Because there's no one to confide in.

I’m so immensely angry that I didn’t wind up with a half decent mother. All I got was a game playing adolescent. So now as I try to write through angry tears, I feel incandescent rage. Because it has filtered into so much, including how I view other women, nurturing, nature, beauty, hobbies, interests, ambition. But the incandescent rage will fade, and the depression will return. Because depression is how I survive. And hiding food is how I survive. Keeping to myself is how I survive. And taking joy in small things is how I survive. And living as small-y and quietly is how I survive. And occasionally binging on alcohol or treats or junk food is how I survive. Avoiding intimacy, romance, friendships is how I survive. Deliberately  gaining weight to discourage any interest is how I survive. But these realizations will fade. All that is left is the depression, the empty hopelessness, the total numbness. And I will continue to lurch from day to day, not sure how I keep going.

13 Comments

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Hey OP

May 15, 2021 at 4:41pm

I love the honesty of this confession. You sound very in touch with the sources of your emotions.

I don’t have any answers for the difficult feelings, just wanted to let you know that your awareness is refreshing and I appreciate the way you express yourself.

17 5Rating: +12

Dunno

May 15, 2021 at 4:47pm

Its very difficult situation with lasting consequences for the child when someone that is suppose to protect & nurture you i.e. parent in life not only don't do their part but is deliberately harmful. I don't believe any other relationship can e.g. friends, spouse, therapy if your fortunate enough to afford it can make up for this. No parent are perfect and most I like to believe try to do their best as they know how with mixed results which is natural. I fell really bad for kids brought up by parents who are on extreme end of physical, emotional or even economical incompetence. You cannot share these trauma with anyone if life without feeling being judged. No one understands the depth and breath of stress endured.

20 3Rating: +17

@Dunno

May 15, 2021 at 5:23pm

best you can do is try to not dwell on it, believe failed parent still love you because do don't know what they endured to be the way they are and try to be happy and successful knowing there are people out there who achieved in spite of it all. For those not in the know, this topic is never shared and even of those rare circumstances it is made know, no one really truly cares. Try to be happy.

9 6Rating: +3

tiredeyes

May 15, 2021 at 6:01pm

nihilism from being hurt from those you love, or you think you should love, is very understandable. i'm working through these feelings myself, you might learn that tough family love is far more common than you think and people are there to listen to you. as for my anecdote, i love my parents but i had a big revelation a week ago, realizing that i'm quite terrified and always apologizing for myself essentially just existing when i want to be loved, i've had the most important people turn around and tell me that i'm incompetent, lazy, pathetic, selfish, a monster up until i roughly reached twenty. i am slowly healing with friends who have never, and would never, treat me that way but the relations of my family were since birth and run deep and i realized, that is the only deep love that i understand and there is no one i was close to growing up that didn't hurt me. it is a two way street, i became awful in ways because of not just that treatment but a messy divorce that wanted me to side with one parent years after in occurred, being born to a mother who was not ready to bear children and did not make time for me much of my growing up until i began to show intellectual prowess (that no longer exists) and i am happy to say that for a long time now, i am no longer that person. i regret the things i've said, many of which i have not uttered for the past decade and never again. but i struggle to think of the future with anyone, terrified someone i love will come to treat me that way. it's a terrible image, to think of someone you admire telling you that they cannot stand you and that you're worthless. i know that it's not normal to have been loved that way but it takes time for one's body and instinctive part of mind to understand. it is an ongoing process. i can logically reconcile my love, my father suffered physical abuse from the church and private schools, his parents neglected him, and he was passenger to a drunk driver at twenty three and lost his leg in a car accident. my mother was always isolated, the odd middle child who was seen as strange in a homogenous country, and was hurt by her father and sought to escape a family and country she does still love but to fit in. they were both alcoholics when i grew up but no more and they did the best they could. i am much better now even though i still work through it. you will be too.

14 4Rating: +10

Siblings

May 15, 2021 at 8:35pm

Hope you have some at least to spread the burden plus knowing there is someone who live thru exact same helps even to laugh it off to let off steam. Its would be a b**ch if your are only child dealing with this. If this culture fostered more of intergenerational living arrangements i.e. grand parents living to the end with family rather than being shipped to retirement homes under pretext of being "independent" there would be more meaningful chances to share these kinda tribulations in life. One can't share these kinda experiences with same age group.

6 5Rating: +1

Taboo

May 15, 2021 at 10:34pm

I agree. It's a taboo in our society to talk about the effects of bad mothering. But the effects are there, nonetheless, and they are bad and lasting. You feel like you can never do enough, and never be enough to be ok. You run yourself into the ground trying to please other people, but it's never enough. There's always the fear that they will withhold their approval or even reject you. I don't know what the answer is. My current tactic is to have as many supportive people in my life as possible, so I get just a little bit of validation from each, but don't rely on any particular one. That way, if one relationship goes south, it's not devastating.

11 6Rating: +5

You can confide here.

May 15, 2021 at 10:35pm

Hugs. The ways to avoid and discourage people hit home for sure.

15 4Rating: +11

@@Dunno

May 15, 2021 at 10:44pm

I agree. Firstly I don’t know anyone at all who thinks that their mother or father was perfect. I don’t know anyone who got through their childhood without some scars. EVERYONE carries some type of burden. While there’s definitely some awful people who should never have had kids, the majority of parents are just struggling along like everyone else, trying to do their best. You don’t mention if you have any kids of your own Op, but I’m suspecting that you don’t. It’s very hard for people who haven’t experienced parenthood to really understand just how incredibly difficult it is. Kids don’t come with an instruction manual. Each one is completely unique and what works for one doesn’t work with another. I’m sorry that you’re struggling so much in your life. But if you’re an adult it’s really up to you to do the work to try to heal from your own scars. Spending your life blaming your mother for your issues isn’t helpful, because all that does is mire you deeper into the muck. It will not free you. Have you tried talking to her (assuming she’s still alive)? Has she ever discussed her own upbringing with you? Has she ever acknowledged any mistakes she made or tried to make amends for them? Surely as an adult you understand that mothers are just regular humans and therefore they have flaws, just like you do. What about your father? Did he have no impact on your life or what? Was everything her fault and he was blameless? If it’s possible for you to get some therapy, I would strongly recommend it, because obviously you’re deeply miserable and this pattern of blaming your mother for the state of your life will not work for you in the long run. It’s up to you now.

baked yam

May 16, 2021 at 11:24am

I feel your despair and anguish. I hope you continue to persevere and find success in love. Maybe with some distance, in a far-off land? It's out there somewhere under the sun.

5 4Rating: +1

Family Scapegoat

May 16, 2021 at 11:54am

My mother married my father to get away from her mother, she married a man she didn't know from a distant place to do it because that was the only way she knew to escape. My father was raised by people who were raised by widows, I guess none of the local girls wanted him. I figured out in grade 3 that she was never going to assist me in my dealings with him. My younger siblings adopted my fathers contemptuous attitude towards me, I now have practically nothing to do with them, or any other relatives. I got out of my fathers household as soon as I could (18 working a shitty factory job) but the social maladaptations acquired in the family home have been crippling me ever since (I'm 60 now). Between all the screwed up people I've met (successful or otherwise) and seeing people at the top of their field flame out I'm satisfied with keeping to myself and glad to have a door with a bolt on it.

15 3Rating: +12

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