I am feeling a bit frustrated and confused lately regarding my relationship with my mother.

I'll give you a bit of a background. I am now 22 years of age, and when I was 16 I was 'kicked' out of my mother's house as a result of her needing more room in the house for her new boyfriend to move in. My relationship with my mother has never been the same since. 

My mother has always struggled with clinical depression (and to be honest, probably bipolar disorder), she is a 'conspiracy theorist, and tries to cause problems within people (not just me) just for the heck of it. My mother's mental health took a turn for the worst after her divorce from my father after 25 years of marriage. My relationship with my mom, I would say, is like walking on thin ice...all the time. You don't know what you're going to get from her one day to the next. She could be your best friend one day and she could be your worst nightmare the next. She is a master manipulator and knows just what to say to tug on your heart strings and make you feel guilty about anything. 

This is where my mom's behaviour gets involved with my surgery process. My mom has no contact with any of my family members due to them not putting up with her sh**. I have always been told, "if you ever get married I'm not coming to you're wedding" or "I will never be in the same room as them". It puts me in such a tough and awkward situation having to choose, that I finally said "If you don't want to be at these things for me, then that is something you will have to live with, not me". 

It seems as if every time something positive is happening in my life she tries to bring me down. She tries to shake my confidence, and it is like she gets joy out of doing it. My university graduation, she did not come, and around the time of my graduation she tried to cause problems between me and her, although it seemed as if it was all one sided on her end. It bothers her that I don't feed in to her mind games. 

My mom is aware that my surgery is 6 weeks away and she knows that this is something that I have wanted to have for years. I am becoming mentally and emotionally prepared for the surgery along with recognizing my deep rooted issues for being obese and all of the things from my past that have caused me to not feel confident enough in myself to love my body enough. I have become a strong, motivated individual, and I have come to understand that eating is an addiction just like alcohol is.

My mom has already started the 'you dont love me' tactic, and the 'i'm not going to be there for you after surgery'. All of these things that she is constantly saying to me make my blood boil! My heart says 'this is your mother' and my head says 'please break off this toxic relationship'. This relationship with my mother will never change, and I know this because of her struggles with her mental health. I am very torn as to what to do or what to say because I know that this type of relationship will not be good for me in the future. I need to surround myself with positive and supportive people. My mother is not either of these things. As a daughter I feel compelled to take her sh**, but as a person I know I deserve better. 

Thanks for listening

-Michelle

Hi Michelle,   Mother/daughter relationships can be challenging at the best of times--add mental illness to the mix and you don't know if you're coming or going.  As much as I hate using Dr. Phil--isms ... he once said something that resonated with me..."teach people how to treat you". Although your mother is emotionally unstable, she does have patterns in her behaviour.  If she continues to get the same reponses from you, she will continue with the same behaviour. It took me 3 years of therapy/counselling to change my family dynamics, but it was worth it in the long run. I'm no professional -- just an old fart whose been through some challenges of my own. Do what's best for you. I hope this helps. I wish you all the best on your upcoming surgery and your continuing journey of health.

I had a lot of toxic issues with my mother. It is hard because we are wired to love our parents no matter the **** they put us through. It took me a lot of years not to react to her behaviour. I would tell her if she acted a certain way I would walk out/disconnect the phone. I urge to get some counseling on how to deal with her. You are young and need to find ways to either walk away or deal with her emotional abuse. Have no mistake it is abuse. I wish you luck with your surgery.

I totally understand what you are going through and so many similiarities with my relationship with my own mother.  My parents live 2000 miles away and since I have seen my Mum a year and a half ago, I have put on 60 pounds.  I am flying out today as my date is in end of life stages in a nursing home with dementia.  I've put off going, sadly, because I know I will get the third degree about my weight, despite the fact my Dad is dying.  She doesn't even want me to come out, but I am doing it for me, as I don't want to regret seeing him before he passes due to the fact that I am still morbidly obese.  My mother doesn't even want me to come out.  She does not know that I am going thru the surgery process and I am torn whether or not to tell her.  It will be a lose-lose situation I am sure, because if I don't tell her, will have to put up with her verbal abuse, and if I do tell her, I am sure I will hear that I am a big fat failure for not being able to do this "on my own".  I try to stay strong but the mother-daughter relationship is so complex....and my thousands of dollars of past therapy prove that. 

