This topic contains 31 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by 
David Hayward 1 year, 12 months ago.
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AnonymousMy mother has emotionally withdrawn from me and I can’t help but feel it is a punishment for not being who she wants me to be. This cartoon http://www.nakedpastor.com/2012/11/10/the-most-effective-means-of-control/#comment-360233 really just cut to the quick and I considered e-mailing her the link and saying something like, “This is exactly how I feel.”
I don’t know though, at this point, if that would be a wise thing to do. I don’t know if I can trust myself that it wouldn’t be a game-play, which I despise.
I’m so deeply sad about this situation. I wish I could let it go.
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This topic was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by David Hayward.
Tana, I understand how David’s cartoons can speak so well for what we feel in our heart. Sometime I think he lives inside me because his cartoons say things I feel but haven’t been able to verbalize.
Some things are really hard to let go of. I am so thankful that I had a really close relationship with my Mother and I can’t imagine what it would be not to have had that.
Keeping you in my thoughts…..
Tana, I know how you feel. My parents (especially my mother) have tried to control me that way for going on 50 years. I love them because they are my parents, but I really don’t like spending any time there, and there is almost nothing we can talk about because they start preaching no matter what the subject. My adult kids don’t even want to see or talk to them.
Every time I talk to them on the phone, every time I visit (which is less and less; been about a year now), they always bring up something current (“we heard you don’t go to church any more – you know we raised you to go to church,” “The BIBLE SAYS tattoos are a sin”), or something old, even from when I was a kid ( “we still remember when you got in trouble in 7th grade. It made us look bad… we thought we raised you better”). Of course we’re only bashing you every minute we talk “because we love you.”
My favorite has been hearing forver, “when you are a parent you will understand.” Well, I have two beautiful grown daughters that are always here at the house and bring friends/boyfriends for dinner, and I still don’t.
I too would like to send them the cartoon but they would not understand it and it would only make things worse – I would not send it. I just grit my teeth and take a deep breath and try to just be positive when I call them.
Hang around here and get in on the chats. I am new here but it’s been extremely helpful and there are great people.
AnonymousRandy – you’re post is helpful in reminding me that perhaps my mother’s silence is a beautiful gift of grace. Not from her, but from the universe.
I really want to get involved in chats, they just happen at bad times for me. Usually cooking or eating dinner or husband just got home kind of thing.
But I’ll try – I promise.Thank you to everyone who has read this and responded, given advice or just sent me love. I appreciate it.
AnonymousI know how that is to have a mom who only accepts you if you become a mindless robot – meeting all her expectations of only saying, doing, or thinking the things that are acceptable to HER. Growing up I felt totally rejected by my emotinoally detached mother because it was NEVER okay to just be myself around her.
I don’t even have a relationship with her anymore for a lot of reasons. There’s really no point in it because anything I say or do only gives her more ammunition with which to shoot at me.
Sounds like you are in a similar situation. I’d say don’t send it, unless you want to give her more ammunition to shoot your direction.
I hope that with your mom maybe you can reach an “agreement to disagree” on spiritual matters. Without that, it’s very difficult to have any kind of meaningful relationship. So you’ll probably have to settle for a superficial relationship. But at least you’ll still have one.
AnonymousJo – thank you for that. Your messages are so fierce. In a good way! I mean, you convey strength and a rootedness that I really admire.
I didn’t send the cartoon. I’m glad I didn’t. Yes, our relationship is very surfacy. I’m sure she feels that it’s my fault in the same way I feel like it is her’s. It’s very difficult to be at an impasse with someone that is unresolvable. I don’t mind confrontation because I love the reconciliation that usually occurs. It’s painful to not experience that – esp. with a parent.
Fortunately, I’ve moved past the anger I was feeling a few days ago. It kind of came out of nowhere and then hung out a while and it freaked me out. Now I’m back to lovingly surrendering to what is. But I’m sure I’ll be back here in the future working through a new aspect of this relationship.
AnonymousI’m glad my posts are a good kind of fierce and not a bad kind! There are certain topics that push my buttons and when that happens I am like a dog with a bone. I am a survivor – hear me roar!
I fought long and hard for my recovery from sexual, emotional, and spiritual abuse, so I cant help being passionate about the things Ive been through and the things I have learned From those experiences. And when I see people going thru similar circumstances, I share my insights in the hopes that it may help them or at least if nothing else they will know they are not alone in what they are going through.
It could also mean I am not entirely done working through some of my own issues – ha!about it
AnonymousOh yeah, Jo. I need to hear your survivor’s voice and perspective. Makes me feel stronger for hearing it.
AnonymousThanks Tana!
AnonymousSo yesterday was awful. There was lot of sadness in it and I was trying to just be in it and yet not identify myself as “sad.” Yesterday was also tiring because while being treated like crap by my mother and my ex-best friend, I was also trying to learn how not to fall into victim mentality.
How does a person not fall into victim mentality while still expressing “I was treated like crap?”
It’s in moments such as these where I question myself to the point of insanity. I don’t want to play victim and I don’t want to play games. I hope I didn’t. I worry about that when I’m experiencing excruciating emotional pain.
Yesterday was a day of (excuse my french), “Eff it.” You know when you’re sparring and you keep getting side punched and finally you just let lose a solid uppercut to reestablish balance? I actually don’t box, so that example might be completely crap, but yeah, I had been taking mild punches and just taking it because 1. I could and 2. I was giving other people in my life a chance to own their own crap and come to terms with things, rather than trying to drive their bus for them.
