u/RythmicRhapsody

Me: *attends physical therapy as usual for my wrist*

My therapist, a man: *guides me through therapy as usual*

Me: Hey check this bump here, is it normal? I only have it on one hand but the other one is fine, what could it be?

Therapist: *holds both my hands with ONE HAND, my wrists bent between his thumb and palm, and both my hands are open against his*

Therapist: *pushes a point with his other thumb* does it hurt here?

Me: *still processing the fact that both my hands are sitting comfortably in one of his* ....huh?

Therapist: I'll press some points and I want you to tell me if it hurts

Me: *still mentally in another place* ...sorry what??

Therapist: ok, your hand is still shaking, and it seems like your wrist is still weak, I will request an extension for your sessions, I want to see you again next week

Me: ok..

I (32 F) love my mom (60 F) so much, and we live together in the family home, with my dad, he's not around much, but anyway, my mom has always been a negative, but jolly person, I know it's a contradiction but it is the case. I will give you a few examples, she went to a wedding tonight, she kept complaining all day about having to go, until she got to the venue, then when she got back, she complained about the venue being cold, the music being loud, people who don't know how to choose dresses, etc.. then she went on about being hungry because the food wasn't good there so she didn't eat, let's break this down.

The temperature is always low in crowded venues, to make sure people with makeup don't sweat, so we all know to get some shawls or throw, but she always chooses not to (I got her a few nice ones that go with most of her dresses so it's not because she doesn't have any). The music being loud, well, it's a wedding, people play music and dance? Nothing to complain about. People choosing bad dresses, I get that some people enjoy gossiping about others fashion choices, I don't, but what mom does is far from that, she would talk with anger and disgust like "she's old what is she doing wearing hot pink? Does she think she's a teen" or, my personal favorite, since I was overweight before "she has fat legs with cellulite, why is she wearing a short dress? It's not a good sight for our eyes".

Let me clarify one point, mom never says these things to the people she's criticising, but she would criticise anyone in front of anyone else but them, which is a nasty thing to do, but even if it wasn't she's getting more and more critical of people and her friends are pulling away, and I get it, I left some people because they kept talking badly about others, that's very toxic and hateful.

Finally, the food, I asked her what they served that she didn't like, she says "I didn't try anything, they brought all types of food and drinks but I only had coffee", I ask if the food didn't look good or safe? She says "no I just didn't want to eat at the time. If you heard her talk about it before I asked her, you'd be under the impression that she tried the food and it was bad, and if she tells this to anyone and it gets to the family of the wedding, this is will either make them sad or upset.

She's getting more and more unhinged, hateful, critical of ridiculous everyday things, the wedding story is just a slight peak into what happens. She complains about everything, she sleeps with a CPAP machine that she made a whole fuss about needing, the doctor gave it to her based on her request, and the machine monitors her sleep, it's great and the numbers are good, but everyday she wakes up complaining about he she didn't sleep or would take a nap in the afternoon and wake up saying "this nap was garbage I didn't rest at all".

We have a lot to be grateful for, we have a home, we have food on the table, we have people we love, and this is huge because we grew up with nothing and worked really hard to get to where we are now. I'm just tired of the constant negativity, I'm the only other person around her and she dumps it all on me, I would come from a heavy day at work to relax at home and she would dump so much on me, I used to sympathise and give her all the awws and attention she always seeks, but I don't do that anymore, I'm thinking maybe this is why she got worse, but I can't keep enabling the victim mentality.

She fell a while ago and used to limb so hard around the house, she was bruised and slightly injured, and I genuinely believed she was in pain, until I saw her walking normally when she didn't know I was in the hallway behind her, then she started limbing again when she got to the living area. I'm just tired and don't know what to do, there are so many other things that she does, but mainly this is the idea, constant complaining, negativity, envy of others who have nicer lives, and playing the victim in such absurd situations, I'm really, really tired and don't know what to do, she won't go to therapy.

She's not a bad person, she's caring and loving when she genuinely feels it, but unlike the normal person who is indifferent about people and love or hate based on the relationship development, her default is hating and criticising, she loves a handful of people, including me, and even her love is overbearing and disrespectful of boundaries. I've been living with this all my life but it keeps getting worse and I don't even want to consider the option of walking out, because we don't do that to people we love. So help me.

Note: I'm a very calm, patient, and quiet person, I don't like problematic situations and avoid them when possible, and I lived through really hard days, I truly appreciate the things we have now, and I think it's outrageous that she doesn't. We can't do much still, but we have a home and food and stability, that's for more than what we had before. I also always take care of her and I speak to her softly and kindly, my siblings call her out and I've never seen it work, that's one of the reasons she dumps it all on me, I don't have it in me to firmly call her out, I would empathise if the situation requires it, or would just keep quiet while she talks and wait it out.

A little bit of context, I, 32 F, have been broken up with in a cruel way, my ex, 30 M, called me one random night and said "I never loved you, and I never will", I tried reasoning with him, stupid of me, I knew that later, but I was shocked and cared for him, so I tried, and he responded "I won't change my mind", he did say "let's stay friends though", I rejected and cut all contact. That was a year-ish ago, he's been diligently liking my posts on the one platform I didn't block him on, because people there know us but don't know we were together, and I don't like drama (we're both very private and don't like people in our business so we agreed early on to keep it between us).

ANYWAY, I was having coffee with my close friend yesterday in a nice café, suddenly, someone approaches my side, I look up, it's him, he says hi, I stare at him with what my friend described as "an empty look, like I was looking at an empty wall". I didn't reply, he proceeded "can I talk to you?", I don't know how, I'm usually a very nice person, but I said "no" and looked back at my friend and went on telling her about the things I want in my dress for the upcoming graduation ceremony, as if he never interrupted the conversation. He stood there for a bit, I looked back up at him and said "please leave", he seemed shocked, then left. I mean what did he expect? That I'd welcome him with open arms? Is he insane? After the cruel way he left and cowardly liked my posts for a year? And ONLY tried to "talk" when he ACCIDENTALLY ran into me in a café?

So, my friend was proud of me, and I was proud of myself, it felt like an out of body experience honestly, I hate to admit it but I'm usually the people pleaser and worry more about hurting others than myself, which sucks but I'm working on it, anyway, our third friend who wasn't there was updated, and she asked me "what if he's been feeling guilty all this time and you didn't even allow him to talk, so now he's just gonna feel worse and one day you'll start to wonder what he wanted to say, you were kinda mean to him and you told us yourself before that he was a good person, maybe he just made a mistake and didn't know how to fix it", so here's the pickle, I really didn't care what he wanted to say, I announced time of death the minute I comprehended how little someone has to care to end things that way, but now I'm confused, is she right? Should I have heard him out and decided? AITAH for how I treated him?

Aside from pain killers (I don't like meds) what can I do to reduce the pain? Help a sister in agony here, I'm 32 so I've had more than a few periods, but sometimes it's just so much harder to deal with