Would you cut off an evil, toxic mother?

[Anonymous]

I am very torn about a situation. My mother has always been pure evil. She berated me on a daily basis since I was a young child, swearing at me, calling me horrible names, telling me how horrible, lazy, stupid, mean, worthless I was, etc. She was a single parent so I had no one else to go to for love. She withheld any affirmations of love or even physical touch like a hug my entire upbringing. Now I am in my 30's and have a wonderful husband and children. I have a lot of shame and insecurity I carry with me and I find it gets so much better when I go longer without talking to her. She brings me right back to that childhood in any conversation and I have to start all over on the work I have done in therapy. I saw two therapists who insisted I cut her off. I am better without her but I also feel guilty because she provided for me physically, with clothes, meals, opportunities like college and a home. She is better than she was before but she can can turn in 2 seconds flat if she starts to feel tired or unwell and get back into that evil personality and she lacks boundaries and control. Is this a situation you would cut your mother off or would you indulge her with a few trips a year even if it was extremely stressful and hurtful for you?

[Anonymous]

Life is too short to keep toxic people around. Build your own little happy family. Cut her off and do not give her the opportunity to affect your children negatively.

[Anonymous]

I'm so sorry your mother treats you so badly. Yes, your therapists are right. You should cut her off.

A DCUM thread where posters unanimously urge you to let go of your relationship with your mother isn't going to help you do what you already know you need to do. The problem here is that you know (cognitively) you need to cut her off, but you don't believe (emotionally) that you should. Put another way, your emotional understanding hasn't caught up to your cognitive grasp of the facts. You're still stuck in the beliefs and and mindset that helped you make it through a terrible childhood. That mindset is undermining you now. Until you get more perspective on yourself and your relationship with this destructive force who's your mother, you're going to continue to undermine your current relationships as a wife, mother, friend, etc.

[Anonymous]

OP one doesn't even have to read your story. Look at your subject line. There is no question. Can you imagine someone saying, "No, I wouldn't cut off my evil, toxic mother"? Or let me rephrase: Can you imagine someone who is healthy, saying, no I wouldn't cut off my evil, toxic mother?

Getting healthy works like this, OP...you fake it until you make it. Because after a while, you become what you pretend to be. So act like someone healthy and you will start going in that direction!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am very torn about a situation. My mother has always been pure evil. She berated me on a daily basis since I was a young child, swearing at me, calling me horrible names, telling me how horrible, lazy, stupid, mean, worthless I was, etc. She was a single parent so I had no one else to go to for love. She withheld any affirmations of love or even physical touch like a hug my entire upbringing. Now I am in my 30's and have a wonderful husband and children. I have a lot of shame and insecurity I carry with me and I find it gets so much better when I go longer without talking to her. She brings me right back to that childhood in any conversation and I have to start all over on the work I have done in therapy. I saw two therapists who insisted I cut her off. I am better without her but I also feel guilty because she provided for me physically, with clothes, meals, opportunities like college and a home. She is better than she was before but she can can turn in 2 seconds flat if she starts to feel tired or unwell and get back into that evil personality and she lacks boundaries and control. Is this a situation you would cut your mother off or would you indulge her with a few trips a year even if it was extremely stressful and hurtful for you?

Yes.
You are you. You are doing you. You do not reflect other people. She is your mother. She might have had horrible mother
and she might not know what love is or how to show affection. She had no support to raise you, you have your wonderful husband. It could have been very difficult for her to raise you, maybe she had no idea how, maybe she had
some emotional and mental issues, maybe she made a choice to keep you and not to abort or give away for adoption
but that turned to be beyond her parenting skills and emotional capacity. Maybe she realized that raising you
depraved her somehow from other options which is not good reason to be mean to a child however
some people have very simple minds inside and when they are miserable and in pain of loneliness they came up with
strange and cruel coping mechanisms taking it on kids. It is not that they often can help it as if they could they would,
this is people with some problems so it is different to judge them.

