Reply to What's the worst thing your mom ever said/did to you?

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[quote=Anonymous]It's hard to come up with a worst. I have lots of examples of her telling me, as a young child, that I was annoying/unattractive/dumb/lazy/ungrateful/etc. And collectively those really impacted me. Suprisingly, it was the "you're so annoying" one that probably impacted me the most even though the others sound so much worse now (I'm sure lots of parents tell their kids they are annoying). But I heard it so much that it really impacted my self-perception, and I've always just felt like I had a bad personality, that I'm too needy, that people don't like me. The other stuff is easier for me to dismiss as an adult -- I'm objectively decent looking, I've been told by many teachers/friends/colleagues/bosses that I'm smart and hard working, etc. But annoying... it just sticks with you. Am I annoying? I feel like I must be, and it makes me feel hopeless because it's one of those things you can't fix, especially if you have low self-esteem. I'd probably be less annoying if I had more confidence or worried less about how much people liked me. But you see the problem there, don't you.

There were other, terrible things, her screaming at me in the middle of the night because she was having one of her rages. Or alternatively her blank, passive face of disinterest when she was in one of her low moods. But again, as an adult, I can look at that stuff and say "that had nothing to do with me." It was really hard to live through and I wish I'd had someone to talk to about it back then. But it doesn't hurt me anymore, just makes me feel sad about the childhood I lost to this stuff.

Oh, here's a concrete one that is pretty bad: once she made my sister and stand side by side to see who was taller, and then made us go weigh ourselves. So that she could know for certain that I was both shorter AND heavier than my sister. Years later I told her that how harmful that had been to a 16 year old girl, and she just shrugged. "I was just curious." That one actually does make me mad because she wasn't depressed or manic when she did that. She was just being a jerk, because she felt like it. Maybe to see what I would do, or maybe because she just really does think my sister is more attractive than I am and she wanted me to know.

Moms. They have so much power! I'm a mom now and I think I do pretty well at avoiding most of this stuff (starting with not having untreated mental health issues, that's the big one -- go to therapy folks, take your meds if you need them, don't take your issues out on your kids). But I do think all the time about how the stuff I say to my DD will one day sculpt the way she feels about herself as an adult, and I take that responsibility very, very seriously.[/quote]

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