I'm not sure this is where to post this, but I need to vent because as you will soon see, this is something I have been struggling with for some time. I am not the best at wording things but I will try to separate this into sections.
My Graduation:
I could not enjoy my graduation. I was invited to an honors award ceremony. I always tear up at those. If I win something, I feel like I don’t deserve it. There is no way I am getting something that is “first place” at any point in life so I feel inadequate if I don’t. Part of it is because I expect this award to cure me of any past stressors (e.g. “Okay, if I win this, that means that all the pain caused by people in that mental health organization was worth it and I didn’t deserve the treatment I got”…if you’re curious I describe a Sparknotes version of the pain they caused in a comment on another post). That’s not healthy. So win or lose, I invalidate myself. Then I beat myself up for thinking I could have ever won in the first place if I lose, and if I win I hope I’m not getting too prideful so there’s that fun element, too.
I hate those people that say millennials are entitled because of participation trophies leading them to settle for mediocrity and think they will be rewarded. I got the message early on that participation trophies didn’t mean much (not a statement of whether or not I agree, but just about what others told me) I can place (which I did in this case, pretty well) and even get first and I still feel terrible. Maybe we should just be teaching our kids to try hard to achieve awards, but also to feel fine with themselves either way. But it’s too late for me because my ability to feel good about myself or to even seek solace without validation from others is impaired greatly. The only good thing is that I know how to recognize someone that wants me to jump through hoops because they are abusive and know I am a people pleaser.
The next day, I had commencement ceremonies for both of my majors in exactly the same place. My parents and I went to get lunch because we had a few hours between the two. They told me I could pick any place since it was my graduation so I picked a nice sit-down place that had pizza as well as some other healthy food. I figured sit-down was fine because there wasn’t much to do in the area and walking around wouldn’t be good because my mother has leg pains.
What you have to understand about my mom is that she has trouble communicating what she wants. She is on a “diet” (we will get to why I put quotations around that later) and she didn’t have to get anything from the restaurant or we could have gone somewhere else if we wanted to. She knew this. But instead she says “no I’m fine with this” and then practically screams “I’m going to gain 150 pounds by just looking at it but…” and her voice trailed off in a slightly passive aggressive manner. I said “okay fine” and my family walked out of the restaurant though my dad was trying to assure me that it was fine and we could eat there. My parents are a bad couple when it comes to this because in many other situations, my dad is incredibly indecisive and my mom says “oh it doesn’t matter where we eat” when it does in fact matter. I am sure much of us can relate.
We ended up eating there and mom could have gotten something healthy. Or we could have eaten at a different place or we could have gone for something she wanted later. But the thing is, she wouldn’t want anything…. I put quotes around “diet” because she might have an eating disorder. She eats very little and she eats it only late at night. She started ranting about how she couldn’t decide what to order and she wanted to splurge but couldn’t.
At this point, it is not about me. I mean, I feel bad that she didn’t see anything she could stand to eat, regardless of the fact that she doesn’t know she has a problem yet and she would probably do this no matter where we went. I may or may not have exacerbated the problem, but I know her feelings that created the disorder itself are her own and are deeply rooted in feelings about herself. They aren’t anything I should be taking too personally. However, then my dad said “oh we will do that while we wait” about something. I don’t know what because they were kind of whispering. Then my mom said “…..while I plot my revenge.”
Aaaaand this is where it takes a turn from a moment that is just heartbreaking to a moment that is also terrifying. I was actually worried she might do something to humiliate me during my final graduation. I walked across the stage terrified of what embarrassing thing she might yell about me as I walk across the stage. Not cute embarrassing like a little nickname, either. But more disturbing embarrassing. Even though I knew that most of what she could do to embarrass me would have the audience thinking it said more about her than it did me, I was terrified. But nothing happened. And admittedly, I over-reacted a bit and she probably wouldn’t do anything. Whether or not she would isn’t the point. She still really would have wanted revenge, all because I chose to eat that day. I word it that way because any time anyone eats, she gets angry at us for “tempting her” and in that scenario, it would be rude to have her wait elsewhere. I hope I don’t seem unsympathetic to her plight, but you can hopefully see why this might be harmful to me.
