You can't live without us

[tayana]

I have been lurking on this board since I first found it a few months ago, and have only posted a few times, but I had to delurk when I read the following comment from the parenting thread:


"My parents together devalued me so much that maybe I just couldn't picture myself ever growing up ENOUGH to have the same thing they did..even a child".

I know my mother is an N, and I'm not sure about my father.  My father sometimes displays N tendencies and sometimes does not.  He may have just been with my mother for so long, that he exhibits some of her personality traits, I'm not sure.  But when I read the above statement, I had to stop and reread it several times, and then I thought about it, and read it some more.

I was unmarried and pregnant just out of college, and lived at home with my parents during my preganancy and after my son was born.  I always meant to move out, but six years later, my son and I are still there.  Why?  On a routine basis, I have heard the following comments from my n-mother.

--I just don't think you can live on your own with no more than you make.

--You have no idea how much it costs to run this house.

--You have no idea how lucky you are.  Other people would pay to be in your position.

--How do you think I feel being around your son all day?  If you're ready to go back to work after a weekend, you'd never be able to handle him for a whole week.

--(or when my son entered a particularly distressing stage)  Don't you wish you'd just kept your legs together, then you wouldn't have that problem?

--I don't know why you bothered going to college, you aren't using that education.  You just threw it away.


There are a lot more.  Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.  When I read that comment above, I thought, oh how true that is and not necessarily just in terms of parenting.  Since my son has been born, I have slowly started to believe that I really can't live without my parents, that I'd never be able to survive on my own.  It's only recently that I started realizing how much of a lie that was.  I can survive on my own.  I do make enough money to afford a house.  I can take care of my son without my mother's help.  In fact, away from my mother, my son and I get along with very few arguments.

But my n-mom is still trying to convince me that I'm too incompetent to be a self-sufficient individual.  On a recent vacation with a friend, my mother became very angry that not only did I plan the vacation without her input, I also took my son and actually went.  She called my cell phone one night and demanded to know if I'd even been feeding my child and letting him drink milk or if he'd just been having soda and junk all day.  She told my son that I'd just leave him in the hotel room alone, so that he wouldn't want to go on the trip at all.

My family has never really listened to me.  Twice I came home from college to find myself living in a different house, once I came home to discover that my family had no house.  No one bothered to tell me anything.  My interests, needs and wants were always pushed to the side and ignored so that my mother could wax on in whatever drama she was wrapped up in.  In high school and college her work was more important than my accomplishments.

Thank you to the person who made that comment above, I needed that reminder.

[Anonymous]

Tayana,

I wish I could be there to give you a hug and a kick in the booty all at the same time.  A hug for the child who your parents still sees in front of their eyes.  A kick in the booty for the woman you are, not the women she tries to make you feel you are.   I want the woman you are  to find the front door and not walk out,  but run out as fast as you can.

Your son sees your mother talking down to you like this.   He is learning her behavior and he is seeing how little she loves or respects you.  This behavior is setting the stage for your relationship with your son.  

You summed it up in one sentence how this is affecting your son.  He acts different with you when your mom isnt around.  Sure he does.  He probably does not have to feel guilty for feeling love for you, enjoying your company, not making your N mother feel 2nd in line behind you.  He is free to love his mother without his grandmother standing over his back influencing his feelings for you.  

You have the capability to be whatever you want to be in this life.  Please search deep in your heart and soul and find whatever strength you have to fight for the right to feel worthy of yourself.  It saddens me to know that a parent could make their children feel like failures.

My kids have all done things to test my limits with them.  When I tell you that I have a daughter that I would have loved to sell on ebay, I mean it.  She was horrible as a teenager.  I may not have liked her actions but I never stopped loving her as my daughter.  Never did I one use  her actions as a rope to hang her.  I knew she would grow emotionally from her actions and she would learn to mature as a result of them.  

You have the right to be everything as a mother that your mom could not be.  Exercise that right and prove to yourself that you can stand on your own two feet with your son.  It may not be the easiest time in your life but just the fact that you stood alone and made it will make you a stronger woman.  The key there being WOMAN not girl.  Your mom keeps you as a child in her mind because it is easier for her to manipulate and control you.  

Life  isn't fair sometimes and the fact that we can not chose our parents really gets some of us off to a rough start.  I just realised young that I could not determine who my parents were.  But I knew early on that I would be damned to be like the ones I ended up with.  You can do it my dear.  I am not saying it is easy all of the time to stand alone, but I promise you the journey is worth traveling.  Self esteem is worth fighting for when you realise the price you have to pay if you dont have it.

There are so many government programs out there for housing and other needs for single mothers.  You seek each and every one of them out.  Do yourself a favor and keep it to yourself.  You dont have to share this with your mother.   That would only give her future ammunition to use against you.  Seek it out, find it, use it, and enjoy the hell out of it.  Take some help from strangers instead of having your mothers contributions shoved down your throat 24/7.  When she says to you that you are not strong enough to make it on your own without them, worried you won't feed your son, can't care for him like she does.  In your mind she is saying you are a worthless mother who can't even supply your own child with food, a place to live, and you are basically worthless.  Nah, don't buy it.  

As a parent I would give my children the shirt off of my back.  I would never remind them of each and every thing I had contributed to them.  I dont need a pat on the back for giving to my children.  What I wanted was for my children to realise they were loved very much.  If they were taking advantage of it, that would be  different.  The fact they were thriving as they grew gave me my pat on the back.  I wanted them to blossom with my support, not wither because of my belittling.  

They made their mistakes just as you and I have.  But having your mistakes thrown in your face constantly does nothing but make your mother feel better about herself.  Projection for some reason is one thing N people do.  I could never understand that.  How could me telling someone they were lazy make me feel better about me feeling I was lazy?  Make sense to you?  That is exactly what your mother is doing hun.  Projecting her feelings of failure onto you makes you look bad therefore allowing her to feel better about who she is.  HUH??  It is nonsense and dont you forget it for one second.  

Hold your head up high, seek any assistance you can to help you gain your freedom, keep it to yourself, smile the whole time you are proving yourself to be a wonderful woman.  She does not have to know how you managed to manage.  Its for you to know and for her to try to figure out.  Just smile knowing you are free from the chains of N your mother bound you with.  It is a mental journey that truly does reveal a pot of gold at the end of it.  Your self respect, dignity, the right to be loved unconditionally, and feeling like you have the right to be loved like that is worth every darn struggle you have to reach that pot of gold.

Have faith in yourself.  If you fail at something, so what.  Pick yourself up, dust your fanny off, learn from it and strive to do it better the next time.  We all make mistakes but that is how we learn the game of life.  Nothing is so bad that it can not be reversed.  Excuse me, death is the only thing that can not be reversed or dealt with.  You are alive and have the right to feel alive as well.  You go girl, find that will to prove your mom wrong.  Be more then you ever dreamed you could be.  Remember N do no like to be proven wrong.  Wink, prove her wrong.  You can do it!!

[Anonymous]

Your mom sounds very toxic and controlling. If you find the resources to get out of your parents' house, kudos to you.

bunny

[Jaded911]

Amen bunny!