My Mother

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My mother and I both spiral in and out of good and bad phases. Good is really good, bad is really bad. She gets sick all the time, weird-ass diseases and maladies that just never go away. I should have known she was going into a bad phase again when she got sick again. She's always in crisis. It kills me. It kills me to know that I hurt her by asking her to stick to promises she's made. That I have to be strong and I can't because I'm just as f****d in the head as she is, so we just destroy each other. I was feeling so f*****g good and one phone call to her has me crying; my head hurts, and it feels like I can't breathe.

People view her badly because she's not like a mother to me. She's all she is and all she can be and that's not a traditional mother. I've been living on my own, funded by her, since I was sixteen, because we can't live with each other. She's not a mother and I'm not a daughter. There's not a word for what we are to each other except that I love her and I hate her sometimes. I don't want people to judge her for what she's not, trying to put her in some f*****g template. I wish she didn't hurt me so much when she does and I wish I didn't hurt her either but the fact that we do means that we're close. If we stopped caring we'd stop hurting but we can't. It's like we're growing up on the same timeline, like she's still an impusive teenager and I, of course, am too.

It hurts. It can just hurt so badly, but she can eb such a good person to know, a good mother, she is someone I care about and don't want to cut out of my life, thought I have and she has a few times. I'm inextricably tangled in this pain and this caring.

See, this is why I'm "avoidant." s**t like this. I hurt everyone I care about and vice versa. It feels like I'm poison to anyone who cares about me. It's why I can't keep friends for over a couple of years for the most part. It's like knowing I'm a living tornado. I hate this. I hate knowing that every time I care about someone and someone cares about me s**t like this happens. My mom, my dad(s), my grandparents, my friends. It happens every time. You can't see a pattern like this, a path left behind of pain and destroyed relationships, and not blame the element they all have in common.

Serissa,
I really wish I knew what to say. I am called a steamroller or a hurricane because of this issue and I know how hard it is to look backwards and see that path of destruction. My mother is also very good at tearing me down and my only salvation has been my husband.

I hope that you can also find someone that can be as tolerent of the torrent as my husband has been for me.

Take care,
Y

Is there any possibility of caring halfway? I mean, you're talking like it's either drive each other insane or cut her out of your life totally. I know it's what a lot people say to defend driving themselves nuts over drama - that they're only doing it because they care, and to stop caring would be cruel/heartless/inhuman. But the fact is that a relationship between healthy adults stops partway.... You care deeply about each other but not so much that you take full responsibility for the other person's state of wellbeing, to the degree that whenever they're down it means you have to be down too, or you're not "caring" about them.

I think it's one of those cycles that's possible but very difficult to break... as far as I can tell, boundaries work like a pendulum where if you're too close to one side, it's hard to ease up without swinging all the way to the other. But if there's any way you can edge backwards... still hold onto the good stuff while you're lowering your compliance with the bad stuff...?

Yeah, even writing about it helped distance me, Pyraxis. It's just depressing as hell sometimes and I needed to vent. She's gotten better, I think, and so have I- but ah! herein lies the problem! I think we're both improving. What if we're cycling? Living with mental illness and/or caring about somoene with mental illness has you always walking a tightrope, and any signs of slippage can be terrifying.

I have same type of relationship from my Mom, but what's worse, for me, is that she is passive-agressive and as an Aspie, I despise that type of behavior. My Mother can make comments that just cut me to the bone, and it can make me feel sick inside and ruin my day. Other times, everything is fine. I have realized that if I am already having a bad day, or if I notice I am particularly sensitive, I won't answer the phone and screen my calls and then I call her back when I feel emotionally strong.

I don't know if that would help you or not. What I am most working on now, is not doing those same type of behaviors with my daughter. I give her constructive criticism and if I am pissed at her, I tell her so and I don't make back-handed, biting comments...I try the direct approach and then she'll scream in my face or pinch me (she is 15 months old) and then we talk about it and it's done. I hope I can continue this as she grows.

Just remember, you can choose how to react to your mother. I know as Aspies, we are very easily overwhelmed by emotional things, but really see if maybe you can take a deep breath and use self-talk...who wants to spend their life crying??? I always tell myself I probably have 50 years left to live and I don't want to live those crying or being upset.

HTH,
Tallgirl.

Welll..... for me, that's where eternal optimism kicks in. Personally, I don't cycle, I move forward, and I definitely do or did fall under the category of mentally ill. And it's been my experience from watching people around me (and even helping them on the same level that a shrink does), they don't slip back, not as far as they started. Sure there are ups and downs, but when you average it out, there's overall forward motion.

I don't think mental illness is some hideous specter to be scared of. Study it enough and it's quite as predictable as physics (which ain't perfect, if you've ever done any reading into experimental physics, lol) but at least it's something. Fearing it, especially on a deep level, traps you in a spot of hypervigilance against "going crazy", which in and of itself makes you crazier.

You're preaching to the choir. I escalate twice as much in a panic attack if I freak out about trying to calm down; it works on a larger scale as well. I live in constant fear of going back into depression (I've been out of a lifelong depression less than a year, so this is somehwat justified). Fear of going crazy can make you crazy.