Later, she would also briefly mention not wanting to meet with my professor and my dad and I would take her seriously because we didn’t want to upset her, and well, that would lead to me almost not getting to say goodbye to him. Fortunately, my dad asked me “Are you sure you’re okay with not saying goodbye to him?” And then I said “I have to be okay with it. Mom didn’t want to.” And so we went all the way back upstairs (a hassle in that building) and I got to do it. Communication is a two-way street so I also should have spoke up, but again I didn’t want her to have to wait somewhere else. Unfortunately, it is not that simple because it’s not a matter of “can I assert myself?” but of “will I assert myself after she has made it perfectly clear she will become emotionally abusive and make me feel unsafe if I do?” Maybe after you read some background, you will see why someone like me would feel scared.
Early childhood:
My mom is quite possibly clinically narcissistic. I have done some looking around and have seen some descriptions of narcissists that remind me of her from pretty reliable sources. She has low self-esteem and disguised it as high self-esteem when I was growing up. I want to leave the disclaimer that not everyone who has an eating disorder is narcissistic. In fact, most people are not. I had an eating disorder and I do not qualify. We will get back to my disorder later. I just wanted to talk about that because I hate the stereotypes that say “oh narcissism means vanity and people with eating disorders are vain and just want to be thin to be beautiful. Ugh so annoying. We should just laugh at them or be angry at them and not get them help. They can snap out of it if they’re just humble.” Not only is that an oversimplification of eating disorders, but it is mostly not true. Many people with eating disorders are the exact opposite of vain. The stereotype kept me from seeking help because I didn’t want people thinking I thought I was better than anyone. I could have died as a result. No, there are several actual reasons my mom is clinically narcissistic or otherwise problematic and I will write about it.
She tried to exploit all of my interests as “this is going to be the thing that will get you into Harvard”. I never believed I would get into Harvard and I became sheepish and didn’t want to be seen as smart in that way. I just wanted to be a kid. When I was bad at soccer and I was bad at gymnastics, and finally when I was diagnosed with developmental delays at age 6 (yes that’s right she pressured me to start developing skills to get into Harvard before then) she gave up on me. Or at least she acted like it. She still yelled at me if I got bad grades and took more comfort in berating me than actually helping me. I know, it’s confusing. It just seemed fun for her to say things like “You’re going to wind up on drugs and in gangs!!” whenever I failed. Now I look back at that statement and find it funny because she completely forgot the part about bad/nonexistent parental relationships being a major factor as to what leads people to see a need in joining a gang.
When she did believe in me, she obviously wasn’t much better. Once I got three wrong on a spelling test, so she took my photo off the wall in our living room, said she didn’t have a daughter, ignored me no matter how loud I was or where I was relative to her, and didn’t feed me that day. Then when I got a word wrong on a spelling test, I burst into tears in class. My first grade teacher asked why and I told her my mom would be mad at me. I went to see the social worker who made me feel better though temporarily. I went home and told my mom because I was at covering things up or lying. She would find out anyway I thought. Mom yelled at me for telling others she would be mad at me. Ironic, I know. She certainly wasn’t just raising her voice and telling me “you know you can come to me for anything!” That just wasn’t the case.
I knew she didn’t actually care about me. When I was in kindergarten my face was bitten by one of my dogs. She sent me to school that same morning and tried to make me say that I got it from tripping at the zoo the previous day if anyone asked. Why? 1. She didn’t want me to risk not having perfect attendance and 2. She didn’t want them taking the dog away. I was sent back home because I couldn’t keep my lie straight and was in too much pain to come to class. The part about keeping my lie straight was an understatement because I immediately said what happened when asked.
Meanwhile, my brother got put into enrichment courses so he was the “smart kid” and could do “smart kid things” like science and chess club and other things that would help him develop talents. All my mother’s time was put into him. Of course, I was glad that if my mom gave up on me and shunned me at least she wasn’t exploiting my interests. After all, things become less fun when you are forced to do them. However, I was never encouraged to do things I wanted to do. In fact when I could find things I wanted to do, my parents always framed it as a “well, I don’t know….I’m actually leaning towards no but I’m saying it in a tone of voice that makes it sound slightly more ambiguous.” Ultimately, my mother wound up pitting us against each other. At first, I thought it was pitting us against each other for her affection, but over time, I realized she was actually pitting us against each other so that we would compete to be the one that didn’t make her blow up.
