My mother can be kind, cook for me, and be pleasant but I am always, always "walking on eggshells." She can be so mean, accusatory, jealous, demanding, sarcastic, belittling, spoiled/childlike, but when things are "going her way," at times happy and content. This has been through my entire life -- I am now 63. I am seeing a counselor and this has been helping, but I am hoping some of you can share your stories and ideas. She becomes mean and rejecting when I do something with other members of my family, even though she has been invited, but chooses not to go. She has ruined more holidays than I can count because something didn't go her way. When I go out of town, it is a major production, even if it is just for a two or three night mini-vacation with my husband. I rarely see my children who live in other states because she gets so depressed, upset, etc. over any separation from me. I am an only child and have felt the oppressive weight of her moods and never-know-what's- coming-next demands for my whole life. My father was a loving man, very sweet, but sort of gave in or turned her over to me. My father died 15 years ago and my mother promptly moved near me into a duplex about a mile away. Since that time, I have felt somewhat like a prisoner because I cannot relax and enjoy my life without her constant calling, complaining, etc. I have recently set limits, and I am so much better than before, but it is still so stressful. I am truly so nice to her-- do multiple things for her on an almost daily basis, take her shopping, have lunch with her, clean her house, take her to the doctor, whatever. I realize many of these things are age-related and I accept this and am happy to help. But when she is so mean and rejecting--well, that still gets to me, even though I am slowly improving. Lastly, I want to share a dog saga--my mother has always had dogs. She relates better to animals than people, BUT, like me, the dog has to "behave perfectly" in order to get her kindness and love. SO... She has been bemoaning her loss of her dog who died six months ago and she has tried out four new dogs, and they have all been returned because they peed or pooped in the house, or seemed to be sick in some way. I have been the one to return these sweet dogs to the shelter and it makes me ill. I feel horrible for the animals. The last dog was so sweet but she ate grass and threw up, plus pooped in the house, so there I went, running over to her place to clean up the mess, and the next day driving over two hours to return the sweetest dog in the world. I considered keeping this little dog but my husband and I am just now trying to figure out retirement and hoping for little bits of freedom and do not want a pet now. Lastly, for some background information, my mother had some traumas in her life, but was raised by a loving father and step-mother. I feel for her, and she continually reminds me that her real mother left her when she was two. I listen kindly and as patiently as I can. I feel for her. I am not a saint, but I have been told I am a nice person who has a kind heart, but I can hardly bare this anymore! She is in my head all the time and I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
So, like I said, I am getting better, but setting boundaries and sticking to them is the hardest thing I are ever done. My mother is "addicted" to me or something, and being an only child, I have no backup. She has no friends anymore --the few she had have died-- and she has alienated many people throughout her life. I cannot just leave her to her own devices, and she does not want to move into an independent living facility yet. I am not acting to make this sound like a "poor-me" pity party, but that is kind of what this is. Please help by sharing stories, struggles, or advice that has worked for you.
It's hard to be sick when they one you're caring for is even sicker. Actually I want to kick her bottom and tell her to knock off the stupid thing she's doing. But then, what if she really is that sick? I would feel terrible. I'll just leave her to her misery and concentrate on getting better myself. Life just really stinks when it's like this.
One thing that really bothers me with my mother is she thinks there's a pill out there that will fix everything and erase 20 years of age. She doesn't realize the "pill" exists within herself in watching what she eats and getting exercise. At a certain point, that ship has sailed and no wonder how you badger your hapless daughter, it can't be fixed. There is no magic.
Change your number
This is an option that you can explore with your phone provider. If this isn't an option, what you can do if this number is a landline is to let her calls go to an answering machine, but keep the answering machine volume down or muted. The answering machine would still be on and take the call but you wouldn't hear it. Another related trick you can try is your ringer volume down or muted. If you have one of those cordless phones with a light up window, you would be able to see you whenever the phone has an incoming call. If you have caller ID, you can actually cut off the call by just hitting the answer and the end buttons simultaneously. As soon as you see her number come up, you can just cut the call right off.
If this number happens to be a cell phone number, you can pretty much do the same similar thing except cell phones usually have voicemail. If you can have your provider help you to have your mom's number goes straight to voicemail, this would definitely be in your favor because other people who need you more will be able to get a hold of you more easily. You can also have your mom's number completely blocked. If this is not an option, you can get another phone and give that number to all of your close contacts except for your mom. She would still have the old number but everyone else would have the new number. In fact, what you can do is to carry the new phone with you and leave the other one at home so that your mom can call all she wants and she can never get a hold of you because the phone is at home and not on you. Therefore, she wouldn't know you actually have a new phone with a new number.
