Just feeling really overwhelmed.

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Agreed!

Thank you for the advice. I have tried that since I write a lot better than I speak. Not saying that I don't speak well...just...it is a train wreck when she's yelling and I'm upset and stammering all over myself. She...wasn't really down with that idea, so to speak. Because, from her vantage point, it looked stupid. You know? If I can talk, why am I writing her notes like a moron? Communicating with her is...difficult.

You cannot reason with someone who is being emotionally abusive....it does not work.

I grew up in a household with a violent father and an emotionally abusive mother. I was bullied at school, at work and have also been bullied online. I tried and tried for years and years to reason with some of these people and it never worked. The only thing I found that worked was to get away from them. They always, without fail, blame the person they are abusing for their actions. Do not carry that blame.

That sucks, blackcat. Do you have any close friends that don't mind you staying with them for a while, maybe ask them for advice on getting hired? Start small and work your way up. Show your mom you're competent.

What is your passion, anyway? What do you like?

There have been a couple threads here over the past few days in which people talked about how it can sometimes be easy to convince us of things that aren't true. One was a thread about an AS man falsely convicted of rape in New Zealand, and another is about distinguishing between real and fake criticism.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt158067.html

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt155891.html

From the way you write, everything is defined from your mother's vantage point. Her interpretations of your behavior, your words, your thoughts, your feelings sound like they override your own actual behavior, words, thoughts, and feelings. It sounds like you are never in a position to be acceptable or do acceptable things, that everything you do makes you out to be deserving of harsh punishment. If you forget to do the dishes once, that results in a year long punishment. As a child you were locked out of the house. If you point out an inconsistency or inaccuracy in your mother's statements, this just makes you worse and she subjects you to more of this.

It doesn't sound like she's even treating you like a person. To me, her behavior sounds emotionally abusive.

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Identify-Emotional-Abuse

http://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/mental.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_5570790_identif ... glect.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_5293242_identif ... erson.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

And your responses sound fairly typical for someone who has been subjected to emotional abuse. I mean, speaking as someone who had been emotionally abused by a parent and a partner. Emotional abusers convince you that up is down, black is white, and the sun rises in the west. They make you doubt what you know and replace it with their version of reality, in which you are supposedly a terrible person who deserves this treatment. It's false.

It's not stupid to write things down. Being able to talk doesn't mean being able to say everything. I'm like you in that I am not able to react properly to stressful social situations. When I am caught by surprise I at best function on autopilot because I can't process it in real time, and sometimes I can't even speak at all, or manage to say very little, even when I know what I am being told is false. Once out of that situation I can think clearly and measure my responses, and I can explain everything in writing far more clearly than I can verbally.

If your counselor doesn't take this seriously, your counselor is failing you. Just asking you whose fault is it doesn't help, your counselor isn't helping you understand the situation, just reinforcing what your mother tells you is true.

It is possible for both you and your mother to be wrong, but that still does not justify the way you have described her treating you. She is still going way overboard and emotionally abusing you, threatening your well-being, even taking money from you and treating you like you are an intolerable burden. Bringing that money up when she begrudges you a small amount of gasoline to take you to college does not make you a jerk - it makes you realistic. It sounds like nothing you do counts for anything when she's angry with you, and so any argument you make just makes things worse because to her you are always in the wrong and she is always in the right and she will never ever give you that space to be in the right, no matter how right you are.

Just because you live in her house does not mean you are subject to her rules so absolutely that you have no freedom for yourself. She doesn't have the right to take your things from you, and she doesn't have the right to treat you this badly.

I do not know if you'll believe this, but please read the links above before you come to any conclusions.

^^^--- this.

Your mother will never take responsibility for the way she treats you. You are not responsible for the way she treats you.

I...may have friends. I am not sure yet. I usually THINK I have friends and find out later that they are using me. As to whether or not I would stay with them, I don't. Maybe I'll ask.

Reptiles, longboarding, computer science. Working on a degree in computer science. Gonna minor or duel major in zoology and then breed ball pythons when i move out as extra income and a hobby.

