a dead fetus. But she fought to keep me alive and here I am born on the spectrum, if she knew I would have been this much trouble for her she would have let me be a dead fetus birth.

 

[Outdated]

She explicitly told me that on more than one occasion.

And I'd bet good money that that's a blatant lie.

It's straight out of the standard bully playbook. How to make people feel small and insignificant so that they don't fight back.

I'm no Christian. I believe that the word Forgive is probably one of the most misused words in our language, and with a mind like mine the word Forget can not be considered.

What a bully does is destroy your respect for yourself, without this you can never be happy. What a lot of people don't understand is that the only way you will ever be able to have respect for yourself is exactly the same way other people get respect from you.

You have to earn it.

 

[Metalhead]

Or how about my mother’s reaction when a parasite from a mental health group started clinging to me, always stalking me and always demanding every last cent she could milk out of me? About how she actively tried to push all my other friends away from me by telling them I was retarded? About how this woman brought over hardcore porn to watch at my place even when she knew I did not want that kind of relationship with her? About how this stalker always told me she was the only person who cared enough about me to hear what I had to say? About how she claimed I was annoying other people just by having small talk with them? About how this stalker almost cost me my job because she would not stop calling me demanding whatever cash I had in my wallet because she was entitled to whatever she could take from me?

My mother claimed I should have kept this woman in my life. My mother claims this woman was a very good friend to me and that she is very sad that I was so childish to cut this very hurt woman out of my life. My mother wonders if this woman is even still alive and she implied that this stalker might be dead because I was so callous and childish to cut her out of my life even though she gleefully and unremorsefully violated every single boundary I put in front of her. Her happiness was supposedly my sole responsibility according to my mother, and she was such a great friend to me after all.

 

[Outdated]

Your happiness is your responsibility, other people's happiness is not.

I can't write here some of the things I would say to your mother, it would probably even offend other Aussies.

Learn to love yourself. If you can not have respect for yourself then no one else ever will either.

As for the gold digger, I met a few of those. A lot of people thought I was harsh and hard nosed with the way I dealt with them, but that's tough luck. What I think of me is far more important than what other people think of me.

 

[Metalhead]

Your happiness is your responsibility, other people's happiness is not.

I can't write here some of the things I would say to your mother, it would probably even offend other Aussies.

Learn to love yourself. If you can not have respect for yourself then no one else ever will either.

As for the gold digger, I met a few of those. A lot of people thought I was harsh and hard nosed with the way I dealt with them, but that's tough luck. What I think of me is far more important than what other people think of me.

This gold digger had a much larger income than I did at the time but she always blew it all on things she did not need. Then she claimed she was mentally ill and therefore she had no responsibility, I had to bail her out of her situations because she drove me to the ER once a few years earlier. Never a please. Never a thank you. Always “do you have enough money for me?”. According to my mother, this does not qualify as being entitled and predatory.

I once had a movie group where most of the people who showed up wanted to see what I had scheduled. Then this stalker would show up and throw a massive tantrum until she got to choose what we watched. My mother told me I had an obligation to keep her in this movie group because she was a lot more unhappy than what I could ever imagine.

I always told this stalker she could not be calling me fifteen times in ten minutes and that if I did not answer the phone, it was not an invitation for her to start pounding on me door. She blatantly disregarded that without any remorse because she would die if I did not buy her a Diet Coke right then and there.

She killed my monthly movie group nights. She apologized to clerks I had small talk with for bothering them because according to her, I was retarded. She called me when I was in my 12 step meetings and when I was at my job because my boundaries meant nothing to her:

According to my mother, this is the very definition of a “great friend”.

 

[Outdated]

I'm sorry but things would never have gotten that far with me, I was always very aware of bullies and all their different methods, I had a father who was an expert.

Try a little bit of public humiliation, this is the very foundation of how a bully works, they are terribly concerned with what "everyone else" thinks. Their public image. Take that away from them and they're pretty pathetic looking creatures.

 

[Outdated]

I have to drop out now, time to start thinking about what I'm going to eat tonight. Try having a chat with your sister about some of the things I've said, maybe she can help you here too.

 

[Metalhead]

Yeah, when it comes to my mental health, my mother has always been inconsistent. When I was suicidal and claiming I needed help, she accused me of being a hypochondriac. But when I started to get better and started to take my boundaries seriously, she started to claim I needed to be involuntary committed. Go figure.

 

[Suzanne]

Shame you are the opposite sex, because we are so similar in many ways, as too, had to deal with a lot of what you are talking about and also, find it hard to imagine what a good family environment is and even cringe at that word.

It has served me well, in one aspect to denounce those people who are supposed to have loved me, but at the same time, makes me suspicious of other families and even envious!

 

[Thinx]

I know it's hard, but you need to detach from mother. You are an adult, and can see her many problems and faults. Let her go.