If you’re wondering “where is your dad in all this?” the answer is he was also trying not to make her explode. He cannot stand up to her and tell her to be nicer to us, so he ends up just trying to appease her after she hurts me. When I was in 8th grade, I had anorexia nervosa due to her emotional abuse, constant sexual harassment from my peers, obsessive tendencies, and the fact that she lost her job in the recession. I consider myself recovered now. Instead of getting me help in any way, shape, or form, she just yelled at me as if we were in a soap opera. Again, I feel like she secretly enjoyed having this problem.
Towards the end of my disorder, I was waking up in the middle of the night (if we could call it that; I barely slept) and eating everything in sight that my taste sensitivities would allow me to eat. I ate a few of her cashews and she flipped out. I am not saying I was justified in doing that, but I was practically sleep eating and I had a mental illness, so of course my actions weren’t going to make sense. I couldn’t stop doing them unless I got help. She threatened to send me to live with my grandparents-because I was such a delinquent in need of reform- where they overate all the time and then “I’d REALLY get fat”. My dad took me to work one morning when I knew she would continue to harass me and she sent him an email about how he would be doing the same when I got put in jail for vandalism or gang violence, two things I never even had the urge to do ever. That was the only thing he ever did was take me to work that day. Other than that, he made it clear that he thought it was all my fault and I needed to just suck it up and recover (except he didn’t use those words because he didn’t really see my disorder as a problem).
More recently:
I would get B’s on tests my freshman year and she would ask me if I was hanging around with the wrong crowd. Starting that point in my life, it was my natural instinct to reply to these things with logic and wit and say “if I were with the wrong crowd, would I know?” but that would detonate her so I didn’t. I felt helpless. She acted like I was a worthless delinquent (as if anyone deserves this treatment) and wouldn’t make it into any college. It wasn’t until my guidance counselor told me I was one of his best students that I thought I had a chance. And so I got into a really good state school. I acknowledge that I am lucky because some people can’t get out either because they legitimately can’t move out or because they don’t have a wonderful guidance counselor to help them.
My mom used to constantly scream things like “never have kids” or “I wish I were dead” or “the minute you are eighteen, you are leaving the house”. I didn’t think I would live to eighteen, and I certainly couldn’t picture myself at age eighteen when I was only six. So I didn’t know what to do when she finally turned around and instead of ignoring me or screaming at me she started indicating she wanted me around more. Maybe that’s not quite what I wanted to say. She was taking an interest in regulating the things I do because now she realized I’m an actual person who somehow developed hobbies and has a future. Which meant she could now start seeing everything I do as an extension of herself again. Yay.
She didn’t like that I wore band t-shirts starting in my late high school years. I noticed whenever she did the laundry I would find a discoloration on them, which she probably caused on purpose knowing her. When I started college, I noticed that she liked a comment of mine on Facebook. I looked at it and it was from a class Facebook group when I uploaded a study guide for a guy who couldn’t be in class that day…..2 years ago. My mom and I aren’t friends on Facebook. I told my dad and he couldn’t do anything to distract her from stalking me or else she would know we talked. I changed my privacy settings months later for obvious reasons. Her profile pictures are also of me, including one she got from finding me on LinkedIn (so I immediately knew who viewed my profile in private mode). I wonder if she uses them on her fake profiles that I know she has. I wonder if she has ever tried to add me with those fake profiles.
Now besides that last part, you probably think I am overreacting because “oh boohoo, your mom wants to bond with you.” The thing is, if she does she is acting from a place that tells me she thinks we established a relationship that we just haven’t. Her actions would be more funny than scary if she established herself as a parent that I could tell anything to and joke around with (but then if that were the case we would already be Facebook friends). Instead they read “look, I can cross your boundaries and take away your autonomy” regardless of her intentions.