Intellctually, I know what's going on. Just...it's tricky, you know? Like...when she isn't telling blatant lies to my grandparents...she is telling the truth. She just omits certain things. Like the incident with the piano stool, I instigated that. I admit that. She came in my room and I immediately started yelling. She'd been yelling at me ALL WEEK and I assumed, falsely, that she was back for "round two" so to speak. So I just...I reacted badly. "LET ME STOP YOU RIGHT THERE. I have been in my room QUIETLY ALL DAY. What could I have POSSIBLY done THIS TIME?!". And...things got bad. So, long story short...I'm shocked and bleeding and yelling "Why would you DO that?!" and she doesn't say anything. Eventually calls my grandparents. Tells them that I fell and hit my head...which I did. But it was bleeding PRIOR to me falling over. So they have part of the information. They have me yelling for no reason, they have her being angry, and me falling over. Big gaping hole in the story. I try to tell them about it later...they don't want to hear it. There is ALWAYS a problem with us. We need to figure out how to solve it OURSELVES. And besides, they already know what happened...but they don't. She told them but she didn't. Something that she says I do a lot. Which, technically I do...but this is only because she interrupts me before I can get to the "because I..." part. And this happens because I already know that I can't tell the "because I" part first because no one will listen to me after that. So it is like...either I try to hurry and blurt everything out, get interrupted, and accused of ommiting what I've done, or I tell them what I have done...and no one cares to hear anything else.

I may have gone on a tangent...umm. Gaslighting. I am familiar with that. I have actually told her that I am sick of her doing that which I am fairly certain only went over well because she didn't know what the hell I was talking about (gaslighting). So...I know what is going on, but at the same time...It doesn't really matter because outside of the few people who have...heard things before I can mute the phone or the computer mic, no one believes a word that I say. So, for all intents and purposes, everything that she says IS right. Because, frankly, she is better at telling people what's going on than I am in my almost incoherent rambling manner. It isn't really a matter of not being able to talk. I have been talking forever. My issue lies...before I get to the point where I can barely string a sentence together because...you know. Once I get to that point, there IS no point. The thing that is really a b*tch is getting other people to follow what I am saying. Blank stares..."what are you TALKING about?". And then Mom comes in and...she could tell them anything she wanted. I don't think she knows that. She could easily talk her way out of ANYTHING. She is just one of those people that people believe. You know? She could say "It rained orange jello the other day." and people would actually take the time to consider it before realizing that they were outside that entire day and it never once rained jello of any colour.

And...I do feel guilty. I know that she is screwing with me...but I often wonder if I deserve it. Not just because of what she says and how CONVINCING she is. But because I know that I have been difficult with all of my weirdness and sensory issues and "I CAN'T USE THE NAKED CRAYONS THEY SOUND LIKE NAILS ON A CHALKBOARD WHEN I SMELL THEM!!". You know...completely crazy stuff that she never wanted or expected out of her first child. Scaring her friends when I was a baby because I be silent until it was time for them to get out and "Did that baby f--king talk to me?". I have put her through a lot. Sure, I was GREAT when we were alone...but throw other people into the equation and...I ruined everything. Take me somewhere fun? I freak out. Invite over your friends? They leave early because I've said something offensive...done something strange. Asked one too many personal questions. She had boyfriends, apparently, before she met my siblings fathers.(nearly) Every one of them left because of something I said or did. Or how I looked at them. Hell, the one that is here...the one she married doesn't like me. I embarass her constantly. I deserve SOMETHING. I'm just not sure what.

edited: weird typo

Last edited by blackcat on 16 Apr 2011, 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There are kinds of abuse other than beating. For instance convincing you that you don't deserve to be liked because you're allegedly a sh*tty person. It sounds less like you're a bad daughter and more like she's a bad mother.

There's a good reason for that.


Believe them/us not her. What value is there in believing what she says? Has it helped you in any way?



I highly doubt you're perfect but she sounds far worse.



She may be a decent mother to you siblings but she's a horrible mother to you.

Sounds like you need to be out of that toxic environment, your posts sound so confused - they must have messed with your head to achieve that.
It may be only several years down the line after you've escaped that you will be able to judge the situation with a clear perspective, but whilst you're in the middle of it you'll continue to be worn down bit by tiny bit.

No-one is perfect, no-one. We all should be able to be accepted for who we are, with imperfections, in the one place we need unconditional acceptance - our families. That's all too often the one place we don't get it, but growing up in that atmosphere distorts your judgement. Read Verdandi's posts again, you don't know which way is up when there is no place to hide, breathe, relax and not be afraid of what's coming next.

If you think you're being 'bad', even if that were true i'd consider it logical. If you are blamed when you are 'good'/normal, why bother trying to be good ? The outcome is the same. But it isn't good for your health - emotional damage translates into physical poor health. Some relationships can only be fixed by removing yourself from them.

She sounds very manipulative, and she may even realize she is manipulative.

But all this? Not a reason. Not an excuse. You were just being you - how could you be any different? That doesn't mean you deserve this treatment. She chooses how to treat you, and she acts on those choices, it's not your responsibility that she does so. Abuse is never your fault. That's one of the things that makes it abuse.