I would not bring the surgery up this trip.  I would keep it to myself until you have lost all or most of your excess weight and then decide if you even want to tell her then. 

My heart aches for all of you.

Just because some of us were lucky enough to receive unconditional love from our parents doesn't mean others did, and these postings were a good reminder of that.

Part of me wonders what would happen if you cut the toxic relationships out of your lives entirely. I know that's almost impossible to contemplate because of the ensuing guilt, but how much torment can a person reasonably be expected to cope with - without losing one's own sense of self-worth, or worse yet, becoming  an angry *****

I was able to reconcile with both parents before they passed and it is an enormous comfort to me now, that despite my wild and disrespectful ways in my youth, I was able to do the best I could for both of them before they were gone forever. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be, to forge on with what's best for you despite mental and emotional sabotage from the most influential person in your lives.

Hugs to all of you.

you are the same age as my daughters. My heart goes out to  you. I think that you are on the right track, you know that the relationship is toxic, you know you need positive people in your life. I would suggest some cognitive behavioural therapy that will teach you strategies to deal with her. Hold your head up high, you're an intelligent young woman, and you deserve to be treated with respect.

I am so sorry that your relationship is so bad with your mother.It is not easy.My heart goes out to you.Know one should be kicked out at the age of sixteen.You were still a child, a young lady I should say.

She has an illness that she is not taking care of.You do not deserve to be treated this way no one does.You need to be around positive people who support you.I would seek some help to deal with her.You can't fix her.You can only fix yourself meaning not be treated the way she treats you.

Mothers sometimes do not always see eye to eye but you should not be abused by her.

You deserve to be loved and cared for.

I am a firm believer that we need to teach people how to treat us.  Make yourself a list of the things that you will no longer tolerate from your Mom and then sit down and talk with her.  Remind her of how she has alienated the rest of her family and let her know what you are no longer going to accept.  Let her know that your relationship with her must have these new bounderies for it to work.  Let her know that she must respect your bounderies if she cant then you must sever the ties.  You need this ti make your self healthy.  She is probably the crux of your weight problem.  After your surgery you are going to need to be really focussed on you and your journey.  Mommy is a grown women and wether you believe it or not she will servive.  It is finally all about you right now.  Remember  bounderies if not cut the strings and fly.   :-)  Val

Oh, Michelle... I read this post this morning but wanted to reply when I had more time to do so. I don't know you, but I know your troubles. I'm nine years older than you, but I was right where you are, even six months ago. It took me until then before I finally clued into what Pat said above - my mother spent a life time neglecting and emotionally abusing me and my brother, but it took my brother telling me that for me to finally see what she'd done to me.

My parents separated when I was 8 (coincidentally, right about the time I started getting overweight... hmm), and my brother and I chose to live with my Dad. Well, my brother chose (he's 5 years older) and convinced me to do the same. My memories of my mother when I was a child were like two sides of a coin - the mommy who was so amazing when I was home sick, or had a birthday party, or at our family cottage, and then the mommy who was always berating us, comparing me to the thinner, prettier, wealthier girl who overtime became my nemesis! I remember her having depressive episodes, or arguing loudly with my dad. When she moved out, I remember our visits being constant guilt trips and disparagement diatribes about my dad. I remember turning down her offer to take me to an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean. I had watched something about parents kidnapping their kids after divorce, and I thought she would do it! When I was 11, mom moved to England after meeting a man on a trip. She lived there until 2010. Over the 16 years she lived there, I visited about 10 times, and she came home, but that was not the kind of mother-daughter relationship that other girls had. Only now I count my blessings. I could easily see myself as you were, kicked out at 16 or else running away. Our visits were always that same polarized mix of great times and just awful, awful fights. As I got older, there were periods of time when I just didn't talk to her at all, usually because she had said something so awful it took me months to forgive her. My brother has not spoken to her for fifteen years.

