Ambivalent and mixed feelings towards my mother

[the-alchemist]

I really don't know how to feel against my mom anymore. She has been a very bad mother in certain respects and she has done many horrible things that has psychologically damaged me. At its root she is mainly responsible for making my childhood such a dysfunctional mess.

She used to play favorites between me and my brother, she was a pathological liar, she manipulated me and my brother against our father and she was a shameless liar even when she was exposed. She always embarrassed me out in public by screaming out loud if we never got along. Because of her I never had any friends through my school years.

I can go on and on with all the tings she did

So, seeing as I've now moved to another country, only know have I realized what a terrible mom she was in retroactive perspective.

At the same time though, when I left, her life started to fall apart and she is very depressed now, and on top of that she is now homeless and unemployed, and she is now living in a psychiatric ward for depressed people. She now lives on government social security allowance which is quite meager, but despite that, she still sends me an equivalent of 300 USD per month. Despite her bullshit and past sick behavior, I can't help but feel grateful. Especially when she is in over her head with debts now

And most people have abandoned her now. I'm her only real contact now. So I don't know, because of her, my childhood is messed up. Sometimes in the span of one day, I can go from despising her to feeling pity for her. I dont know how I wanna feel to her, one part of me hates her and one part of me pities her.

And I don't know how I'm going to relate, sometimes I've thought about totally cutting off contact, but the damage would be too much for her. But I don't exactly enjoy the contact either

 

[nerdygirl]

Keep in contact, but don't do it more than you can bear. Moms are people, too. We mess up sometimes, but we usually don't mean to. My own mother did a lot wrong by me, and I didn't speak to her for two years. I only turned to her when I had no other option, and even then, she welcomed me. Not everybody will do that, you know. It's a Mom thing.

 

[the-alchemist]

I don't know, we've had some mail exchanging now a bit back and forth. She still had the same condescending attitude that she's always had, just saying alot of stupid stuff.

Still, her now being completely alone in a psychiatric hospital makes it so that one part of me despises her, wants nothing to do with her. Because she is still the same ******* she has always been once she thought I was open enough to be friends with her again. So I don't like her for what she has done that has messed up my life.

But on the other hand, with her being homeless, out of a job and being depressed, I can't help but feel pity for her sometimes.

One part contempt, one part pity. I don't know what to believe or feel anymore

 

[LoneKiller]

Don't take this the wrong way, but do you still love your mother?

 

[Sci-Fi]

Not to answer LoneKiller's question for you but it sounds like you still do. She may have really messed up raising you and your brother, and was a bad mother but she is still your mother. I think your feels are completely normal considering what you have gone through, and to me it seems like you yearn to still have a relationship with your mother despite what she has done.

 

[LoneKiller]

You get only 1 mother.

 

[tedgresham]

My mother was verbally abusive, mean to my dad, was a big part of the reason I spent my life feeling like honeysuckle. But she was my mother and she loved me. I forgave her and loved her anyway though she could piss me off. A few years ago she got cancer. I stood by her. When my chicken honeysuckle religious siblings could not "handle" taking care of her I stepped in. They flaked out. I virtually moved in to her hospital room and stayed with her for over a month while she faced death. She underwent a surgery from which she emerged totally bonkers. She would curse and swear, something my good Baptist mother never did. She had a tube because her intestinal system did not work. She would scream at the nurses, pull the tube out, and rip her gown off. There were times I had to help hold her up and help the nurse insert the tube again with green honeysuckle from her intestines running down her back and my arms. I was the only one there when the doctor told her there was no hope. I was beside her when she was moved to hospice and I was there when she took her last breath.

When I was a kid my mother was a real ***** sometimes but she loved me and I knew it. When the end came none of that mattered. She was a human being, my mother, and she needed me. All my siblings were ******* selfish idiots, worried more about their feelings than their mother's suffering. I hope they live with incredible guilt for the rest of their self-righteous lives. I have none.

My advice? Forgive. This world is so full of people who will neither forgive nor forget. I was a welfare caseworker for a few years and I had countless elderly people whose children had abandoned them. What ******* difference does it make if they "deserve" it? Love, real love, demands nothing and gives everything. Your mother is messed up. If she sends you money out of social security she is sacrificing. Stop being a selfish prick and go take care of her.

 

[RJLJD]

ted is right.
she's your mom, and i think she loves you.
you can't do wrong by being positive towards her. what do you have to lose, where as if you do treat her poorly you very well may feel guilt and regret.
even with that, i just think its the right thing to do. family first, no matter who it is.