It is how you treat her now. You. It is all about you because she was not a good mother to you so
in theory she does not deserve good treatment, yet she raised you, provided you with food,
shelter and roof over your head so that is worth something. I don't k now how it is to be a single
parent but it must be extremely painful and difficult process. Give her some credit for that
to balance some of the evil you endured.

Maybe all she wants now is a little love and pampering, however hard it is, she might have
never actually experienced it and all she knows was hardships. That can also be tough on
people and can worsen mental conditions. She might be bipolar or have other issues now
that you can not see for what it is but she might not be able to control them at all.

If you will be nice to her and put up with her and have some relationship with her,
it is kind of like you are becoming her mother she never had in those last years she has left.
She might need this from you and you might need this to heal. Being nice and forgiving
to someone who mistreated you can be very healing for you.

You need to keep some emotional distance inside not to take things personally,
she can NOT hurt you now, you don't depend on her. You choose what to do
but if you choose to be nice and forgiving, this will keep you warm for the rest
of your life when she will be gone and one day she will. Being sick and tired
tells you she is on decline and you never know when she might be gone.
When that day will come, even if she was the worse ever, you will miss her
because you have only one mother, everyone does. And no matter what
she did love you however in her own way and more then anyone ever will.
Some people can not show love but it does not mean they are not
loving their children.

If it gets tough, make trips shorter or less frequent but do not cut her off.
Those who tell you you should, will not pay the emotional price that you will
if you do. She did support you no matter what you say, through great part
of your life, you don't need to give as much as she did, you don't need
to financially support her, or to give her shelter or food like she did
but few visits now and then do not seem excessive for all that.

[Anonymous]

Do not let her set you back in therapy. Remember and repeat yourself this:
You are different person now, you are an adult. You have your family
and wonderful husband and kids. She can NOT hurt you now. It is all
in the past. All in the past and door is closed.

When she will start about the past you have two choices - either
let her for once tell all she wants and agree with everything even if you don't.
this way she will feel first time validated and that might be all she needs
as the more you deny the more she is upset and the vicious circle continues.
Once you will agree and acknowledge she will stop.

Anytime after that, smile and say" MOM we discussed it all and
we closed this chapter. I know it was painful for you, it was p ainful
for me as well so LETS not talk about it anymore, lets move on.

[Anonymous]

So sorry for all you have gone through. You are a survivor. You main focus now is YOU, your husband and your family. I would continue therapy and cut back on visits, maybe one weekend a year. I would be prepared to leave, and say why, the minute she reverts to her old ways. Limit phone calls and only at your convenience.
Your job is to be the best Mom and the best wife. Do not let her rob you of that experience.
She is evil and mentally ill. You cannot fix her. Do not expose your children to her evil ways. You have obviously worked very hard to be where you are today. Do not let her unravel all that hard work. You cannot erase the past. Move forward, keep loving your children and husband and make sure that is always main focus. Peace to you. You deserve the very best. Now is YOUR time so take care of you. You are an amazing example of resilience.

[Anonymous]

OP, fwiw I know plenty of people who are close to their parents who don’t make “a few trips a year.” That’s a lot. Whether you cut her off completely or not it’s time to prioritize your own needs and those of your immediate family.

[Anonymous]

I cut my parent off 11 years ago. Let me tell you, I have no regrets and no guilt. It took me YEARS to so it, but it was the right thing. You literally CANNOT heal and CANNOT grow emotionally further than where you are now by having communication with this woman.

It was such a relief to cut my parent off. They were taking up too much real estate in my brain and not paying rent.

[Anonymous]

When you get to the point where it makes perfect sense to cut her off, you'll know it. when someone is more bad than good, it's a no-brainer. She must offer you something still or you wouldn't be on the fence.

Find a therapist who can help you handle a toxic mother. See if that helps. If you need to cut her off, you should, but you're not there yet or you wouldn't be asking others to tell you what to do.

