angora
Fewer than 3 Posts
 Offline
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Parent
Posts: 1
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« on: April 29, 2017, 05:34:30 PM » |
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Growing up, my mom and I were always really close. I think all-in-all she was the most loving and supportive mom I could have. I loved spending time with her, and I knew she had my back no matter what, except during those rare times when she would suddenly become irrational and enraged. It didn't happen often, but the times it did were very confusing for me. She never hit me or anything, but she would blame me for "ruining" events, making her look bad, or being selfish and overly sensitive. Afterward she wouldn't really remember. Even now she boasts about how we've never had a fight, which simply isn't true. I also remember her being very depressed for most of my life; when I was 11 she told me that I was the only reason she hadn't killed herself yet. Since then, I've felt responsible for her.
Now that I'm in my mid-twenties, I've had the chance to get to know her as a fellow adult. Over the years I started noticing patterns as I watched her go through countless relationships, lose her friendships, get fired from her career, threaten to sue my dad, and even go to jail. I used to think she was a victim because that's what she told me, but the older I get, the more I have come to perceive her as an instigator and someone who seeks out crises in her life. I am her only support person, as she doesn't open up to her family and insists she has no friends (even though it seems like her coworkers really care about her and want to be her friend).
Since I was about 15, she has become more and more dependent on me, confiding in me about the details of her reckless sexual behaviors, her suicidal thoughts, and how she has been victimized throughout her life. It's only gotten more pronounced since I began going to school to be a mental health counselor. I still feel responsible for her, especially given that I'm the only one she feels comfortable opening up to, but she doesn't feel like my mom anymore. She feels like my client.
It's not fun to be with her anymore. Whenever I see her, she talks at me for hours about the same stories she's been telling me for years, just different characters. I give her the same validation and advice, but she ignores it. Lately she's been obsessed with finding a relationship, proclaiming that her life will be perfect if only she could settle down with the "right" person (aka: a nonexistent perfect person with no flaws or shortcomings). She looks at my relationship with my boyfriend of 2 years, and she says, "if only I could find a relationship like yours." Even when I explain to her that my boyfriend and I fight like every other couple, she idealizes it in a distorted way.
I feel selfish, but it's exhausting to be with her. I feel disconnected from her, and I find myself avoiding her. I think she senses that I'm pulling away because now when I see her, she nonchalantly tells me about her self-destructive behavior, like having sex for money or taking all sorts of pills with alcohol. I feel like she does this to get me to stay closer to her, to validate that I still care about her. And I do still care. I'm concerned, but I also recognize that she's manipulating me.
I don't know what I'm supposed to do. When I have tried to set up boundaries with her, she just ignores them (which is my fault because it feels too mean to enforce those boundaries). Right now it feels like it's never going to get better.
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