Your 23; stop worrying about your mom and get on with life.
We all need mothering sometimes. I am a 62-year-old woman, and I still miss my Mama sometimes–really, I do. I know the feeling you are talking about perfectly.
I have two grown sons–never had a daughter. Tell me more about yourself, dear. What are you like and what do you do? Why do you believe your mother doesn’t love you? Could it be she is just too self-absorbed to be available? Maybe she needs a mother, too?
Just eat cake and marry a nice young man. Although i may sound ridiculous it might work well. Feel lucky you have a decent dad, i know many people who feel their father has ignored them too.
Good luck in your search, Pip
i cant go on with life until i have filled this void. i have tried. i cant make it.
im studying to become a 3d artist atm.
i dont believe, i know she doesnt love me. it’s more important to her to appear normal than it is to be a good mother. she’s trying so hard to be normal, and she’s probably more ****** up than i am. she’s had her chance at being a mother, and she blew it. i cant forgive her for that. never.
i have come to the conclusion that i cant go on without a stable motherfigure. hence this post..
im shy, introverted, watch far too many movies. and far too many bad habits to post
Are you still in school? Are there women there whom you can confide in and rely on? What about a mentor in your art endeavors? Where do you live?
Do you watch so many movies to escape, or because of your interest in animation? It’s not bad to do “too much” of something that lights your fire. My passion, in my teenage years, was theatre—I just couldn’t get enough of it.
What SPECIFICALLY do you wish your mother would do or say? Is she mean, or is she just distant? My own mother was very sweet and loving, but she didn’t have much notion about how to raise a young daughter. Looking back, I think she must have been depressed a lot. Fortunately, I had two big sisters who stepped up to the plate and served as role models. Later–after I was married–my mother and I became very close. She died when I was 37, and I miss her like crazy. I think about her every day. Fortunately, I still have my two big sisters.
im sorry to hear that :(
i watch movies and play games, read, write, fantazise to escape. yes. to work with movies would be such an escape. but that the only thing about it. it makes me escape. i cant say i really enjoy it. it’s just another thing to learn. :/ god i sound depressed.
im the oldest. im the good girl. straight As in school. never faught with anyone. never slammed the doors, never drank until i was old enough, never smoked til i was old enough etc.. great at whatever I do. i learn fast. really fast.
i wish my mother would have picked me up and held me when i was a kid and had fallen over. i wish she would have told me funny stories from when she was young. i wish she’d talked to me about my period for christs sake. all i got was a “oh,congrats” and a quick hug. i wish she could have smiled towards me with actual happiness. i wish she’d told my brother (and when other people did it too) to stop teasing me instead of just IGNORING it. she never said “they may call yuo all those things, but you’re my favourite little girl in the whole world and i love you”.
dad’s a proffessor and mom’s the president of a really big dentist company. they’re both dentists.
i remeber i would wish and wish and wish until the tears came for an older sister. someone who could teach me all those things that you need to know. stop bullies, lend you clothes, babysit you..
i feel so jealous of my brother, because he’s happy. he’s got tons of friends and looks really good. he’s had a steady and exellent male rolemodel - our dad. but im a girl. i need a woman.
i think of it constantly.. why have i always been unhappy? was it something i did
How about your grandmothers?
one’s dead and the other one is too busy taking care of my granddad. we’re not close.
Was/is your father affectionate with you?
yes. but i need a woman. i have tried to fill my world with his love, but there’s still this void even he cannot fill.
My father died when I was a baby. I’ve always felt that I missed out on being cherished by a father. It feels like there’s a missing piece. It sounds to me like that’s what you’re really longing for: the feeling (the certainty) of being special to someone, unconditionally. Are you sure that’s not possible with your dad?
Your mother sounds a bit cold. Too busy, too ambitious. She missed out, in that case. It may be too late. I think you need to find a mentor. Got any aunts?
Were you EVER close with your remaining grandmother? Or the other one?
I HATED my dad’s mother and she hated me. my living grandma is a good grandma, but i dont know her at all tbh. they live in a different city and we only meet them during the holidays. my aunts live in the same place. i know them less than i know my grandma. i cant talk to them, because they would tell my mom. and they’re sisters, so i think they would react the same way as she does.
i’ve tried ever since i was a kid to get older women such a s teachers or coaches to notice me, like me, whatever. but i never found the courage to ask.
how do you go about doing that? “Hi, my mom neglected me, would you like to become my mentor?”
First of all, honey, have you confronted your mother with how much you love her and need her? Even though she didn’t give you the kind of warmth you needed and craved when you were little, it’s not too late to form a relationship with her. Can you ask her out to lunch once in a while, or declare Wednesdays to be museum-lunch-and-gallery-exhibition day? A special, regular time for the two of you? My hope–my belief–is that if she knew how staved you are for one-on-one time with her, she would be EAGER to make it a priority. The relationship won’t suddenly heal overnight, by the way, but you COULD build it up through regular, private contact with her.
