Mom Had "Crazy" Episode During Baby Shower

[kokoso]

**abuse triggers**

Hi everyone!

This is my first post here, but I've come to this site before to read others stories, and it's been a comfort to me. I had a re-traumatizing experience yesterday at my baby shower, and I wanted to share with people who can relate. I'm dealing with some emotional aftermath and need to clear my head about how to protect myself in the future. Thank you for reading and for any advice / support you can offer.

A little background:

I'm currently 8 months pregnant with my first child. My husband and I are ridiculously excited after experiencing a few years of fertility issues.

My mother was abusive during my childhood, and my father was neglectful. As an adult, I went to therapy on and off for years to work on dealing with practical ways to protect myself from them and to recover my self esteem. I'm not currently in therapy, and I think I have let my guard down too much with my mom, opening myself up to further hurt.

The baby shower:

I wanted a baby shower, but I also was very anxious about considering having one because I felt anxiety about being obligated to invite my mom and any time I have had a special day with my mom present, something bad always happens. For the last two months of planning, I couldn't shake that "eggshell" feeling - where I knew the dominos were going to collapse at some point, but just didn't know when. My mom insisted she host and plan the shower, but she, as usual, was unable to really offer anything other than gifts. (She didn't plan, didn't do invites, didn't follow up on RSVPs after I sent invites and asked, etc... .so, really, not much of a host, but she insisted on hosting so I couldn't really enlist help from someone else without causing drama.)

Anyway, that was all ok enough to deal with. A hassle, but nothing beyond annoyance.

I put a lot of work into the shower, planning everything, and decorating and cleaning the house while my mom sat at my house. When all was said and done, I realized it was ten minutes till the start of the shower, and that there were a lot of last minute cancellations. It became clear that only 4 people were going to show up, and they had all texted they were going to be late. Three of them were going to be an hour late. This, coupled with the fact that many people didn't RSVP (including family members) or even acknowledge the invite, I felt a little emotional. I tried my best not to because I hate being vulnerable around my mom, but I started to cry.

That's when she flipped out.

She asked why I was crying, and I explained that I was just feeling a little hurt and anxious that I had put so much work into the party and only a few people were showing up but were running so late.

She then pointed to all the gifts she had bought (that's her "thing" - gifts, and they always come with this psychological price and big fanfare so that people don't even like receiving them because she attaches so many strings) and she said, ":)o you want me to just take them all back?"

I knew this was headed down a bad road, because my crying had nothing to do with her, but she already was centering this vortex around her.

I said, "This isn't about you. I am glad you're here, and I'm thankful for the gifts. I'm just feeling a little sad that so many friends and family couldn't come."

She then burst suddenly into tears and I asked her to please calm down. Then she started ranted and raving. She stood up and yelled at me, "You don't appreciate all the [expletive] I do for you!" and stormed off into my baby-to-be's nursery, slamming the door. I sat quietly on the couch and cried. I knew she wanted me to follow her and try to make amends because that's what I always had to do as a child, even if I was hurting. I had to always go to her room or wherever she'd storm off to, even if she had hit me, yelled at me, told me horrible things, and try to make sure that she was ok.

I felt all the more sad sitting there by myself because this was a day I really wanted to be happy, and it would have been just so nice if she could have just emotionally been there for me for once.

Finally she came out of the nursery and stalked back into the room where I was sitting. She started crying about how she doesn't know how to talk to me, and about how she wasn't crying because it "was about her" but because she felt my hurt and was crying because I was crying. I just asked her calmly if we could talk about something else and if she could calm down. She kept pacing around the room with bad energy and I decided to retreat into my own bedroom. I locked the door because she has horrible boundaries and I knew she would be over there asap.

Sure enough, as soon as I stepped away, she was knocking on the door. I said, "Mom, I need a minute" and no sooner than literally 60 seconds later, she was twisting the doorknob and pleading on the other side, "Please come out. Please. Please. Please. Please go open a gift. Won't you go open a gift. Just please go open a gift. Come on." Her voice was strange - her mood had shifted - she now was in like this pleading child mode.

I opened the door and I said, very calmly, that I didn't feel like opening a gift right then. She then said, "I need a hug. Can you give me a hug?" I can't really express emotion to my mother physically because she would force hugs on me as a child, and it took me a long time to gain body autonomy and to feel ok with it. It's still hard for me to assert myself when she does things like this. The problem is she used to hit me or yell at me and then she would make me hug her right away and "be ok". And if I cried, it was always threatened she'd give me something else to cry about. Hugs with her hurt me emotionally and psychologically. I said, "No, I don't feel like hugging right now." very calmly.

