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Reply to "Mother was smothering and critical at same time -- what is that called?"

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[quote=Anonymous]So my sister's relationship with our mother was unhealthy, judging from her therapist report to me (I was consulted at my sister's request).

My mom would work to take care of my sister, who was easily overwhelmed, often depressed and anxious, so my mom would smooth out things (which the therapists says is a subtler way of my mom implying my sister can't handle normal things, and thus also critical and undermining).  For example, my sister would quit any activity when it got hard; she went away to college for a semester then moved back home to attend local college.  When she started working, she found it so exhausting (this was a standard 9-5 office job, nothing extreme like you see here in DC), my mom would do her laundry, cook for her, shop for her, everything, and my sister would just spend her time watching TV.

Eventually my sister went to grad school, and mom helped find her a place to live, helped her move, set everything up for her, often would come visit and clean her place.  And of course, through all this time,  my parents would funnel money to her, she has never actually lived on her own or managed her life independently.

Now, even with all this "nurturing", mom was critical of my sister, how she dressed, how she was sitting, what she was eating, or that she needed to lose weight.  So you had a subtle "let me take care of this, you can't handle it, you are fragile" and the less subtle "you are fat, don't eat this".

sister now has dependent personality disorder, depression, and anxiety; everything is hard and she needs my moms support to do some of the most basic tasks.

So what is the root diagnosis of my mom? Therapist won't diagnosis someone who isn't her patient, but I don't know what exactly this is?[/quote]

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