u/Unimportant-user-01

Hi fellow Singaporeans. I am a Gen X, my parents are boomers. I left Singapore in late 90s, never returned to live. There are many reasons for that, one of the main ones is to get away from my mother.

My parents were both toxic but my father passed away over a decade ago. It took a while but eventually I let go of all the bad blood.

My mother is still alive and hadn’t been physically well for some time. She may have 5 months or 5 years, impossible to say. The last several years I visited her twice a year coz i wanted my young child to build a relationship with her. But being with her can be very painful for me. My last visit ended poorly- I took her on a holiday (very hard work) but the whole time she only talked about how she wished my brother was there and how I didn’t do enough for her.

I’m visiting again soon next month. But afterwards I have no more plans to visit. First it’s really expensive (I have low income) and also takes up a lot of energy and time. Then I get little joy back from her. My child is school age now I want happy holidays with him at different places, so find that the money spent visiting her is not worth it.

Hence my dilemma. I’m not a young person either (had a miracle baby in my 40s). Life is short and on one hand I want to spend my resources to make myself and child happy, instead of spending on her (she will still be unhappy and so will I). But as a “guai” Singaporean girl I really struggle with just letting it all go. If she passes away after I didn’t see her for a long time, I feel like I’ll feel guilty for a long time.

I could talk about this in a generic toxic parents subreddit but I feel that Singaporean parent child relationship is different from other cultures.

So asking here for those with similar experiences- how do you cope? If you are me but a few steps ahead (I.e said parent had died), would love to hear how it went for you.

Thank you friends 🙏🏼

Edit to add: I am so grateful for all your replies and empathy. Sorry I am not replying to all but I am reading all of them and take them all into consideration. I also hope this post will help future readers as this is a complex issue indeed for SG/Asian parent-adult children relationships.

A little over a month ago I wrote a post here. Basically saying that my addiction stemmed from having no one love me in real life so I use shopping as a means to make myself feel loved. It went completely overboard and I have so many more clothes/ bags/ shoes/ accessories that I’ll ever need.

I’m not sure why the moderators removed my post. I did received a few useful comments and others sharing how they felt. Nevertheless the post was very cathartic and useful. I actually stopped buying stuff for around 3 weeks straight, then significantly reduced the number of stuff I buy compared to the previous months.

After detailing everything I felt in the post, I read and re read the post many times. I decide to focus on things that are more important to me in real life. I did a big cleanse of toxic people in my life and mended and build relationships I valued. I start to ask for things I want from my friends so to feel more loved- and lo and behold I actually got what I really wanted! All the joy I experience actually fulfilled me without me having to constantly more and more material things.

I’m still a way off my shopping addiction- I still have way too much stuff I’m slowing trying to sell off. But without pressuring myself too much.

Anyway, rehab is not a straight line. I’m sure I’ll relapse into a spree once in a while but I love this sub. Reading about others really helps bring clarity to my addiction.

Thanks for reading :)