letting things go - rant

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I recently attended a wedding in Mexico, and I was having a great time - EXCEPT for my mother. I traveled down with her, and she started out the trip unhappy - we took her away from her routine, her dogs, my dad and she wasn't looking forward to meeting new people. She is also deaf in one ear, and made sure everyone knew it. When you pointed out a sunrise, it wasn't red enough. When you pointed out the turquoise waters of the Caribbean, they weren't blue enough. When we went to ancient ruins, they weren't "nice" enough. She was in deep culture shock as well, and thought everyone hated her. She was starting to make everyone feel uncomfortable, and they were avoiding her, which left me.

I helped her a lot - she kept giving me the various papers to sign because she "couldn't under stand them" , whenever "we" needed help to go somewhere and needed directions, she would wait for me to do it. When I came back with the directions, she would call me a liar because it didn't sound "right" to her. She also was having a lot of understanding problems, and kept attributing things I had said to other people, and vice versa. If I talked in my normal voice, she couldn't hear me. If I spoke louder, again, I was being smart mouthed. I found myself in the unenviable position of being caretaker and 12 year old kid.

I shouldered it, though. I know my mom's social skills are less developed than mine, because she doesn't even try to push out a little bit. Okay, that is just her. I didn't complain, because I didn't want my sister's wedding to be ruined.

HOWEVER, at one point, after we became lost and once again I went for directions, and once again was called a liar, I told her - look, if my directions are wrong, you go ask the lady. At which point she basically told me off - and not in a polite way either. That really hurt my feelings. Here I had been helping her, and again I find the saying is true "no good deed goes unpunished". I was shocked and hurt, and walked off - truly, I was ready to leave her on her own from that point on.

She found me later, after she had asked for directions (and found that I hadn't been "lying" to her) and then half-apologized. However, she was convinced a lot of it was my fault, and told me so, and said "you know my temper". I get cranky too, but I managed not to tell her to F off, even though I was sleep deprived, hungry and probably a little dehydrated. Maybe it was partly my fault because I was the only person still willing to be around her after her childish tantrums and not tell her to stop it or I won't talk to her anymore??


We found the place we were going to, and I managed to make it through dinner BUT then someone asked me if something was wrong with mom - I broke into tears. The girl who asked whisked me out of the restaurant, and my sister was close behind, asking what was wrong. I told them. My sister went back in to talk to my mother, who came out and was mad that I hadn't accepted her first apology, and again told me it was partly my fault, sigh.

At that point, I didn't talk too much to her - I figured she was on her own from that point - if you don't want my help, then you don't get it, and if what I am saying is useless, what is the point of talking anyway? She was back to being negative again fairly quickly, but I didn't engage.

Once we got home, all of a sudden she was happy again, chitchatting, I suppose because things were now familiar to her. However, I thought - how dare you. You do your level best to ruin a vacation I had been looking forward to for months, and NOW you think its all friends and happy?

So, the upshot is, I am having a lot of trouble letting go of the anger. I thought, okay, I will write it out, maybe that will help. On one hand, I think "well, we took her out of her comfort zone, and maybe if she was elsewhere she wouldn't be so bad", but on the other hand, I think "do I need this kind of abuse when all I was trying to do was help her adjust?". Sigh. Worst part is, I am sure she thinks it is still all my fault...

Yea, my Mom used to dump on everyone around – especially family who had to put up with her s**t – whenever she got stressed. That kind of irresponsibility and lack of self awareness wasn’t much fun for our family. She’s passed on now, hope she does better next time around…

Ye gods, that is such an exact variation of my mother.

The name of the game is "I'm right, and you're WRONG WRONG WRONG".
You can do exactly what she says, and then be informed that you've done exactly the wrong thing. Does this sound familiar in any way?

I don't know if you get this from your mother, but mine doesn't actually seem to think of me as an actual person. I am something she owns. She's brought me into the world, so the rest of my life is payback. I've severed contact with her for years, but yet she's happily telling everyone about our (good) relationship, and writing weekly letters that I don't read (my advocate opened a couple for an upcoming court case), and I've been told that she's still talking as though we keep on contact, and demanding that I give her money and obey her in how to live my life. The only giveaway that she knows I have not been answering her for the last few years is that she keeps on giving me her email address and phone number, which you wouldn't repeatedly do with someone who is answering your letters.

MotheRantless topic

I do not rant about my mother anymore. She is now deceased--and I leave her in peace.

That sounds exactly like my mum, she's the one who's right, everything I say is wrong, it's disregarded, it dosen't matter...



My mum is a lot like that too, though I'm not sure I'd go as far as saying she dosen't see me as a person, more like she thinks she's the superior one all the time who is never wrong, so obviously my opinions mean absolutely squat to her, and whenever I do a tiny little thing to annoy her (though most of the time I don't even notice I've done anything wrong in the first place) she will go absolutely mad.

It's sad that our mothers are like that. I know that there are nasty NT mothers, but I wonder if this is an aspie flavoured thing, whereby an aspie female who's had children, has enough nous to get by in this world, has the aspie thing of not seeing things from another's point of view(in this case the child's), is of a not very kind nature, so this is the result - a mother who just uses the child as a whipping boy cum companion, and thinks nothing of it.

Wahey, 100 posts!

That summed up the week, alright She put me in the role of caretaker, but was treating me like I was some snotty teenager who needed to be put in her place, sigh. We get along better if I remember to do "Miranda rights" - "you have the right to remain silent. If you waive this right, anything you say can and will be held against you..." I feel bad about complaining too, because as some have pointed out, not everyone still has their mom, but just because she is my mom, doesn't give her the right to scream obscenities at me in a crowded hallway. She did say to my sister that it wasn't all her fault, and is still blaming me because I was being cranky and apparently rude to her, but in the end, I wasn't the one that lost my temper (and given that I wasn't 100% with my sleep patterns, I held on admirably - I know I have been cranky lately, and have been trying to pull myself back when that happens but its almost impossible to do when you share a room and can't get away so your brain can unwind). Sigh. In the end I have to brush it off, but I don't think I will be over it soon. My sister says "don't take it personally", but I can't see how one CAN'T take something like that personally. To hear mom talk now, it was the most fantastic trip ever - wish she could have put a little of that into the trip while she was there...

Postscript : I do wonder if mom doesn't have aspie leanings, it would explain a lot (very agitated out of her environment, very asocial, kept "telling the truth", whether or not that truth should have been kept to herself and probably more if I examined things further). I guess I could chalk it up to advancing age and slipping on the mental activity front, although I seem to recall she has always been a little "off" anyway, when compared to other mothers - although I am still not really willing to let anyone get a "free pass" to be abusive to me either, for any reason.

For me, it depends on the situation.

Congrats!! !

Now dont take this the wrong way but did you ever think of this the other way round? Maybe you also have the aspie thing of not seeing things from the others point of view too? Perhaps due to problems with theory of mind you have trouble ascribing reason to what you see as unreasonable actions but from the others point of view are perfectly reasonable? I know I do.

Did you ever think how difficult it must be to raise a child like us? Constant complaining no apreciation no patience no manners never cleaning up after themselves never contributing offending people and embarrassing you etc etc etc.
Personally I know for a fact I was no picnic growing up (I did all of the above) and to be honest my mum still does a lot of s**t for me that just wouldn't happen if she didn't and I left home a while ago.

There are two sides to every story, the truth is likely to be somewhere in the middle. Be greatful for your mother as she's done a more for you than you can imagine and wont always be around to thank.