So she went from her weird soft pleading child voice about gift opening to another rage. She started yelling, "I can't believe you won't hug me! I want a hug! I need a hug! Don't you care that I want a hug?" I said, "I know you want a hug, Mom, but *I* don't want one right now."

And she screamed, "Well what about me? You never hug me! If your father were here, you would hug him! You act like I'm diseased!"

At that point, I started dissociating, honestly. I sat on the couch and stared in space as she raged, and I even found myself laughing at nothing in particular.

She lastly threatened, "If you tell me to stop making something about me one more time, I am going to SCREEEEAAAAMMM!" I just stared at her. I honestly felt detached from myself. My head was just swarming with so many different rages she went through in the past, all the different times I've had to sit there as a child and deal with this crazy stuff. She also said I was trying to argue with her, even though throughout this entire interaction, which started only because I was feeling a little emotional about throwing a party where no one attended, I was very quiet and subdued. I wasn't trying to pick a fight - it was the last thing I'd have wanted.

She ended her raging with a little speech about how she only thinks of others and is a very generous, thoughtful person, and how she never thinks of herself, and how she tries very hard to make me happy. She repeated several times that she tries hard to make me happy.

After that, thank God, a friend finally arrived and her mood changed immediately. All the sudden she was nice again.

Sitting there and having to open up her unseemly pile of gifts after everything she'd said and had done was horrible. I couldn't wait for her to leave. And of course, after she left, I got the typical barrage of calls and texts. Her trying desperately to "make things OK" right away. Because she gets to hurt, abuse, rage, and name-call, but I don't get to feel or have space or get away. It's all on her time, and it is all about her.

In a weird way, I am glad the episode happened, because it reminded me how sick she is. It was a wake-up call to me that I've let myself down, honestly, and that I'm allowing her to abuse me all over again. I need to start protecting myself again.

[heartandwhole]

Hi kokoso,



First off, congratulations on the coming of your baby. That is very exciting, especially after having gone through fertility difficulties. I can imagine you and your husband feeling over the moon!

I'm sorry to hear about your baby shower. I can fully understand your tears. In your shoes, I'd have reacted the same way. Of course you felt hurt that so few people were coming, and that those that were, were coming late. Then add the stress of taking care of your mother's emotional needs, and it's so understandable that you needed some time to cry. 

I'm glad you decided to post, as members here understand what you are going through. I think your idea to working on boundaries again is a good one. Especially as you will soon be taking care of a newborn.

Do you have siblings who are supportive, kokoso? How does your husband handle your mom's behavior?

Keep writing. We are here for you.

heartandwhole

[HW8]

My mother is the exact same way. I am sadly still forced to live at home at 19 because I cannot financially support myself since I'm in college. But my mother also uses gifts and money as a way to control and guilt me. She also never allows me to be upset. No matter what, it turns into her being the victim of the situation. I fully understand this, and I am in the same situation.

[Pilpel]

Kokoso,

First of all, I am so sorry to hear about how your baby shower went!  We've lived in a few different places, and I really feel like where you live has a lot to do with how people respond to invites.  When we lived in a more urban well-to-do area, people always responded, even if they couldn't make it, and they make the best effort to attend.  When we lived in a more rural area, most people didn't bother to respond at all if they didn't plan to attend.  I know one family that rented a skating rink out for their son's party, invited their son's whole class.  My son was the only kid from the whole class that showed up.  Of all the other parents in that class, not one bothered to RSVP to let them know they were not going to come.  Had these parents known how few people would attend, they could have changed their plans and saved a lot of money. 

I could see some similarities between your mom and my N/BPD SIL.  I always see her relying on other people quite a bit.  But then she'll be bossy or condescending about really ridiculous things.  I think on some level she's aware of how much she relies on other people, and I think she feels shame for it.  But rather than own it and just be grateful that she has people around her that help out and don't complain, instead she finds reason to condescend and act like she's in charge of way more than she is.

Your mom has to be aware of how much work you ended up putting into the baby shower that she offered to plan. Do you think on some level she feels a sense of failure and responsibility for how it turned out and for your disappointment, and maybe her erratic response comes from not knowing how to deal with her own sense of failure in that situation?