Am I a Bad Person Like She Says I Am?
Is my mother a narcissist or am I manipulative? I'm 17F and am living with my parents until I go to college. Just to give some background, my family has always been loving and supportive of me (including my mom). But, in recent years, my relationship with my mother has become on and off. There could be a week out of a month where we nonstop argue about nonsense things, and honestly I can't even remember what the argument was about.
I have ADHD and anxiety, which is very different from my Type A mother (she also has anxiety) who can constantly do work without needing a break. I think having this difference in our personalities/habits is where we really started to having this strain in our relationship. It's hard for me to remember some of these arguments because I'm probably trying to block them out, but some common arguments are about my homework and about my feelings. Because of working with my therapist, I can now talk about my issues without yelling at my mom which I was really glad about. But when I open up to her about how I truly feel about myself she shows me no empathy. She either tries to give me simple "tricks" to make me feel better about myself or shames me in the way I work. Just to preface, I have poor self esteem since having undiagnosed ADHD until 10th Grade. I try my best in staying calm and describing how I feel and how nothing feels right and how lost I am. And at first she shows me emphathy but other times she doesn't. She responds with things like "now you're blaming me and everyone" and "I guess I ruined your life" and "I gave everything to you but you still hate yourself". I do understand where she's coming from because if I were a parent hearing my child say that I would be upset as well. But I try to correst her on this because I tell her it doesn't help and most of the time she responds with "welp I don't know how to help you then" like its a black and white question with a black and white response.
Already having low self-esteem I wonder now if I AM a bad person. Again, I'm not sure what the argument was about (probably about hw or something stupid) but she called ME manipulative. But of course when I brought this up again a couple months ago she had no recollection of this happening. I honestly cant put into words how much this kind of stuff happens and why but that is what Im trying to figure out. Another thing that she'll do that gets under my skin is when she'll show her best friend sooo much empathy about every single day. But when her own daughter that she birthed comes to her expecting nothing but love from her mother? She can't do it. But it confuses me because other times she can but not as much? Again, I understand if shes burnt out from the day because she works in a special ed classroom, but Im her daughter I feel like im not asking much from her.
Maybe Im just extra salty because since she works with special ed students, she should've noticed my symptoms of adhd instead of me bringing it up to her.
I would really appreciate repsonses because i'm feeling very lost and I'm not sure if my feelings are valid