Signed,

estranged from my evil, toxic mother after years of struggling to fix the relationship

[Anonymous]

I had to cut off my mother after she started affecting my children. I realized there was no way for me to maintain a relationship with my parents without my children being negatively impacted, either directly from her abuse or because she made me depressed and then they have a mom who isn’t healthy. Furthermore, I refuse to model such an unhealthy relationship with anyone for my children.

She chose to get pregnant and raise a child. It’s not my fault if it inconvenienced her and she did a piss poor job of parenting. Her mental illness is hers. I don’t own it, and I certainly can’t fix it. She has resources to get help, change, and be a better person. Every day, she wakes up and chooses to go further down her current path. That’s on her. It’s also not my fault she had shitty parents and lacked role models. I’m living proof that the cycle can be broken. It’s a shame she didn’t take the opportunities she had to be a better person when it could’ve mattered to her family.

Think about how all this is affecting your kids before you invite your mom to do more damage in your family. Do you want her to treat them the way she does you? Probably not. So why allow her to do it to you and risk her lashing out at them, or at a minimum letting them see you be treated this way and think it’s ok?

[Anonymous]

Yes, do it and wait until your kids return the favor later.

[Anonymous]

Yes you should cut her off. Great she didn’t let you starve to death. She was abusive to you and still is. I cut off a family member about 20 years ago. It’s been the most liberating thing. Good luck. You didn’t deserve to be treated like that.

[Anonymous]

Whether your parent is toxic or evil or not, you have to put your own mental, emotional and physical well being first. You have to prioritize your spouse and your children.

You can't make yourself miserable to make them feel better about their own life. So in answer to your question - I would do what I felt was the right thing. If my parent was truly malicious, evil and toxic I would save myself by walking away. If my parent was simply getting older, needier and more demanding I would keep my visits short but sweet and do my best to help them to establish the professional supports that they need - with the awareness that there is not going to be a perfect solution, ever, no matter what you do. I would not sacrifice my own well being and happiness to make them happy. But no loving parent would ever expect their kid to do that for them.

[Anonymous]

Fast forward thirty years or so. Your children determined that you made mistakes that were unforgivable, you were not supportive enough and therefore you were flat-out evil. Thus they were encouraged to end their relationship with you by a professional, who never heard your side of the story.

How would you feel?

Look, you are a parent. You have made mistakes and will continue to make mistakes. Do you want your kids to harbor and remember only the negative you've inadvertently done to them? Do you want your future relationships with them dependent upon a third-party professional (who has billing hour requirements)?

FWIW, my mother at points in her life called me lazy (when I didn't clean my room) and called me stupid (when I did something dangerous and scared the heck out of her, like hitchhiking) called me mean (when I neglected to care for the dog as I was supposed to) etc.

Was it hurtful that she said those things to me? Yes - but I also learned that she was right about my actions. I know that my mother didn't have the easiest life nor the best parents and she tried to raise me the best way she knew how. That included not being the best at communicating, so yep, she hurt my feelings. But that got my attention and made me correct my actions. So in that respect, she was successful.

My mother made mistakes, sure. But when I became an adult I was able to forgive her and see things differently from her perspective. That allowed me to let go of some of her behaviors and not take them to heart because I knew she didn't mean it.

Using the word "evil" is rather strong based on the fact the only behaviors you identified were verbal. Yes, verbal abuse is damaging. But I personally reserve the word "evil" for people like murderous psychopaths, not a mother who made mistakes.

This makes me think you are overinflating your mother's bad actions.

I find it hard to believe that your mother really thought you were stupid if she paid for college for you. I can only imagine the financial and other sacrifices she made to do so as a single parent.

As my mother aged, our relationship became much better and she was able to finally express herself in a much more emotionally connective and affectionate way.

I wouldn't have missed those last years with my mother for anything.