Do/Did you get along with your mother?

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I get along with my mother but not so much my father. He can just be mean to me at times which is why.

Not usually, but maybe it is just because I'm a teen.

I love my mother but do not like her. She is very controlling and spent my childhood verbally abusing me. In her own way she loves me but no we don't get along very well and things are much better when there is distance between us. She will never accept me for who I am as she is totally NT.

When I was growing up my mom was like a GOD (goddess) to me, because she was so devoted to her five children. Family meant everything to her, and she sacrificed herself for us. She did everything for us, and always told us she loved us, and gave plenty of hugs and kisses.
What frustrated me was the failure to (in my opinion) appropriately acknowledge our accomplishments. She was definitely proud of us, but it was kind of expected that we would excel, so when we did it was no big deal.
I also felt in awe of her for being able to remain a virgin until marriage, and for maintaining her religious beliefs throughout her life, whereas I had dispensed with both while still in high school.
I think she's probably NT, but after living with my Aspie dad for sixty years and obeying HIS rules, it's kind of hard to tell.
Now that I'm older I can see her in a more realistic light, and it turns out that she didn't set such a good example, as she was pretty much a doormat for my dad, his slave, domestic and sexual. That is a really bad thing to grow up with, and not even recognize at the time.

But she does accept me for who I am, even though I am (unfortunately) alot like my dad. And that is priceless. Until my daughter was born, my mom was the person I loved most in life. It was pretty intense really, with me living my young adult life to please her. I'm glad I got over that! I guess since I saw her as perfect, I wanted to be perfect too. Wrong answer!
Now I feel that kind of helpless love and devotion for my daughter.

I love my mother, but I don't get along with her very well. Being in her company is exhausting; she always wants to talk, and needs constant input from me that I'm paying attention to her. I can't just sit down and read a book, or be in the yard; she seeks me out and wants this back-and-forth interaction that I'm just not interested in most of the time. On the phone I can just say 'mmm-hmm' at appropriate times, and that makes her happy.

She grew up Catholic, and thinks that suffering is noble; she sets up situations that she can't handle, and then expects everyone to be sympathetic and helpful to her. It's not that she's a hypocrite - she's happy to be sympathetic and helpful when other people need it, and probably wishes that I needed her help more than I do. She thinks that I'm unhappy and lonely, and her constant worry about me, her conviction that I'm failing at life, is really stressful to me. She knows me well enough to predict how I will react in various situations, but she does not understand why. I wish that she could just be happy for me as I am.

She has always worked very hard for my brother and I, and I am very appreciative of that fact.

My mom always wanted to talk too, and you're right, it can be completely exhausting. When I was a kid I learned to read & mostly tune her out & go 'mmm-hmmm' at intervals. I think she wasn't really looking for much input, or I couldn't have gotten away with it as I did. Of course, a lot of what she had to say was paranoid delusional . . . not exactly the kind of thing a kid needs to be hearing anyway.

no.

chalk and cheese.

I don't think she ever said anything good about me in her entire life, i grew up with relentless negativity and criticism, and she talked ALL the time. I used to retreat to my room to get away from her voice going on and on and on and on...

she's dead now. thanks to her (and dad's) estate i am now financially comfortable (moderately). that's probably the best I can say of my experience of being 'parented'. thanks for that mum.

i should add she was an orphan so had no experience of 'normal' family life and a lot of resentment about parenting because she never got any.

oh well, such is life.

I try to do the read-and-listen thing; unless it's a complicated text, it's not generally too difficult to process both at once. The problem is that she insists that I'm being rude unless ALL of my attention is focused on her, 100%. She seems to think that I don't care about her or what she's saying if I'm doing two things at once.

Talk about a situation that makes you want to escape/stim/anything.

This is a great discussion!

Now I don't feel so bad; I've never gotten along with my mom either. She doesn't know I have AS and if I told her, she would dismiss it. (She believes chronic depression comes from not being 'busy' enough). My whole childhood I was counting down the days until I could get away from her, she was always yelling and criticizing everything I did. I thought I was a total freak and a total idiot, and I had no hope for the future. When I left for college, I was sure it was only a matter of time before I failed and had to go home again.
Luckily I'm now independent... but my mom still calls me every week or so. I think maybe she needs her 'emotional needs' fulfilled, like someone said earlier, as my dad is quite a distant man. But she has 3 other kids, there's no reason she can't leave me alone. I can't stand to hear the sound of her voice, it's so depressing and she talks to me like I'm a total idiot. WHen I'm in her presence, I get so anxious and upset that sometimes I get dizzy. But she never yells at me over the phone, instead it's the opposite; it's like she's the victim, the all-sacrificing mother and I'm the thankless kid. Of course I feel guilty, but I still can't bring myself to forgive her. Last time I was really quite rude to her, and she just pretended to be hurt yet accepting; doesn't she have any feelings? If I'd acted the same way when I was at home, she would have screamed and hit me.
I guess I should be thankful that she gave birth to me and raised me, and always sends money if I need it. It's been very embarrassing for her (and my dad) to have an abnormal child, but they now seem to "accept" that I'm their responsibility, and if I don't have enough money for rent, they're obligated to give me some. It's kind of like owning a pet, I guess... you make a commitment, and then you have to stick with it. I'm sure it would be a big weight off their shoulders if I died, but I really don't want to do that. Why can't they just leave me alone? Then we could all be happier.

Sorry to rant. I feel for all of you who don't get along with your moms.

zee -

Don't apologize for ranting. You're mom's abusing you, and that's a hard thing. It's a lot harder for most of us to give up all contact with family members who do that kind of thing to us. I was never able to, completely, though I cut things back to an absolute minimum once I was grown & out of the house.

My mom was a big help in my childhood. But things have changed, and now I have some little problems and I don't get along with her very well. Maybe it's because I'm a tomboy, she thinks I have to be more like a girl.

Sorry, double post.

Thanks, Nan and TrishC7, for your advice.

My mother is frikken amazing.

She's one of the kindest, most brilliant, compassionate, hardest working people I've ever met. While I don't want to be just like her, I admire her a lot, and consider myself to be incredibly, incredibly lucky to have her.

She doesn't always get things, and she's certainly not conventional. . . I remember the first time I ever mad Christmas cookies, with an ex-boyfriend's mom. His mom is one of those supermom-suburbanite types, entertaining in a clean, beautiful, highly decorated home. . . none of his family could believe I'd never done Christmas cookies before.

It was a great party. . . lots of the things I always missed and wished I'd had as a child. . .

But I ended up thinking. . . this woman can't help me with my calculus homework. She feels threatened when I talk about books.

She feels threatened when I talk at all.


And I thought of my mum. . . she doesn't always get it, but she's very hard to floor. . . and she has a way of fixing things, of making sure you believe everything is going to be OK. When it comes to emotional stuff, she's pretty lost. . . but fixing things-

Well. . . to give an example. . . I'd been really depressed- clinically depressed- for, like years. Nothing was working. It seemed like nothing could work.

I'd dreamed intensively for my whole life of international travel, but it just seemed so, so out of reach. . .

And so she offered to send me to Mongolia. She meant it too.

Between the two of us we scraped together the resources for a trip. . . a big trip. . . I ended up living in Australia for a few months, and getting my CELTA- an English teaching certification. . . and it did help. It helped a lot. It somehow made things feel possible . . . lots of things, some of them very important things.

So, she doesn't always have to understand things. . . she takes what she does understand, and runs with it. She's so strong. . .

And that's my mum. As I said, amazing.

Sometimes I wish I could share.