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Dealing with my mom

Discussion in 'Coming Out Advice' started by Tetraquark, Jun 18, 2012.

  1. Tetraquark

    Tetraquark Guest

    This is part question, part rant. Sorry for the length.

    My mom kicked me out of the house on Friday and kept almost all of my belongings, including all of my clothes (except those I happened to be wearing at the time) and my laptop. My dad and his wife are letting me stay with them for the rest of the summer, so housing is not an issue right now. However, I am still unsure of how to respond to what happened.

    I was staying with my mom in my hometown, which is not only incredibly small but also miles away from anything. In the past this has not been a large problem because I generally prefer reading, programming, and playing video games to socializing with people.

    However, I am not the same person I was even six months ago. While the change was overall for the better, the events that caused the change also destabilized me emotionally to a small degree, leading to a day or two out of every week where I want to do little more than curl up on my bed for a couple hours. At school I could partially get over this by going out and doing things, but that is not an option in my hometown because there was literally nothing to do.

    What does this have to do with my mom? Well, she has anger issues. She has threatened to kick me out of the house before and she even slapped me across the face once. She is also incredibly judgmental and a horrible listener. I would try to tell her that I wasn't feeling well and every single time she concluded that it was a self-esteem issue. All I had to do to feel better was to pick myself up and stop complaining.

    Thursday I crashed, and Friday morning I still wasn't feeling great. I told her so because 1) talking about it does help and 2) something was obviously wrong, so she was probably going to ask me anyways.

    Big mistake.

    She started off supportive, but she gradually worked herself up into what is best described as a temper tantrum. With barely any input from me, she started saying how ungrateful and selfish I was, that I never loved her, that I was a sociopath, a b****, and a c***, that she had spent so much money on me, etc. I sank into the couch and let her yell for probably about half an hour, at which point I grabbed a math book and tried to retreat into my room. She wouldn't let me do this, however, and then started berating me for "hiding in my room all day." When I pointed out that it sounded like she didn't want me to be there, she said she didn't and that I should get out.

    So I grabbed my purse and left. I called my aunt to come pick me up.

    I went back into the house briefly to buy a plane ticket to my dad's place, but my mom refused to let me bring anything that she had bought for me (even if I had owned it for years) other than the things I was wearing at the time. She changed her mind for a little while later on and wanted me to make a list of what I wanted to bring. When I decided to leave most of my clothes behind anyways because they no longer fit (dropping roughly 20 pounds in a year does that) and several of them had noticeable holes, she again went ballistic and told me I either had to bring as much as I could fit in my suitcase or nothing but my passport, which I needed to get on the plane. I asked her if she would pay for my baggage fees ($150!) because that would almost certainly put me above 50 lbs, which is exactly how much was in my suitcase when I arrived, she said that she wouldn't and started cussing me out again. I told her that I would just take the passport.

    In truth there was another reason why I didn't want to bring anything: I didn't want her to have this kind of power over me anymore. As long as most of my stuff was bought with her money, even if I got it as a child, she would always use it against me. She had already been doing it for years, and I was tired of it. Time and again she would get me things that I didn't even want; then when we got into an argument she would hold it over my head and complain about how much money she had spent on me.

    To top it all off, she refused to give me my passport until I apologized. Even when I did, she still threw it in the driveway for me to pick up.

    I'm trying to decide what to do now. I probably should talk to her again, but I don't think I'm ready. I don't want to talk to her until she has calmed down, but I'm not sure how long that will take. Also, my university requires that I own a laptop, and I am not sure whether I should try to talk her into mailing me my old one or if I should buy a new one. I'm leaning toward the latter, for the reasons described above.

    In general I just don't have any idea what to do now in regards to her. Any advice? And again, apologies for the length. My mom was literally the only emotional support I had outside of the internet. :icon_sad:
     
  2. Chip

    Board Member Admin Team Advisor Full Member

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    First, I'm sorry for the experience you've had. Nobody should have to go through that, and it's certainly difficult when, in particular, you're being treated that way by the only person who has been there to support you.

    I don't have any instant answers, but I can say that this is in no way your fault. It's pretty clear to me that your mom has some severe psychological issues. It's not clear what, but perhaps whatever it is that's causing her to have these explosions and unreasonable behaviors is something that's getting worse.

    Realistically, I see only two scenarios in which things improve in the short term:

    1. She realizes that she has severe psychological issues and gets help. I don't think you can be the one to tell her this, for obvious reasons. But maybe there's someone else (a brother or sister of hers? other close friend or family member?) who knows enough about her behavior to be able to have that conversation with her.

    2. She gets lonely because you aren't around and aren't in contact and apologizes for her behavior, or contacts you pretending it never happened.

    If option 2 happens, you have a decision to make, whether you'll just accept the apology (or avoidance) or whether you'll use the opportunity to have a meaningful conversation about treating you respectfully. The second is healthier for you, but may not be very workable in the short term.

    Ultimately, I doubt that she's going to want to just have you out of her life, so she will probably have to make some sort of gesture at some point... it's just a matter of what you do. And in the meantime, I'd work on cultivating a stronger support network, either online, in real life, or both.

    Finally, I do have one other suggestion: There's an amazing book called "Just Listen" by Mark Goulston. It describes a series of techniques (and explains the theory behind why they work) for being able to communicate with really difficult people. If you read that, and actively use those techniques in communicating with your mother, I can say without a doubt that it *will* make a difference in how she communicates, and will likely bring down her anger level substantially.
     
  3. Tetraquark

    Tetraquark Guest

    Thanks for the advice, Chip. I'll definitely get that book.

    She did contact me today. She basically went with option 2 -- she wanted to send me some of my stuff (actually, it sounds like she'll probably send me as much as she possibly can, even stuff I don't want). She still doesn't seem to have any clue that the problem here wasn't so much me being mildly depressed but rather her response to it. In other words, unless I speak up, she will gladly let things go back to exactly the way they were.

    I do plan on eventually talking to her about what happened, but I'll give it a little while, maybe read part of that book first. Otherwise I'm afraid she will shut down before I can communicate anything to her.