Just as you spent your childhood yearning for an older sister, I have spent most of my adulthood yearning for a daughter. Perhaps it’s the chiral partner of what YOU needed—my desire to nurture a little girl. As I said, I have two sons, and they are very dear to me, but the mother-daughter thing is something I would like to have experienced in life and, indeed, always assumed I would experience. Perhaps my sons will bring me granddaughters.
As for finding a mentor, you don’t need to articulate it. I wouldn’t have seen it as “finding a mentor” at the time, but looking back on my life I realize now that I often affixed myself to older women. When I was little, I would become very close with teachers and Girl Scout leaders, seeking advice from them and confiding things that I didn’t think I could confide in my mother; my ninth-grade English teacher remains a close friend and role model to this day! In college, there was an older female drama professor for whom I worked as a stage manager as my work-study job, and I’m sure I absorbed long hours of her time. As a young mom, I leaned heavily on the La Leche League leader in my community. Years later, she reflected on that period with me, saying, “I used to tell my husband that you needed a mother more than anyone I ever knew!”
So, yes, I know the feeling.
Your introduction to menstruation reminds me of mine. My mother said NOT A WORD to me. What she did was ask my sister to talk to me. Sanitary napkins (young girls did not use tampons in those days; I don’t know whether they even existed) were sold wrapped in brown paper, so no one could see the printing on the box, which was considered too embarrassing to be shown. So my sister said to me, “You’re soon going to get something called your period. When you get it, you will bleed between your legs. It will happen once a month for a few days. There is nothing to be scared of. You just buy those things that they sell at the drugstore in the brown paper packages, and there are instructions inside. It has something to do with making babies.”
That was IT. It was never mentioned again.
Have you ever thought about sublimating some of these frustrated needs by making yourself available to younger girls who might need some of the same kind of nurturing? Depending on your interests, you might get involved as a Brownie leader, Big Sister, camp counselor, or tutor. Maybe you could close the circle that way.
I look forward to hearing more from you.
i have confronted her once, but she hasnt changed. i CANT hang out with her one on one. everytime im around her i get anexiety. im always worried sick she’ll ask me things or god forbid, she’ll say she loves me. and then she says “you love me too, dont you?”. and i have to say “yes”. but i dont mean it.
we have been on douzens of trips, we’ve shared hobbies. but there were no.. feeligs.
imo she had the chance when i was little - but she blew it. and when i was old enough to be considering moving out - suddenly she was all over me. like NOW she’s worried/cares about me, just when Im about to fly the coop.
where was she when i was cutting myself at 11 y.o? where was she when i got bullied over and over again? where was she when i got beaten up?
i gave up on her love when i was 7 or 8. my younger cousin was staying over at our grandparents house, without his mother (he was 5/6 at the time). at bedtime he starts missing his mom like crazy and starts crying. my mom asked me to call his mother. i remember standing in the hallway when my mom walked past, carrying my cousin in her arms, comforting him, singing softly… she hadnt done that with me for i dont know how long, if ever. that’s when i decided that it wasnt I that was unlovable - it was she that didnt deserve ME. I’ve never trusted her with anything since. been so angry all these years. what bothers me most is that she didnt even notice i stopped begging for attention.
ofc, my need for a mother became greater as i grew older, even tho i couldnt put my finger on what was missing from me.
i cant go on with this mom-shaped hole in my heart. and my mother DOES NOT fill that void. she’s done, gone, had her chance (oh so many chances) finito.
I dont love her, and i never will. she has made my life a living HELL and I cant ever forgive her.
truth is, i live in sweden - and we dont have organisations like Big Sister and such. I’ve been browsing the web for a couple of days trying to find something like it. but no luck.
You have SO much anger in you, dear. As I review the things you’ve said—that you were cutting yourself at 11, that you were bullied, that you were beaten, that you had grandparents who hated you and a mom who didn’t love you—I get the shivers. It sounds like you’ve been in the grasp of some very negative forces ever since you were little. There is also a subtext here that makes me think that your mom, while she has limitations, would LIKE to be closer to you, but you have pushed her away, angry that she is not perfect, that she did not do the perfect things when you were little. In truth—and I say this speaking as a mom—very few of us are perfect. We ALL make mistakes; we all need forgiveness. That goes for mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, siblings, the whole lot of us. Sometimes we need another chance.
You say that you are the oldest child. Did it occur to you that she had no experience as a mother when you were born, and that she then had more children to command her attention? She may have been overwhelmed. She may have had no positive parenting roles herself. She may have been holding herself to an impossibly difficult standard in balancing career and home. She may have been unhappy in her marriage for reasons that had nothing to do with you. She may have been suffering from a self-absorbed depression. She was/is HUMAN, with all the human foibles that implies. Think about the things she DIDN’T do: She didn’t beat you. She didn’t desert you. She didn’t kill herself and leave you consumed with guilt for the rest of your life. She hung in there, for better or for worse, even when you started cutting and acting impossibly angry. She STOOD BY YOU. Doesn’t she get SOME credit for that?
Have you had therapy? By yourself? WITH your mom? Has SHE had therapy?
When your mom says things like, “you love me too, don’t you?” can’t you give her an honest answer, like “I want to, and I need to, and I am trying to learn to do so, but let’s take it one day at a time and try to become friends first.”