 

[Aspychata]

Yeah, and now my mom gets off on telling blatant lies about her relationship with me. Such as how she always supported my film criticism hobby. Or about how I never told her how bad the bullying was when I was in school. Or about how I never told her that I needed to see a doctor during the darkest days of my mental health situation. Or about how she never told me to “shut up”, despite the fact that she still uses those exact words with me to this very day. Or about how I was never sexually abused and she knows this because she read a scientific study in one of her women’s magazines. This list could go on and on, but she tells lies just as easily and as casually as she breathes. She now is telling me she thinks my current therapist is bad for me because I am now telling her “no” more often. I seriously think she liked it better when I was strung out and drunk.

True, you were easier to manipulate and gaslight. And less likely to say nein. I equate toxic mother's love like Lucy in the Peanuts cartoon. She is holding the football representing love. But every time you run up to kick that football, she pulls the football away. But Charlie Brown still keeps trying.

But she is truly toxic. I have had to accept l will never have a real mother's love and l just take that in my little suitcase. But it doesn't mean we are damaged or not worthy. That's the affirmation we need to say everyday to ourself. But is important you put this down and realize it and quit excusing her behavior. Toxic people never change. Her satisfaction is her emotional control over you. That's so low. She has no real life passions except control. Once you remove that bone, then she suddenly turns nice so she can creep back and gain that narcissist fix she needs. I just call people out on their crap. Cut the BS, tell them to their face, right, then you will do this to me. Nope, it's not going to happen. Once you call them on their line of BS, and do it on a regular basis, you stand up for yourself.

 

[stevens]

I seriously think she liked it better when I was strung out and drunk.

Yep, they do, don't they? No doubt about it. I can't tell you the number of drunks who sobered up, because their significant other was qvetching about it all the time (and probably for other reasons, too). Then, experiencing the new, sober spouse, the complainer promptly filed for divorce and found another drunk.

 

[Metalhead]

Frankly, my mother’s past actions and her constant extreme violations of my boundaries are leaving me terrified of what she might do if I decide to go no contact with her. She already proved she has no problem with contacting my employers to try to dig up information about me. She already proved that she has no problem contacting my doctors and therapists and then claiming they are bad for me when they refuse to let her influence my treatment plans. She already proved she has no problem just showing up at my doorstep in a crazed and hysterical state when I tell her she has violated my boundaries, putting herself on the cross and claiming I am hurting her and that I am the crazy one in the family. She thinks I am being unreasonable for not telling her the phone numbers of my sexual partners. She thinks I am being unreasonable for not telling her the explicit details of the sex I am having with these partners. She sees nothing wrong with any of this at all. She claims it is all because she loves me so much.

So yes, I am petrified of her because she already proved how unstable she is.

 

[Metalhead]

My mother admitted that once she looked into trying to have me involuntary committed to a psych ward after I turned in my two weeks notice at the job I was facing homophobic bullying at. She also got a couple of her friends involved to talk with the big man at that manufacturing plant, telling him I did not know what was right for myself and desperately trying to save my job there after I made it plain and clear I was moving on to different pastures. That is not normal behavior on their parts. None of this is normal. That was actually extremely invasive but I thought it was normal because my mother always was trying to be chummy with my bosses to keep tabs on me and make sure I was never completely out of her sight.

The more I think about it, the more I realize how deeply disturbing this behavior of hers actually is.

 

[Aspychata]

It's good you finally reach this realization. It doesn't matter how many times we say anything. You are the one that has to really see it. Numbing yourself helped you stay in denial for a long time. Who wants to see the really ugly truth. But everyone is here for you. And this is why you moved away. She doesn't deserve you in her life. She doesn't honor you.

 

[Metalhead]

It's good you finally reach this realization. It doesn't matter how many times we say anything. You are the one that has to really see it. Numbing yourself helped you stay in denial for a long time. Who wants to see the really ugly truth. But everyone is here for you. And this is why you moved away. She doesn't deserve you in her life. She doesn't honor you.

Yeah, after all this time thinking I was the crazy one in this situation, I now have a clearer picture of what really was going on.

 

[Aspychata]

Sorry to hear you were bullied at your job. That had to really hurt. Sorry your mother never could be a mother for you.

 

[Judge]

It's true. That for some of us we might have some of the most toxic personalities inside our tightest social orbit. Longtime members of our own family. Where social chaos never seems to end. Where at some point you have to look beyond any notion of what may bond family together and save yourself from further damage.

It's a predicament not lost by me, as I experience it myself, but IMO to a much lesser degree compared to the OP. But I can certainly relate to the struggle and heartache such a predicament can cause for much of anyone.

 

[Storm Hess]

I was wanting to ask if you're my long-lost brother...because that is my life as well.

Generational...I totally agree.

I get no comments of support, only snide stabs. I have washed my hands of the family and decided to move forward regardless of their personal opinions. I'm happier for it.