I don’t really give a shit any longer. She tormented me for 35+ years, but one day I took a look at her when she was ranting about blacks, Jews, etc. and realized that she was an ignorant, unbalanced mental case and not worth my brain time. This has been very liberating because it’s allowed me to realize that I “should” love her, but don’t really feel anything at all (have not in a long, long time), and that not feeling for someone abusive is OK. I’m very, very, very sorry to say that when she’s gone I doubt I’ll miss her, and suspect I’ll feel some relief in being free of the boiling hatred.

Bob – my mom told me once that my dad was “a crap product of incest” (which he wasn’t) and giggled. Then told me that I better get a genetic test because “I bet you’re all screwed up inside.” NUTS. People who say things like that aren’t even human they’re so nuts. That day was probably one of the days when I stopped feeling anything at all for her.

My mother was/is a full blown paranoid schizophrenic. She had always been a little off and very moody but things suddenly went to pieces around her 40 birthday. She suddenly divorced my father and accused him of trying to murder her and poison her children (me and my younger sister). I was younger than 10 at the time.

She was to really physically abusive but what was disturbing was how her mood could violently change at any second. She could be laughing and happy and enjoying herself, only to fall down crying hysterically the next moment, and then fly into a blind rage the next. Little me loved my mother and I was trying to help her by doing anything she wanted but I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t do what she wanted. Often what she was asking me was beyond my understanding. She had been well educated and clever but now everything she said was jumbled together as a classic word salad symptom of schizophrenia. Often she berated me for being less than perfect or told me that my arrival had ruined her career (it hadn’t, which is really confusing). She drilled into my head that I was terrible and I would get knocked up in high school, have to drop out, and be chained to an infant. And people wonder why I was terrified of any sexual contact well into adulthood.

Her delusions were always changing, often centering on food. We had to pick a random restraunt every night so “they” couldn’t poison our food. She forbade us from eating food at our dad’s.

Eventually my dad was able to win custody of us after she suddenly ran away from home, never to be seen or heard from again. He’s a really good parent and really did his best to undo the damage done to my sister and me.

Even though I feel damaged by it all, I can’t bring myself to be mad at my mother. She was truly mentally ill. She felt hunted by unseen enemies and frequently hallucinated things that weren’t there. I feel bad for her and hoped she has found comfort somewhere, if she is still alive. However, I am mad at the teachers and relatives who brushed me off when I tried to explain my mother’s behavior, saying that I was exaggerating or dreaming things up. They have no excuse.

I feel somewhat haunted by this. I thought her behavior was normal and it took me a long time to unlearn a lot of that. I have a hard time reading people and I usually just assume people around me are angry at me. Most of all I’m afraid I’ll end up like that. I don’t think I will but it’s an idea that scares me so much. I would rather end up dead than afraid of everything.

Her telling everyone that would listen that my father sexually molested my three year old sister was the last straw for me. I could have coped with her indifference, beatings and absence of love. But sitting there announcing that my father was a child rapist with a slight smile on her face was the straw that broke the camel’s back. When I asked her how she knew, she just said ‘I just know’ and that was the extent of the evidence I have heard from her since.

I became angry and didn’t behave to her liking, so she kicked me out. Shortly after puberty I discovered that I had a complete inability to relate to women affectionately. I decided in a rage that the solution would be to hang myself. Being thirteen, I broke down and cried before I could even get the rope tied. Afterward I was no longer enraged. I felt very clear headed.

I have had depression since then. One morbid fantasy involved me driving all the way up to where she lives, greeting her with a manic laugh, putting a gun in my mouth then spraying most of my brain onto her lovely wallpaper and curtains. Wont happen. My body wants to survive, even when nothing else of me does.

May be able to dissolve my craziness with a combination of: antidepressants, online cognitive therapy and seeing a therapist of a more unconventional nature. Maybe, maybe not. Whoever claims to know the future has me beat and wins first place in the competition of craziness.

Your mom is probably mentally ill and it’s a shame that she never got help. I think that if you’re unable to persuade her to get some help, you need to take care of yourself by refusing to be manipulated. You aren’t guilty of anything. You are not responsible for what she did with her life. And you can’t fix things for her.

Make sure you have some support! I understand how you feel. It’s really difficult to handle a mom who pushes your buttons like this. My advice is, do what you can but be prepared to protect your own mental/emotional well-being.

All blessings to you. xo

tiffany sams – Better late than never. You’re in!