I am seeing two grown women who need each other’s love badly, but who don’t know how to move across that gulf. You can move across it inch by inch if you like, but ONE of you needs to make the first step. I strongly recommend that you and your mom set up an appointment for some family therapy.
dont you think i’ve thought of that? of that she was a first time mom, being overwhelmed and all that? of course i did! Ive felt SO guilty for not being the perfect daughter in this my mom’s perfect family! I CANT TAKE IT!
and dont give me that “you should be happy with what you have”-speech. NO! i’ve been getting that from everyone around me!
“you should be happy your family is well off.” “at least you have your health” all that ********! everyone kept pressuring me to be happy and when i couldnt be, i felt so GUILTY! How was I supposed to handle it? huh? I had noone who i could talk to! i didnt trust anyone because they never CARED! Noone stopped the bullies! Noone kissed my booboos! NOONE HUGGED ME!
why should i even try to bond with her if she has hurt me so **** much?? why does she deserve kindness and compassion, CARING if she didnt give it to me?? why do i have to be the big person here?? IM SO TIRED OF BEING GROWN UP!
i didnt want to grow up when i was 8. didnt wanna close down. i didnt want to be depressed, didnt want to cut myself, didnt want to eat mounatains of food and then barf it all up. but noone saw me, NOONE!
my mom believed i was HAPPY! how can i forgive her?? she didnt even TRY!
all my unspoken cries for attention - how she not have made the connection? when she found out i had cut myself she got this horrible look on her face, like she was so dissappointed in me. since then I have become so good a t hiding my emotions, because there was NO WAY TO PLEASE HER. I was the TOP of my year, eeeeeeeeeeeevery year. and all i got was “congrats”. no hugs.
I have tried! so hard! to get her to notice me.
I did not get angry with her, or my dad. I didnt shout. i didnt slam doors. i didnt curse. i was silent. i did everything i could think of to get their attention.
i figured that if i was the best girl according to them, they would notice me.. that they would love me. but they never did.
i have seen every single school counsellor at every single school ive been too. i have had 3 shrinks. but i dont trust them. i cant really talk to them. there something inside me that i cant show anyone how weak i am. i have to keep the facade up. if i let it gom let myself go - i dotn know whats gonna happen. and i need someone there to catch me, because Im falling allready
I’m sorry you are in so much pain. And I am sorry, too, that none of my suggestions seems to be helpful to you. I don’t remember saying “Be happy with what you have.” I thought my advice was geared more toward helping you move toward more of what you seem to want and need.
On the other hand, “Be happy with what you have,” although it is not what I was trying to say, is actually helpful advice in most situations. None of us gets everything she wants in life. We have three choices—we can be miserable. We can work toward getting more of what we want and need. Or we can train ourselves to be happy with what we have—that is, to concentrate on the good things and refuse to focus on the bad.
Why choose misery when we can choose joy?
I will pray that life gets better for you.
how can i choose joy when I do not know it?
how can i make grown up desicions when i am still a child?
when i had a braintumor she wasnt there, there was noone there…
why am I so invisible to everyone? why dont they see me?
i dont even know why i am writing here anymore. it doesnt help.
i recently found out from my new shrink that i have been depressed since i was 8.
am i so disgusting that noone wants to see my pain?
We are ALL invisible.
And we are all playing our roles upon the stage.
You say that no one has ever cared for you. I have a question: Who have YOU loved?
how can i love when i dont know love?
if i have loved someone, i suppose it would have to be my dad. he saw me more, but he couldnt do anything cuz mom was always there.
if someone cared for me, they certainly didnt show it.
dont you dare to blame me for how my parents treated me. i didnt start out in life unable to love or be loved. i wanted my parents affection as bad as any other kid. begged for it even. come play mom, cant we go look at the stars, mom?
At some point you’ll stop feeling sorry for yourself, start from where you are now, and see what you have to offer the world. If you don’t know love, you can’t blame that all on your parents. You have a life, a mind, a heart of your own. There are a million beautiful people and animals and mountains and oceans in this world.
my new shrink (finally a good one) has diagnozed me with PTSD and hypervigilance. how Im feeling is not something that I can just stop thinking about.
“stop feeling sorry for yourself” is the worst advice ever, but thanks for trying ^^ (i know you lost a father and Im sorry about that)
i know what you’re thinking; omg here’s this angry pathetic emo girl trying to justify her lazy attitude by blaming parents who are alive and healthy, who didn’t beat her, starve her, abuse her, insult her or take advantage of her AND she’s got her health too! what a whiny little ungreatful *****.
I refuse to be happy for being ignored. if I give more of myself to others, I wont have anything left for myself. what do you do when all your life you’ve been told that your life, your heart, your mind is LESS important than everyone elses?
it’s not easy my friend.
im guessing the next response (if there is one) is gonna be something like: but it IS that easy! you can do anything if you put your mind to it! you have to make your own happiness, cuz noone else will make it for you, stop moping about and pick yourself up and get out there and meet new people and do new things! get out into the sunshine and smile because you’re alive and have your health!
Tirade of the Young and Self-Absorbed
Da⌐11
Saryad
Florimouse