I'm Afraid of My Mom

Post Reply New Topic

She put too much pressure on me as a kid and teen, now I'm too afraid to talk to her about anything, especially about any of my personal responsibilities. She just told me to "conceal, don't feel". (She didn't use those exact words, but you know what I mean.) I've wanted therapy for such a long time because of her and my dad, but now that I'm getting therapy, I'm wondering what exactly I should tell my therapist.

You should tell your therapist exactly what your parents said, the therapist should assess your risk based on facts.

You should tell your therapist everything and let him help you work it out. He can't tell anyone anything you say unless you tell him you are going to harm someone, have harmed someone or are going to harm yourself. Your mom may want to know what you say to him and may ask him but he won't talk to her unless you sign a release for that. She may ask you to sign it but you don't have to.

I'm sorry she gave you bad advice. You have to feel things, but you do have to learn to conceal certain things in public to come across more normally. I do agree with that.

But do tell your therapist everything. If you are unsure what he wants to hear, ask him where you should start and tell him you need help knowing what he wants to know.

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

Tell him all the facts, no opinions. Just tell him what you know, not what you think that way he can give you the best advice.

I'm still afraid of my mum and I'm nearly 60.

Mum's are powerful.

Tell your therapist everything.

If you are an adult living on your own you have a lot of control over how much contact you have with your mother. If she is a terrible person you can go no contact. If she is a good person who just gives very bad advice and she is a control freak, but otherwise okay then you can talk to her about those issues. Maybe she will lighten up maybe she won't, but her response can be your guide to how much you are willing to put up with.

Tell your therapist everything.
Based on my experience and that of people I know, the likelihood of your mom changing is very, very slim to none. In such unfortunate cases, distancing is the only workable option I've seen.

Whenever I have a meltdown, my mom's first response is to yell at me. I don't think she's asked me too often about why certain things make me flare up, even after I cool myself down. This is how she reacts when one of her children acts up or makes a mistake or questions her judgment. I'm not sure why she tends to do this, considering all the times she and my dad argued over something that didn't sound as urgent as they made it out to be. I would have contacted Child Protective Services, but not only did I not know about that organization until after I was no longer a child, but I wasn't fully aware of how horrible my parents were until I was in college.

I cannot trust my mom enough to talk to her about any problems I have, not only because my overreactions to my problems could set her off, but also because the fact that she's prone to flying off the handle IS ONE OF MY PROBLEMS. It's like she doesn't want me to express myself, even if it's to let out my inner demons in private so that I don't go nuclear in public! I admit that I've been a handle when I was younger and would do many socially immature things, but my mom would always give me grief instead of talking to me about my issues when we were alone. I can't help but believe that I got better in public while she got worse in private!

If I were a different person, I would have moved out of the house and into an apartment long ago. Alas, I'm too self-loathing, incompetent, unorganized and afraid of people to do something that simple; I struggle to quit my nightly internet surfing - my one escape from my awful life - and fall asleep before sunrise in the hopes that I can wake up rested before noon. (I just can't make myself think about putting it off for the next day.)

I'd tell someone about my problems, but I don't have a therapist, let alone a reliable social network. I once tried talking to someone in my community about how stressful living with my parents could be for me, but since he was closer to my parents, my mom was far from pleased to learn that I didn't think she was as perfect as she thought she was. I remember how she'd always yell about how if I kept yelling indoors, I might end up in an insane asylum. At times, I wonder if I would get better treatment there, when I'm not questioning who in my house needs to be taken away the most.

The other day, I had an appointment at a local vocational rehabilitation center, and my mom let me borrow my little brother's year-round bus pass so I wouldn't have to pay for the trip back home. Once I got home, I thought I lost the bus pass, and I started having a mental breakdown as I frantically searched my room for it. My mom started yelling at me for getting worked up over it, only to lash out at me for losing a bus pass worth $200. After suffering a good number of putdowns from her, I found it in a fold in my pants pocket, even though I thought I emptied my pockets earlier that day. I told my mom that I must not have looked hard enough, but she sarcastically replied how I must have not bothered looking at all. That remark made me want to physically assault myself, and that's exactly what I did.

I could have found the bus pass later that night or the day afterwards. Even if I didn't find the bus pass, I gladly would have paid for all of my brother's bus trips to and from his college. My mom didn't care, though; she just blathered on about how she believed I intentionally lost the bus pass and kept stepping on it for some reason. Do you understand what I have to endure by living with her?!

I sometimes think of moving in with my extended family, but I'm afraid that I'll just come across as a burden. I'm still going to have my fare share of problems regardless of where I live, so how do I know my relatives won't start harassing me when I have to vent my frustration?! I don't know what to do. I'm scared, angry, confused, and at the end of my rope...

My mom has a tendency to blame me when things go awry for her. When one of the THREE toilets in our house broke (we're fairly well off for a middle class family), she asked me if I've been screwing with it; I admit that I have caused it to overflow at times (as a closet masturbator, I've disposed of cum-soaked paper towels via the upstairs toilet before moving on to tissues which I throw into my waste-bin) but it had been a few months since I last used that partial toilet.

But that's not all! After coming home from an out-of-town trip, she started getting on my case about missing knives and skirts that she thought I moved without telling her. It turns out that the knives were in the kitchen instead of near the upstairs sink, while the skirts were on the living room couch with all the other clothes that had been cleaned recently. Since my mom had been out of clean skirts before the trip, and I was the one who had laundry-sorting duty last time, I should have told her about the skirts sooner. However, it's really starting to get on my nerves that she sometimes blames other people for things that bother her, especially since she can solve some of these problems on her own! It's bad enough that I'm convinced that I'm the source of all the world's problems, but does my mom really need to reinforce my paranoia just because her life isn't perfect?! Can't she just ask about things like a well-mannered person instead of automatically labeling me as a perpetrator?! Is it any wonder that I perform self-harm when I'm feeling very stressed out?!