Is this abuse?
I’m having trouble even trying to name the abuse or explain the dynamic I have with my mother so I’m hoping other people might help me understand, or even relate on some level and share some insight.
For as long as I remember, I’ve always felt terrified of my my mother. Growing up, she was extremely volatile, she would scream at me and my siblings over very minor things, give us the silent treatment for weeks at a time if we were “bad” and just has never provided us with any kind of emotional safety at all. Never hugged or kissed us, never been told “I love you”. Even now, though she’s less shouty, she still will regularly stone wall or give us the silent treatment if we’ve done something that upsets her, she’s not someone I feel safe enough to open up to or express my true feelings to.
The dynamic in my family is that she rules the roost, we never say how we truly feel around her, what she says goes & we all just jump whenever she says how high because displeasing her is too much hassle to cope with.
I’ve watched her verbally abuse my father since I was little, distance him from his family, & cheat on him multiple times and while she’d have different men at the house while he was away, she’d make us swear to never mention it to my dad. She ridicules him in front of us, my dad had a huge health scare a couple of years ago & she showed zero comfort & regularly said he was “milking it”
We’re all adults now, but the dynamic is still the exact same, we all cater to her every need. My dad does all her washing, and cooking (she doesn’t even know how to work the washing machine or oven because she’s never needed to, someone has always done it for her) - I do a deep clean of their house every single week, if I’m staying with her she expects her bed to be made every single day, she’ll shout for things from her bedroom, get me a drink, grab me this - she even calls me into her bedroom to get her tablets out from the drawer in there and hand them to her. She has no physical disabilities & is healthy, and I feel like her carer. Everyone is just expected to cater to her every need, and it’s like we all blindly do it - because there’s this feeling of superiority with her, that her needs outweigh all of ours. She does nothing for herself, any personal admin falls to me, like it’s my responsibility.
When we were younger, my mum and dad split up for a few years and during that time all the housework fell onto me and my siblings - from the age of about 6 I was making sure my own packed lunch was sorted, my sister would wash and iron my uniform, she’d make dinner for her siblings and my mum and she has just never ever shown up for us in the way I feel that a mum should.
This all seemed relatively normal to me until my current partner witnessed her around me and he said this behaviour absolutely isn’t normal and he’s never seen a grown woman treat her children this way, he said I acted like I was her servant and only now am I realising that that’s what it feels like - there’s no appreciation just expectation.
I’m growing so unbelievably tired of it and I’m considering going no contact, I’m slowly trying to distance myself but I also know that not speaking to my mum means not speaking to any family members that currently still speak to her, because she just wouldn’t allow it, she’d see them speaking to me as a betrayal. I just feel so confused, I have moments of wondering if I’m being dramatic and this is just what children do for their parents - and I understand caring for them, but this is lifelong & my mum is 50 and in good health, it just feels like I actually don’t know what my boundaries are anymore because they’ve been crossed so many times.
Has anyone else experienced this dynamic with their mother? How did you escape it or challenge it?
To be honest, she’s an extremely defensive person so I don’t ever think I would challenge it because I know there would never be an outcome where she looked inwards and worked on showing up for us better.
I’m just tired and have emotionally checked out, I don’t feel a deep love for her, I just grieve a mother I wish I’d had to be honest. I watch my partners mother support him and comfort him, even just getting up and offering him a tea when we’re around, and it just makes me sad because I have never experienced having a mother that cares for me and it’s quite an uncomfortable and confronting realisation.