After the e-mails between my friend and I, which were heart breaking, I called my mom. I threw caution to the wind because I was fed up. I was fed up of waiting in the wings with a slight hope that she might still love me. I asked her why she had ostracized me. I called her in tears, begging her to tell me what the heck I’ve done that is so horrible that she would emotionally abandon me. Let’s work it out – let’s get this worked out.
What followed was 3 hours of pain and gave me the deepest feeling of hopelessness I’ve ever had. I don’t want to detail every event because I can’t and it doesn’t matter. I learned that she has been too busy wallowing in victimization to be able to think healthy enough to move our relationship forward. Our conversations will always be stilted and empty because I can’t trust her to not take everything I say, interrupt me, and then make it about her and how she feels about it.
It’s impossible when a person asks, “What do you want from me – what do you want our relationship to look like?” I answer and she says that she either doesn’t do that or will continue to do that because God told her to or get just plain defensive.
Yesterday was what I would call a watershed moment. All hope is gone. Sometimes hope is a mirage and unhealthy. This is one of those times.
I’m grateful for this group too, because the one person whom I would talk to about this has, let’s just say moved on. Our relationship broke yesterday and that too seems irreparable. We view important events differently and it’s just the weirdest thing to realize the way I viewed a relationship wasn’t at all how the other person did. For five years.
I have so much to learn.
So thank you for being here and being witness to this situation. I know some of you have gone through similar situations with your mothers. I’m so sorry.
I’m grateful for the realization that these feelings are not permanent and that time has a way of creating equilibrium and that in the meantime I just have to teach myself how to move forward differently than I have in the past.
Wow Tana. There’s really nothing to say except I hear your voice and what you’ve said. Powerful day. Powerful.
Tana, my heart hurts for you. My church situation is similar since my husband, dad and mom had died; they told me they were going to “take care of me.” In the space of a week, I realized not only were they not there for me, but they had been using me and the person I thought was one of my best friends was at the front of the line.
That pain is devastating. I can’t imagine how it must be knowing it is your Mother. And having your Mother and a best friend at the same time, the feeling of loss is overwhelming.
I truly do not understand how people can treat other people the way they do. I don’t think they want to own their own crap. It is easier for them to pile it all on someone else; to pile it on those who care.
Big hugs!
AnonymousI am sooo right there with you guys! It is sometimes an exercise like running into a wall, where recieving love from my family (mother,sisters, chruch friends) are concerned. I have been thinking about the idea that difficult people are somehow, some of our most powerful teachers. I want to know how to let go of the pain of rejection enough to be able to see the lesson. There is a quirky, dumb little movie I saw a couple of months ago. I forgot the name of it, it has Jane Fonda and the guy from “The Watchmen” who played The Comedian. It’s set in Woodstock, NY in modern day. Jane plays a very funky, hippie and she is totally charming. In one scene they are talking about “not including” a person they know in an activity and Jane says this lovely and shakabuku phrase, “rejection is an unnecessary violence.” I found that to be a new direction on which to view this emotional and sad situation. It also made me realize how often I am rejected by people who are violent in other aspects of their life. I never thought of rejection as being violent, I guess because I have had just too much of the physical violence in my early (till I was 27 years old, even) life from my family members, so simple non-physical rejection just skipped right over that perception by me. lol. Maybe I had the sense beat outta me, early? Maybe.
I am so glad there is a place where we can all meet on common ground and relate our stories of personal stuggle. It helps to know I am not experiencing these kinds of rejection from biological family members, alone. Maybe this is one reason in scripture we are told to “..not forsake the gathering together of the congregation.” We gain individual strenght for the battles of life in the love and acceptance of others, and we are seeing this happen here, aren’t we Tana? May the Holy Spirit in us rise up to soothe our rejection weary hearts and minds. Bless you Tana, Ang, Jeb, David and all the others who responded to this posts and this site. <3
Anonymous“rejection is an unnecessary violence.”
I need to remember this. Because I want to minimize the interaction I have with my mother to almost a nil point. Although I struggle with differentiating the difference between boundaries and rejection. I wouldn’t outright reject her – throw her out of my life. But I also can’t have her be in my life, if that makes sense. It’s too crazymaking.
I don’t know how to not be the victim without removing the source of violence from my life. That’s the rub. Hmmmm.
Lots of things to ponder as I move through this. So thankful for each of you.
AnonymousAng, the last church we went to, which was gosh, I think 8 years ago – did the same thing to us. Not with a death, but an illness. I hear you. It is painful. And it feels devastating – you’re right about that. Thank God feelings are fleeting. I mean, they’re important and valid and useful, but they don’t last forever. New ones will come and I will be happy and I will feel balanced again in the future. In the meantime though? Yeah, sucks. Though, there’s a clarity that comes with this kind of suffering to that brings joy. What a juxtaposition.
This year has provided many opportunities to experience and work through loss. I lost my two dogs – August 2nd and October 23rd. I had them for almost 15 years. My friend….my mom….And ever since leaving the church – lost lots of friends over the years.
I don’t know how people treat each other the way they do either. Until I realize it’s usually a mirror trying to show me the ways I can be better in the future too. I’m certainly not innocent in this.
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