My mother said some very hurtful, quite insensitive things to me tonight, and all I can do is just take it in since I'm not out. I just need to get this off my chest... I was at a dinner tonight with a bunch of family, and my aunt mentioned something about me and how I'm independent and strong. Then, this is how the conversation went: My mom: "Strong?! You think she's strong?! I definitely wouldn't call her strong." My aunt: "Yeah, I think she's strong. She's able to go through a lot of things and handle them on her own." My mom: "No, I wouldn't describe her as strong." Me: "Well, what do you consider 'strong'?" My mom then goes on to talk about her struggles as a teenager, how she immigrated, took care of herself, went to school, worked several jobs, and supported herself completely. She said, "That's what I call strong. You—you're not strong." Me: "I wasn't put in the same circumstances as you, so you can't really compare that. There's emotional strength, too. Do you know what I go through?" My mom: "Of course I do." Me: "No, you don't. How can you possibly know how I feel?" My mom: "Whatever...I do know for the most part." So, my mom tells me I'm not strong (in front of my whole family), trivializes my pain because I didn't live her life, and claims to know what I go through. I've quietly suffered through depression for many years now, I have social anxiety, I'm completely alone at college, and I've been suffocating in the closet for 20 years. A big reason for my not coming out is also for my mother's sake, in fact. She gets easily stressed and has high blood pressure, so I'm keeping everything to myself so I don't upset her...and she thinks my life is a breeze just because I don't financially support myself. I'm always hurting and put on a brave face, but none of that apparently makes me "strong." :icon_sad: I don't know what to do.
You can tell in part how strong somebody is by how they treat others. I've never heard of a parent denigrating their kid because they effectively did a good job in providing for you. I'd call her out for being incredibly insensitive and disrespectful, maybe with a remark like "It takes a strong person to put up with this sort of uncalled for verbal abuse."
Thanks for responding. Yes, it was uncalled for, and what hurt me the most was just the fact that she thinks she knows everything about me and does not think I have any emotional turmoil. I mean, hello? How much do teenagers/young adults really tell their parents about their personal lives? My mother is a strong person; I wouldn't diminish her attributes because of what she said to me. Her father died when she was a young teen, she flew half way across the world by herself to go to school in America, her mother or siblings didn't come along, she worked three jobs while going to college, she paid for food, housing, and all else by herself. I understand that that's a struggle, and it's true that I've never been through that. But she's worked hard to create a better life for her children, right? I didn't have the same struggle, but that doesn't mean I don't have struggles of my own.
I'm sorry your mother treats you like that.(*hug*) Believe me, I can sympathize. My own mother can be very hurtful to me as well. Sometimes I think it's her personal mission in life to make mine as miserable as possible. She really is very hurtful and irritating. When she's had a bad day, she takes it out on me. When she feels like starting an argument and I don't rise to it, she calls me out on why I don't respond to her and says things like 'What's wrong with you?' and her favourite is 'You are not normal. I swear you are crazy.' which she generally tells me whenever feels like it. Like when I asked her for the fourth time to take a look at her wardrobe because I am quite sure she has my black skirt and for some reason that's a huge request and she acts like I've just insulted her and starts yelling at me that she can't believe how crazy I am and that I'm not normal. You can never tell when she'll go into crazy mode. One moment she's telling me off for existing and being a burden, the next she's like our argument from just hours before has never happened. And then the next day when I go about my business as usual, and I always try to avoid her in the house as much as possible to minimize the risk of an outburst, she keeps asking me stupid questions which immediately makes me aware of what she's trying to do, to start another fight with me which I don't want so I try not to engage in a conversation. But that seems to be a problem as well because she feels like chatting to me about insignificant things and to annoy me. She loves doing that because then she can tell me how easily annoyed I am and how unbearable it is to live with me and how selfish I am... There are lots of other things she says to me but my post is long enough already.:icon_redf
They always say, no one can hurt us quite as much as someone we love, your Mom cannot see your life through your eyes & cannot know what struggles in life you have had to cope with, there is an old Native American Proverb "Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins".
This succinctly wraps up what your message to her should be, IMO. It wouldn't be insulting back to her to say this, and the kind of logic it uses is pretty hard to deny.
Don't let it get to you - if she loves you then she loves you; you're her daughter, regardless of how she compares her younger self to you. As said above, you've had your own struggles - she is one of them. Don't get too down - you're strong for posting here. <3
I'm sorry about how your mother treats you, too. Mine isn't usually verbally abusive or anything, but last night was an exception. Somehow the word "strong" evoked a big response from her, and she always likes to make it known that she's been a strong person for what she's been through in her life. It just makes me sad to know that she thinks I'm weak or something and that she thinks she knows me so well. That's terrible that your mother says those things to you and is so difficult to be around. It's hard to understand how our own mothers can treat us this way. Anyways, I wish you the best and hope things get better with her! ---------- Post added 5th May 2013 at 11:08 AM ---------- You're exactly right. She's not walking in my shoes, so there's no way she can know what my life is really like. She only sees what I let her see, which is only like 10% of my story. Somehow, she doesn't seem to realize that and believes she knows everything about my life when all I ever talk to her about is school and meaningless random things. ---------- Post added 5th May 2013 at 11:10 AM ---------- Right, but I've let the moment come and go already. I hate myself for not being able to think quickly on my feet when I need to! This always happens in arguments or conversations...I can never come up with a good point until hours after it's done. Now, we're both just pretending like that little outburst never happened. ---------- Post added 5th May 2013 at 11:13 AM ---------- Thanks I'm trying to not let it bother me so much, but I can't get it off my mind. There's just so much I want to tell her, but that would involve coming out and a whole heap of other things to go along with that. I'm just not ready to let it all come pouring out, since I've lived my whole life hiding everything. I never thought of myself as a particularly strong person or as someone who has a strong personality, but she can't say I'm not strong for dealing with everything that I've dealt with on my own.