I was cleaning out my room last summer and decided to donate my old clothes I had no desire to wear. My mom decided to wear them instead. She was overweight when I was growing up but around high school she could have worn the size I wear simply because I purposefully wear baggy clothes due to self-consciousness and what I now suspect is tactile sensitivity. Now, she is really small partially because of her eating disorder. I think she had one before I was born, then she had one when I was in my freshman year of high school, and then she’s having one again because I am about to move far, far away for graduate school. People think eating disorders are just for teenagers but that is because teens are going through transitions constantly. Adults go through transitions too, and a huge one that would lead many adults to get an eating disorder-other things equal- would be their kids moving out. And I am planning on moving out permanently. Anyway, she wears my old shirts which would be one thing, but then she has to announce, “Hey….thanks for the clothes” in a condescending, upbeat tone.
I couldn’t properly put into words why this bothered me, which is why I am glad my friend quickly said “she’s crossing your boundaries.” To me it could also be interpreted as "Hey I'm competing with you to be the thinnest". It reminded me of how I used to see pictures of grown women wearing their clothes from when they were four and saying "hey look it still fits. It just shows how tiny I am. This is totally normal and I just naturally look like this!" Similarly, I would see those and think "No. That's not normal. Please seek help." But as someone who has had an eating disorder, I know it seems illogical but it doesn't have to make sense. The entire point is it is a mental disorder and it looks bizarre to everyone else, but to the person who has it it seems to make sense. My counselor expressed concerns of the tone this could take on my mental health as someone who used to struggle with an eating disorder.
Last year at 21, I was diagnosed with autism. My sensory problems are not as obvious which is what took the diagnosis so long….that is, they aren’t obvious if you haven’t heard of food sensitivities. I was eating the same really small, really restricted food types for 20+ years and neither of my parents realized that when I gagged up most food, I wasn’t being a brat; I have really strong taste buds.
Despite the possibility of early intervention, I am glad she didn’t find out. I have read memoirs written by survivors of parents with Munchausen by proxy. In my favorite one, titled Sickened, the mother makes everything about herself when her daughter indicates a concern for her toxic behavior. The mother threatens to kill herself yet again and her daughter is supposed to try and talk her out of it. When the mother’s new husband agrees with her daughter, she accuses him of having feelings for the daughter and accuses the daughter of trying to steal him. Of course, the mother is not actually going to attempt suicide, nor does she actually think the daughter and her new husband have that kind of relationship. This is just her way of being manipulative and 1. Trying to make her daughter feel guilty for her death if she actually were going to do it and 2. Changing the topic so that the focus shifts from her daughter trying to get her to stop abusing someone else to her daughter committing an offense. If the daughter did not realize that, she would be on the defensive when her mother should actually be on the defensive. I am not saying that I don’t sympathize with the mom in ways; she is looking for comfort and nurturing which is why she has the disorder in the first place. However, she needs to stop it.
My point is that while my mom herself would never abuse me in the way that parents with Munchausen by proxy do, she shares some manipulative characteristics in common, particularly like the ones displayed in that example. It is sometimes hard to critique her toxic behavior because she will act manipulatively about it. With an earlier autism diagnosis, she wouldn’t have had to given me a condition and hoped someone would nurture her. She would just have to over-pathologize what I already have and act like one of those terrible moms who blogs their kids having “melt downs” and says “this is what I have to deal with during the day!” and begs for so much sympathy. Not to mention the ones that secretly sympathize with parents who dream about killing their kids, or the ones that actually do by saying “it’s justifiable because they were desperate!”. Occasionally, I wonder if she would be one of the murderers.
A couple of weeks ago, I figured out that one of my high school teachers was being accused of something. He was a coach, so I figured out from some disgruntled current students posted in the old Facebook group that consisted mostly of alums. I figured out the coach might have been misinforming them of what could happen to the team so that they would not disclose anything in the interviews. I wanted to notify the school. For some reason I told my mother and she didn’t want me to disclose. Then she made it about her and how stressed it was making her and how I should just let it go. This moment is what most reminded me of the book. This conversation would now be about her and how she was stressed when the matter was not about her at all. It was barely even about me. It was about how our coach might have been telling student that the school wouldn’t hire another coach in his place (when they definitely would) and that may have been influencing their answers in an investigation because they could be lying and saying he didn’t do something he might have actually done. And I’m not saying she wasn’t stressed, but she had little to no investment in this compared to me so it seemed kind of inappropriate. My dad focused on placating her and didn’t see how telling the school what had happened could be empowering for both me and the current students. They don’t know me well enough to realize that I don’t drop things. I wrote the school an email the next day.