Distancing yourself from her would definitely be a very smart move on your part. I would definitely leave as soon as she started. As for her being possessive of you and becoming angry because you interact with other family members, do it anyway. You have every right to interact with others. The world doesn't revolve around just one person, there are others in this world. This is something your mom is just going to have to learn to accept whether she likes it or not. You may be an only child, but remember, you're also an adult. Therefore, she has no more control over you other than what you allow. You can regain your life if you really want to. If you distance your self and take a nice long two-week vacation or even a month vacation, see if you don't feel better right away. If you decide to go on vacation, remember to take a phone with a number that she cannot call, definitely leave the other phone at home. When do you listen to your voicemails, just delete the ones with no priority. Also, don't go over there alone if you still decide to go over there, take a support network with you who is on your side. They would be able to speak up on your behalf if they're really a very good support network. You don't have to live close to your mom if you really don't want to, you can choose to move away. Your mom has no legal custody of you since you're an adult. You have adult freedoms. You don't have to tolerate any form of abuse. In fact I found that in the case of my elderly friend, the spreading out my visits by making them feel were and further between was actually very advantageous. That's because I made myself more scarce as he started acting crazy, causing me to have no other choice but to distance myself. I can say from personal experience that taking that first step to freedom is actually the hardest, but it does get easier with each and every time you distance yourself from toxicity because each step to freedom will get easier. Remember that things will backfire on a narcissist at some point or another. This kind of thing just won't continue forever, trust me on this because the tables will turn in your favor. All you have to do is just sit back and watch things happen as they happen.
As for running errands for shelter dogs for her, I strongly agree with others that you should never have to do this, and I support those who mentioned it. If one of her trial dogs poops on the floor again, just don't clean it up. Let her clean up the mess herself. If she doesn't like the dog and you choose to bring her one and return it to the shelter, just don't clean up the mess. Just remind her that if she wants a dog that bad, then cleaning up after the dog is part of the territory that she's just going to have to accept. Another thing to tell her is that if she's not going to take responsibility, then you're just not going to bring her a dog. Stick to that rule.
What I'm sensing is your mom is enslaving you. You may not realize it, but slavery was long ago done away with. Therefore, it's still legal to own slaves. However, people find ways around that, and what you're describing sounds like one of those ways because what she wants is a slave. In fact, someone I know has very wrong ideas about women and he thinks women should do all of the household chores including all of the child rearing duties all day every day and have his dinner ready when he gets home from work. He thinks that just because he works outside the home that he doesn't have to share responsibilities inside the home. In other words, what he was saying that he's looking for a slave and not a wife. What he doesn't seem to understand is that expectations and reality are two totally different things because it's just not possible to do it all and not burn out sometime. There are also illnesses as well as injuries and disabilities. This is why reality speaks much louder than unreasonable expectations. Lots of women just aren't going to do all of the all of the household duties all of the time because many just won't fall for that. There are very clever ways of enslaving people, and if you're wise enough to catch it without being sucked in your can prevent it from happening to you. If you ever find yourself being ordered around or being ordered to jump on demand, just do what a friend of mine and myself dead in the case of my elderly friend:
Just don't do what you're being ordered to do. As long as you're being ordered around, just don't do anything being ordered of you. It's one thing to ask nicely and another thing to be demanding. Remind your mom that she can catch more flies with honey than she can with salt or vinegar.
Another big red flag to look for in your situation is if you notice your mom getting mad if you don't immediately do what she wants. In the case of my elderly friend who did this, there were various situations where he got mad when he didn't get his way right away. At least once he trying to start trouble with a restaurant when his order was not on time and it happened to be one of those nights when the restaurant had a very high order volume. My elderly friend could not legally drive, and at the time I was not in a position to have access to a vehicle though I was able to drive if I had one. Therefore, pick up of the order was not possible. There were also times when by elderly friend would get mad for some reason and at least once or twice I actually saw him throw an item and break it. I'm just glad he threw it away from me and not at me because he would've had a fight on his hands because I would've definitely defended myself and he would've been in jail. Another time he threw an open bag of pork rinds across the room, making a big mess on the floor. He expected me to clean it up because he asked me if I'm going to clean it up and I very firmly said no. When he asked me if I would at least bring him the broom since he was nearly blind, I did agree to that and I brought him the broom. He cleaned up his own mess that he rightfully made.
Another red flag you should notice in your situation is if the toxic person happens to damage or destroy something that means something to you. Be aware of the possibility that if they really wanted to, they could do bodily harm to you.
If anything sounds familiar, take this very seriously and take the initiative to leave the toxic and dangerous environment. If there are any children hanging around the house where this problem is, definitely remove them along with any other vulnerable person as well as animals.
When she calls you screaming, just say, "I have to go now mom, love you" Then hang up. Don't try to reason, argue, whatever. If you answer you are just feeding the monster
Don't answer the phone if she calls you back. These are suggestions from my therapist. My Mother is gone, but I have a daughter who sometimes tries this.
You are doing great, we are a work in progress and we keep working on it. It helped me to learn that my mother had a defect that did not allow her to love me. It was nothing about me, it was about her. Sort of like she had no sense of smell, she just didn't have it in her to love me.
Isn't it great that you have found a wonderful community of people who DO care about you. I am also so very glad you took the dog. Dogs are people too and shouldn't be subject to abuse.
We put up with so much that I wonder why we think it is okay for them to do, but we have to be forever nice back the other direction. One time I would like to tell my mother what I really thought of her. Mine wouldn't pay any attention, though, since what I say goes right through her and disappears like the wind.