Why is my Mom like that?
I am sorry if this is messy - its my first reddit post and english is my third language.
I hope this is the right thread.
I have and always had many problems with my Mom, so I dont really know where to start.
I want to start off with saying that my younger sister (19) and I (22) had everything we ever could have imagined. Our parents always provided everything for us. Materially we had everything a child should have and way more.
Emotionally not so much. Generally I remember my childhood being very tense. I remember threats of being hit and in some occasions that it happened, but my parents now deny it and I am missing great chunks of memory.
Before starting school everything was fine and after that something changed, tho i cannot pinpoint exactly what it was. This will be mainly about my Mom, since she stayed home for a relatively long time while my dad always worked long hours and tends to just leave the room when things got tense.
• Grades/Achievements
My parents are first gen immigrants and it was drilled into me from a very young age, that education and success are the most important things in life. While this is true, I experienced immense pressure from the age of 6. She used to always ask for my friends grades and compare me with them. Using bad grades against me and saying things like: „This is my fault, I allow you too much“.
I very much became a very eager and ambitious person, but now also experience a great deal of anxiety, impostor syndrome, burnout and fear of being unsuccessfull.
At the same time, they expect me to have three kids at 25 and told me so on my 20th birthday. When I told them that I am not sure on having kids the answer was: Oh you just love to hurt your parents and you are so selfish.
• Privacy
We never had any privacy. They would take our doors away as punishment, search our rooms, go through our phones, vet friends, call friends‘ parents and so on. I wasnt allowed to even mention a boys name without it causing a scene and my parents going through my phone to confirm that I endeed did not have a boyfriend. We were not allowed to say no, ever.
• Body
We were always forced to eat up our plates or generally eat, whether we were hungry or not. At the same time my figure was always commented on. I was either eating too little or too fat the next day. I have body issues until this day.
She always comments on our looks. On what we should wear, how real women dress, what and when we eat, that we should not eat bread and rice, sweets and so on. Even tho she herself is not the slimmest figure.
Food is still a great topic at home. My Mom calls and asks me several times a day if I have eaten, what I ate, if my (moved out sister) already ate. When I go to the kitchen she jumps up and immediately proceeds to list all the food items we have as if I was incapable of opening the fridge myself. It creates a lot of food noise and anxiety around the topic of eating.
I was also always told to dress modestly around my dad, to not wear shorts or always put on a bra because it makes him uncomfortable (which I dont believe).
• Fears
My mom has intense fears. When I dont answer my phone immediately she calls me 50 times in a row and gets all riled up thinking something bad happened. This is especially true for my little sister. We cannot go everywhere without her making a scene on how dangerous it is.
She also never takes me seriously. Whenever I tell her about something I have heard or read about she dismisses and disregards it. Two weeks later when she has seen it somewhere else, she tells me
about how cool/smart/interesting it is. When I speak about something that I am passionate about she babytalks me and says „oh you are so cute.“
• Fighting
I would say that my Mom is a very impulsive person who always has to have it her way. She always expects you to have the same opinion as her, always do what she says. When she gives „advice“ she expects it to be done like that. Not just with my Sister and I but also with friends and colleagues. She has had her fair share with problems because of that behaviour. When you do or say differently than what she imagined, she blows up. Screaming and Yelling at you, bringing up some made up problems she has with you, dragging your character through the mud and so on. She reacts like that especially when you come to her with a problem that you have with her. It can never be about my problem, she always turns it around and in the end its about how much of a shit person I am. When I bring up problems she loves to say stuff like: Oh someones in a Mood to fight again. She once called me a wild beast haha.
She always says that I hate my family, that I should just find another Mom since shes the worst anyway. She always brings up that she does so much for
my Sister and I while it is just the bare miminum as a parent to feed and clothe your kids.
When I just leaves she follows me into my room just to keep screaming at me.
I remember one time we had a big fight and my Mom started to pack me a bag so child services could come pick me up. When I said „bet“ and told her I would go willingly she started crying and begged me
to stay. Mind you I was like 10 at the time.
In a more recent fight she smashed in a window after I would not open the door for her before she calmed down. She claims it was an accident and that she was just knocking but i am not too sure about that.
Having glasses thrown at me was also part of the daily.
Of course in her story none of this happened.
My younger Sister moved to her boyfriend because of that behaviour because it was so unbearable to her.
• Relationship between my Sister and I
We have a pretty close relationship, but my Mom keeps inserting herself. Her idea of having a close relationship is going out together every day, which we dont do since we obviously have our own lives, but we talk daily and always help each other out. But because this is not her definition of a close bond, she keeps inserting herself. Mostly telling me everyday to call her, when I will finally organise something, if she ate, if she texted me, telling me that I should tell my sister to sleep over here even tho shes moved out. When I go out with friends she says why dont you bring your sister and so on. When I ask her to stop that she starts again with insulting me, saying that I am selfish and hate my family. That it is just us four and family is the most important thing. She just must always remind me who of my relatives to call, who to talk to, what to do in my free time and so on.
I think this is because she does not talk to her brother.
The most ironic thing to me is, that she has a similar relationship with her own Mom, but just does not see it.
I am now 22, studying law, living at home, and despite being an adult I still feel like I am treated as a child whose decisions need to be approved and monitored.
Now she wishes for me and her to have a closer relationship. She always comes to my room to hug and kiss me, always wants to chat about my private life and feels sad that I do not ask her about hers. I would like to have a closer relationship too, but I just get so tense and feel disgusted when she hugs me. I just cant bring myself to be close to her and that really bothers me. I always get so irritated and mean when shes around and feel really bad because of it. I am not a mean person, only when shes around.
I dont hate my mother. I want closeness, but something inside me pulls away.
Can anybody help me understand why I react so strongly to physical affection from my mother? Is this a normal response after growing up in a controlling household? And does my mother’s behavior sound familiar to anyone who grew up with anxious or emotionally immature parents?