All of your stories are touching. If nothing else, it sounds as if your hardships have made you stronger and more loving.

Just a thought, though. Has anyone ever considered mental illness? A lot of these stories are very familiar to me. My mother is a paranoid schizophrenic. She was the only one in her family to be diagnosed with any disease; however, my cousins suffered from their parents treatment and have been left to wonder "why" later on in life. My mother severed all contact with both sides of the family when I was very young, so they never knew that she was ill. Finding out about her condition recently has shed some light on family issues and possibly answered some questions for my cousins.

Schizophrenia is the "me" disease and renders the person almost uncapable of loving someone else. The world revolves around them. They hate sharing the spotlight and will overshadow another person's joy--even their own family members. (Probably explains why I didn't invite my mother to my wedding then lied to her six months after the fact and said that nobody came. Bad daughter!)

I'm not trying to make light of the horror stories because it doesn't make living through them any easier. Believe me, I KNOW! However, some things are truly a chemical imbalance. It's nothing that we as children have done, and it's not something that we can correct with our behavior. Sometimes only medication will fix the problem. The unfortunate fact is most mentally ill people do not believe that they have a problem, the world is out to get them, and they do not need medication.

So ladies, look in the mirror and see the wonderful people that you have become. The way that you've been treated is NOT your fault. We are not our mothers--we are fantastic (no matter what THEY tell us)!

I totally understand where you are coming from and my heart goes out to you that you even see your mother! It takes a big heart to deal with that. My mother can be the same way with the hurtful things she says. It's damaged me too, but I believe that we learn and grow from these experiences and do a better job raising our kids!
So hang on and don't let what she says hurt you. You should tell here that kind of talk is not allowed in your house and u cultivate a positive atmosphere and she should go somewhere else and be negative!!!!!!

I can't believe what a phenomene this is!! I started writing this, this morning and now am finally getting back to you and see so many new replies!!

Wow Carin!! I now feel that my mother issues are small after reading about your youth and mother! {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}}Sweetheart!
I am so glad that you made it though and moved on with your own immediate family which sounds much more loving and normal!!
I guess I am and always have been shocked at the behavior of so many parents not that I am older. I don't get how they let their children be abused or harmed in any manner. I am sure you are like me and I am a mother lioness when it comes to my children!

Karen ...I loved your comparision bit (about that it only goes one way! ) So true, so true!
About being self-conscious....I am also, horribly so about most things. It is almost as I haven't been able to UNTEACH myself what my parents pounded into me. Basically that anything I said wasn't worthy to listen to. I also just didn't matter in the worlds important people!! This sounds like a chicken-s*** excuse, but I honestly think my relationship issues with finding a good partner comes from what I failed to know as a younger person. I let people walk all over me in real life. Sometimes I like to mark it up to being "Nice" but when I look back on situations...I realize that I was taken advantage of and it doesn't feel nice!
Thankfully we were never "Compared" to other's people kids, we were just expected to act above and beyond the normal people. But never told or shown what that was!
I was told who I could be friends with in town. Thankfully that never worked and I always liked the normal people (like me) down to earth, easy to get along with and people who just enjoyed the sunshine and wind!

Pencildancer..I wish I had found a surrogate mother at 16-18 instead of a husband!

Raylene...exactly if our children can't find a safe haven within their mother's arm's, Where will they turn! I would rather my children...my dd especially to be able to turn to me for love and guidance instead of someone who can't possibly love them as much as I do!

Lynn...last christmas was the first time I didn't invite my parents. I sort of told a little white lie about how goofed up with would be time wise, since my oldest two kids are out on their own now. But in reality,I just wanted a nice fun, easy going, relaxed atmosphere that I know happens when it is just my children and myself.
I don't have to fret over the water spot on the glass and wash them all 3 times before mom shows up! I am somehow able to mash potatoes just fine as long as mom isn't watching me and my gravy is fantastic! LOL

A few years ago mom brought up if "I was to get married again, that I surely wasn't going to have a normal wedding!" Nope I told her...I am going to wear black leather or whatever else grabs my fancy at the time. IF I ever get married again it will not take place in the US and I will not mention a word about it to my mother as I don't want her there to place a dark shadow on the day!