I have the same kind of on-off relationship with my mother, mainly due to the fact that she is the person I am most around or with during my "off" periods.

The most fun I've had was when I didn't have to depend on her and we could get along like two adults. Long before I ever realised that there was a problem we lived together for a year in Dublin while my sister and dad - who obviously we still saw regularly - lived in the UK. We would go

Now, about eighteen months into my depressive period and AS diagnosis she made a comment about being nostalgic for that year we spent together as equals while we were in a restaurant and I completely lost it mentally. (Not that I flipped out, I just got inconsolably upset and ended up going to see the psychiatrist emergency service just a couple of doors down from the restaurant.)

However my grandmother feels that mum (her daughter) interferes with her a bit too, and she's eighty-one...

My feeling is that you have to be able to face this sort of people as equals. I have just broken the eight-month silence I had with my ex-boyfriend and I explained that I was ignoring him until I got myself back together again and that I still found it difficult to speak to him. At least we got back together and if I can patch it up with him, then it will be a sign that things are healing themselves again. It was a bit of a civil war between us, and I was looking forward to the day when I was strong enough to look him in the eye as an equal rather than having to put up with him feeling he was more my father than my boyfriend.

{{{Serissa}}} - my heart goes out to you, I almost wish I could do the same as you. We talked about me moving out during the summer but I was reluctant to move out before I had some kind of income - I'm 26 and really ought to have a proper job but I've never really been secure enough to hold that down before properly.

Serissa,

I think the most difficult relationship in the world is between mother and daughter. Lord knows of the pain my mother's caused me while growing up. We're just now getting to the point of healing our relationship. Even though she's trying to be more of a mother to me, I get angry that she's so much of a better parent to my younger siblings than me. But I try to recognize she was a teenager, barely a child herself, when she had me and now that she's older, she has more knowledge on how to be a better parent.

I truly believe that your relationship with your mother can get better. However, you both must aknowlege what's wrong first. If she can't, then the only person you can work on is yourself by making sure you don't subject yourself to continuously harmful interactions with her. Yes, she's your mother but you deserve to have peace of mind too. You're doing great by recognizing the problem and not putting yourself in denial for the sake of the relationship. So you're not "screwed" in the head like you think you are.

SHE DID IT AGAIN! SHE DID IT AGAIN! WHY THE HELL DOES SHE KEEP PULLING THIS f*****g s**t WHEN SHE KNOWS WHAT IT DOES TO ME??? WHY??? WHY???

As explanation: My mom tried to change her plans again at the last minute (she did last night too about something else we'd been planning on since thanksgiving, which I freaked out about tehn calmed down and wrote this post), saying that instead of taking me to my grandparetns on Thu AS PLANNED she would take me on Fri. I woulnd't have minded going on Friday, but she had told me to expect her to do this and I was counting on it. Knowing something is going to happens is very emotionally important to me and SHE KNOWS THIS but this is the SECOND TIME SHE HAS DONE THIS TO ME IN THE PAST 24 HOURS.

I talked to her on the phone- actually maintaining decent control for me but of course not enough for her, and she got pissed at me for wanting her to keep a promise she'd made me, which is feels like she does a lot. Then she said "Yeah, I guess I screwed this up like I screw everything up." My reply was (for the first time consdiering myself to be yelling), that I can't handle when she does this because I'm stupid and defective and mentally ill, so yeah, it's my fault. I started crying then gave up trying to make her see that this wasn't unreasonable of me and she shouldn't be mad. I just wanted absolution. I told her I'd talk to her tomorrow when we were less upset, and she's picking me up tomorrow as planned.

I took a Klonopin because I needed to hurt myself (I'm a self-mutilator, haven't cut in well over a year but still sometimes need to literally hit myself; after I'd lost control and banged my arm with ym phone twice I had to kind of imagine someone else was grabbing my arm ro something and stop myself); and talked to my grandomther for half an hour. The pill's kicked in and I need to study for two exams I have tomorrow. Other stressful stuff happened today too that I was counting on going to my grandparetns' to allieviate- HEAVILY counting on it. So yeah. It was a great day till my mom s**t on me.

Did your mom tell you WHY she decided to change the plans? Was it simply a matter of her or somebody else's preference or did something come up that made the original target date impossible to achieve?

Well, I'm at my grandparents now and all is well It was a matter of her deciding at the last minute that it was "too stressful." I think she needs to think ahead and decide if stuff like this is going to be stressful BEFORE she commits, that's my point. When the reality of a commitment to do something is imminent she has a habit of backing out due to feared stress.

Mom they have problems when they can't handle their kids so they make fun of them. In my case she is stupid bipolar b***h. Can;t live with her can;t live without her. She dragges people into her depression so she can be distracted by from it. Hurt me read bad. Rape and pstd. f**k you mom. You don;t have kids unless you can handle bipolar. You certain don't have more of your kind either. No offense against bipolar here just her and my sister. Hurting someone else does not help the problem. You dating aspie better not do it either. Some of you better learn better social skills first. Lucky me social skill are logical. I will give plenty of advice cause I don't want to see it happen again. My therpist says I am an expert at aspergers and at the end he said cause its about you.