No matter how many times she screwed with my head, said awful things, judged me, judged my father and then judged me for liking my new stepmom (at 13), I was forever forgiving her and letting her back into my life, only to have it all happen again. I kept thinking that if I could just deal with the vitriol I would somehow have something like the ideal mother/daughter relationships I saw my friends have, or in the media.

Meanwhile, my stepmom Carol was all the things I could want in a parent and mother, and while we had a good relationship, I was forever holding back from truly embracing what we could be together. And that is what led to my absolute last straw this winter.

I mentioned that mom moved back to Canada in 2010. From then on she expected me to suddenly make her a part of my regular life. Forget holidays, if I wasn't travelling to see her in Peterborough (she wouldn't come to "scary" Toronto) once a month I was horrible, and since I couldn't do that, I was indeed guilted to high heaven.

As you may have seen me post about before, last summer I lost my aunt to her obesity co-morbidities at age 64. My mom's only sibling, and someone I was very close to (she too was a better "parent" figure than my mom ever was). I was devastated but I put pretty much all my energy into comforting my mother. About six weeks of pretty much being at her emotional beck and call, physically or by phone and email. She actually said at one point "you have to talk to me every day now. You're all I have. You have to." while never seeing how I was feeling. So I was very raw when in September, I found out that Carol had some form of cancer. When I told my mom that our Thanksgiving plans would have to change (my dad and Carol had graciously been including her in the past few years' dinners) but that I could still spend time with her, she sent me a brief, terse email saying she thought I was blowing her off and that I could just forget about her, and that she felt like I was treating her like a burden. My response was pretty emotional and reactive, but from the heart.

That weekend I found out that Carol might only have a couple months to live. I emailed my mom to tell her so, and her response was "my thoughts are with Carol". That was it. She even saw my Dad while he was out shopping, and he told her I had moved in to help him take care of Carol, and she told him that she was still mad at me for Thanksgiving and that she wouldn't talk to me until I apologized. I left it that way because you know what? I needed all my energy to be a caregiver. We spent two months at home and two months in palliative care with Carol before she died in January, and I didn't hear from my mother once. During that time I had many, many conversations with my Dad, my brother, even my Dad's brother (who knew mom for 30 years) and his wife about how astounded I was that after all the support I gave mom about my aunt, she was leaving me totally high and dry. That was when my brother said his bombshell:

"I consider mom to be an abuser. She abused us."

I was totally in shock. As obvious as it may seem, I had never, ever thought about it that way before. And once the seed was planted, the thought grew, and I took inventory, and I made predictions about my life going forward should I keep this woman in my life. Having just lost the one woman who was always there for me, unconditionally, it was like having a mirror held up to see everything wrong about my relationship with my mom. Toxic. Abusive. Selfish, hurtful... the list goes on.

So I sat down and wrote what I thought would be a draft of a letter to my mother, telling her exactly how I felt, what she was, is and always would be if I let her stay in my life. I took fifteen minutes to do it, having talked about it so much I guess, and when I read it over I realized that it was exactly what I wanted to say. It didn't even have any typos. So I sent it. It told her on no uncertain terms that going forward, she is out of my life. She responded only to tell me that while she is sorry I lost Carol, she disagreed. However she said she would respect my wishes.

I have never felt such a relief.

I'm not saying that this is what you must do, Michelle. Perhaps some day I will reconcile with her, maybe for her sake, when she is nearing her last days. But knowing that I no longer have this horrible toxic part of my life is SO freeing! Knowing that my future children won't have her influence, and will only know the love and support of me, my fiance and his parents and my dear old dad is something I feel so good about.

You are about to embark on a life changing experience, and it's not going to be easy. You will need supportive influences and all the positive energy you can get. Please think about whether her presence in your life is helpful to you at this time. Maybe after you have gone through your surgery journey and are well on your way to a new start you can tackle this somehow, even encourage her to seek help. But for now, I just want you to do the best thing for yourself.

I'm sorry this is uber long and maybe TMI. I just felt like I had to share my story. I would love for you to be spared the 9 extra years of torment that I have gone through. XX