The Student Room Group

toxic mom

Hey all. Im 24 and still live at home with my mom and younger brother. Things are not good, my family is toxic and Im the scapegoat as she always criticizes me, never likes or praises me for what i do, always brings me down and always blames me for everything.
A reason is my mom is homophobic so she never accepted me, even goes ahead to call me 'sick'. Another reason is that she never liked who I was anyway..i was always a shy quiet kid who struggled to make friends and of course if you're a parent you'd help your child but my mom has always done it in a critiquing and forcing way. To put it bluntly, she likes my brother more as he is the goldenchild. I have tried to make peace with this discrepancy. After all I cannot help that im more reserved and she is not a fan, but you know this serves her to more easily manipulate me and that is what I cannot tolerate..she goes out of her way to manipulate me so far that she wants to enter my therapy to tell MY therapist that im 'lying and exaggerating about everything'. In other words she wants to go to clear her name and put me on the spot. I just cant accept that she wants to ruin my therapy too. She ruined most things for me. The sad thing is my therapist does not realize to what extend she is being manipulative and he told me he wants to speak to her one-one so he can tell her how to support me..he means well but i doubt that my mom will sit there for an hour just listening to him as being who she is and explicitly admiting that she wants to go there to say im lying tells me that she will go there just to frame me as the bad lunatic.
First off- I am sorry you are going through this, its sad to see parents failing their children simply because they arent what the parents want them to be.
That aside, does your therapist know about how your mom is manipulative? If they are a good therapist, theyd easily be able to spot the lies a mile away so them meeting your mom wont really be good for your mom
Reply 2
He is not super aware.. I explain it to him sometimes but i dont think he understands fully the extent or the impact she has on me.
I also worry because my mom is smart.. she will not just lie, rather she will twist the situation, for example instead of talking about the core of the issue (that she doesnt accept me so she's more aggressive and controling towards me) she will focus on the fact that i dont do chores at home, which isnt a lie..it is a truth and she will be telling the truth, except it is not the issue or the source of the issue. You get what i mean? and of course someone who is depressed will not have the energy for chores but she will never admit stuff and I worry.. this person literally said they will go to my therapist to 'expose me' and say im exaggerating about everything, isnt it crazy?
She is becoming super obsessed with my therapist, even if i talk back at her she goes 'ill tell your therapist'
Look, tell your therapist how she really is. They will listen, and your 24, shs got no right to barge in and see your therapist. Theres a thing called patient confidentiality and she cant breach that. And its not good for you that shes sees them anyway, and do not let her.
It saddens me that shes homophobic. It really is so sad that she has to have that attitude. It sounds to me from the post you put yourself down, and its a reflection of her actions is why you are feeling this way.
You are absolutely right, shes toxic and in order to deal with toxic people (yes even your mum) you have to cut them out. Job, place of your own. Its scary of course, naturally, but omg you will feel so much better and feel more free to be the real you, and meet the people who deserve to be in your life and actually enriches it.
Sorry to hear that your mum is like this, but not gonna lie, you are 24, that is a big age. If your living circumstances bother you that much then move out. It’s literally that simple.
Reply 5
Original post by LadyScheherazade
Sorry to hear that your mum is like this, but not gonna lie, you are 24, that is a big age. If your living circumstances bother you that much then move out. It’s literally that simple.


its not that simple, dont you think i would if it was?
Reply 6
Original post by Ghostlady
Look, tell your therapist how she really is. They will listen, and your 24, shs got no right to barge in and see your therapist. Theres a thing called patient confidentiality and she cant breach that. And its not good for you that shes sees them anyway, and do not let her.
It saddens me that shes homophobic. It really is so sad that she has to have that attitude. It sounds to me from the post you put yourself down, and its a reflection of her actions is why you are feeling this way.
You are absolutely right, shes toxic and in order to deal with toxic people (yes even your mum) you have to cut them out. Job, place of your own. Its scary of course, naturally, but omg you will feel so much better and feel more free to be the real you, and meet the people who deserve to be in your life and actually enriches it.

Thank you so much for your thoughts Ghostlady (also love the username). I can sense from your response how much you understand me, it warms my heart.
I told her more about it today, we dont have much time together in order to give him as many examples as I want but he agreed that for my mom to respond with 'im telling your therapist about this' to every inconvinience she gets from me is not right, neither is the fact that she wants to enter and alter my experience... I told him she will not come to express the core issue (homophobia) but she'll talk about other issues eg. chores but he said he will bring up the core issue himself and tell her that I do not feel acceptance from her. Hopefully he will describe to her how she cannot barge in my therapy or 'threaten' to tell my therapist every time i do something she dislikes.

I guess I have been putting myself down all these years in various situations and yes you are right its a reflection of her behaviour and actions towards me.. Its sad because now I have to do all this work to rewrite all the things I've learned because they were actually not good for me..its not strange I grew up to be like this when she's been treating me like this..

I guess yeah I need to find my own place, its just hard because I personally am not a fan of working the typical 9-5 hours as my views are different from this stance but I guess theres no way to do it if you live in capitalism. I also dont know about meeting the right people..sadly in my 24 I do not have one person who i can safely rely on so this belief is difficult to be equipped..i do not have a person to call a friend and its hard to believe that I will anytime soon.. I do all the changes to try and meet better people but for some reason I am never considered as highly as i consider other people

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