Another weird thing my dad said in that situation was “she was so close with being okay with you going to that grad school and moving out.” And the thing is, she wasn’t. She wasn’t close to being okay with my decision at all. In fact, she aggressively said “I will be okay with it if you change your diet, change your hair, change your make up, and jump through all of these unrelated hoops that make me feel like I still have control over you.” She still doesn’t understand how my taste sensitivities work and she thinks my makeup is scary. At least she hasn’t seen my Instagram account where I occasionally swatch unconventional colors. That’s the only good thing that hasn’t come out of this: That it means she hasn’t stalked any of my other accounts.
I am trying to become financially independent. People keep acting like the fact that my parents help pay for things means that I have no right to complain about other abuse. Again, I will acknowledge that I am lucky that my parents can/do help pay. They grew up poor so this is a status symbol that they can do that for me, and even if I don’t like it, I know it’s better than not being able to go to school because I can’t pay alone. However, I also know that in my mom’s case, the fact that they help pay is a way for them to still have control over what I do and I also don’t understand why people think that justifies any emotional abuse.
Let’s say I am abusive and trying to keep my boyfriend from leaving. A possible way I could do this through money is by taking control of his finances and not letting him pay for anything without my permission. Then, let’s say I “let him” buy something and act like it’s just me being nice but in fact I want him to “return the favor” later by making him do something he is uncomfortable with. And then let’s say he resists. Then, I would say “how dare you not do what I want? After all, I pay for all of your stuff.” That’s the type of thing my parents do.
That fictional scenario was meant to have undertones of sexual abuse, but don’t worry. My parents don’t do that. My mom will probably make me do other things I am not comfortable with though. She already has control, so I don’t see why she needs to regulate my hair and makeup choices for example. The fact that she wants to regulate those things is particularly strange to me because she was talking about it like I was still a child and saying she didn’t want me to have a bad first impression with others. That would be fine, but she constantly acts like I don’t know how to do my makeup in a way that most people would be fine with. She doesn’t see me every day since the university I went to for undergrad was 2.5 hours away so she doesn’t know. I asked around and the makeup I wear is actually fine since it’s not the unconventional stuff. Keep in mind this is the same woman who thought all rock music was for bad kids when she was growing up.
Miscellaneous Stuff that May Help You Further Understand the Problem:
-The fact that this story isn’t the best grammatically speaking really, really angers her. Whether it be the occasional spelling errors, the bad punctuation around quotations, the switch between typing the number 6 and just writing out the word, or the fact that I did not make a new paragraph every time a new person started speaking in a dialogue, this all indicates that my personhood is in question and therefore my entire argument falls through, which is completely irrational on her part. She’s not even an internet troll.
-She believes the ghost of a dead celebrity from a band that is now obscure is watching over us. I don’t want to say who because I don’t want people to be able to identify us. She also practices Wicca and casts spells. This alone isn’t bad; it’s just someone’s religion sometimes. I only include it because I have studied schizotypal beliefs and there may be an extent to which some of the things she does qualifies.
-She would be occasionally physically abusive. Nowadays she is not, but she throws things when she is upset.
So there you have it. I am writing this because I know for the longest time I didn’t think of her as in any way abusive and maybe someone else will see this and recognize patterns in their own situation. I am stuck in my house for 17 weeks and I am trying to find a new job and maybe even move to graduate school early. My boyfriend and I are getting engaged soon and I am hoping she doesn’t find some way to make my wedding about her. I also hope that I didn’t come across as invalidating her own struggles or saying that her stress didn’t matter. The last thing I want to do is stigmatize her. I am just saying that it is having an impact on me as well. It is okay to want control in this world, but when your way of seeking control involves trying to take away the autonomy and control of others, it is less than preferable. I am also wondering: what do I do if I cannot get out of the house? I can’t drive as I am nervous because my mom is a neurotic driver and has put that fear in me. Besides, I am worried about my impairment and moving to a big city so I won’t need to drive as much. Additionally, I live in a large suburban area currently and the subdivision where I live is really, really long. Just rows of houses. And my friends live in a different subdivision that’s 30+ min away. I can’t walk anywhere easily.
Thanks for taking time to read this long post.
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