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Hugs to you all!!! I agree with LynnZant, it might be mental illness.. I recommend a book called Stormie... she was raised by a mentally ill mother.
HUGS!!

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Tracy I have not had time to read everything... but just a little insight from a grandchild of someone very similar to your mother. I knew growing up that I was not from the cherished family. I got the toys and clothing that her other grand kids no longer wanted. I once went on a shopping trip with my other cousin she got 50$ in new clothes. And i got a 1.25 t-shirt slide. Everything she bought me was 2 sizes to small... because in her opinion i was to fat. And if i wanted to ware the clothes i could lose weight. So long story short I have chosen not to let my kids know her. I feel that it was my duty to protect them from what i had gone through. By the same token i have pretty much stopped talking to my father as well.... and some days when my mom is driving me crayzzzzzzzzzzzzzzy i wonder lol. Any who. The feelings i have for my grandma are not good. It is never as good thing when a child can not say that they love there grandmother. and dreads going to see them. Thank heavens my other grandmother had enough love to make up for everything.

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1/2 way WAHOO!!!!

Come on 40!!!

I stopped back to see what all had been added. It is reassuring to note that we all have been working toward avoiding our mother's mistakes and doing all we can to make sure our children don't suffer the same emotional damage.

I had to take the drastic step of cutting off all contact with my mother, the last 4 years of her life. I'm so glad I did! Contact with her was so upsetting, my husband dreaded my talking to her, he commented on more than one occasion on how stressed out I would be for sometimes days after a phone call from her. The big step for me came when she made a nasty comment about my daughter, ~her ONLY grandchild. She met Melanie when she was 3 weeks old and again when she was 3 years old. She did talk to her on the phone and I sent video tape copies of events, birthday parties and such. My mother had a brief phone chat with her one day and then told me that my daughter sounded like she was a spoiled little bitch. That did it, I would not allow her evil to touch my baby. She would never hurt my daughter. I had tried to have a relationship with her as an adult and briefly after my father passed on, I thought she and I could have a new relationship, but after she spent all the money from my aunt & father (my aunt died at 101 less than 3 weeks before my dad died at 82. My Aunt's estate and my father's insurance came up to over $450,000, she spent every penny in less than 5 years and for the last 6 years she lived in government assisted housing) she went back to being her old nasty self.

I had lived my childhood in literal terror for my life. She cut off my long hair when I was 5; pretended to shoot herself when I was 5 as well (so my sister, 7, and I would see how much we'd miss her if she killed herself ~because we wouldn't behave); she regularly held knives to my throat; she'd be driving and scream how she was going to run us off the road/into a tree/phone pole/over the bridge/cliff; and the almost daily reminder that she could come into my room when I slept and slit my throat. There were more, too many more, things she did to me. Monsters do exist, they just look like normal people.

Yes, she was insane, mentally-ill, crazy, (actually I think she had a condition called "Borderline Personality Disorder" it involves narcissism, paranoia and more) and a victim of child-abuse at the hands of her mother, and her mother had been abused by her step-father and you know what, I don't care, she was EVIL. She never hugged me as a child, never told me she loved me, all she did was tell me how I was stupid, fat, ugly, clumsy, worthless, ~OH and that was partly why my birth mother probably gave me up for adoption!! Sick, twisted, monster!!

She used to tell me I would cry over her grave, well, she died in November and guess what? I didn't cry over her grave. I grieved for my lost childhood, my lost innocence, for never having a 'mother' ~her own minister consoled me in the couple days before the funeral. At the wake and funeral, I didn't cry, I wasn't going to miss her, I only felt bad for my sister. If I had been alone, I would have spit on her grave and danced! (My sister Lori is brain-injured from an accident when she was 16 and now has a 10 year-old mental ability. We had to set up arrangements for her care at that time too.)

Do I have anger at her, you bet I do! I've been in counseling for many years trying to undo the damage. I've come a long way too. I did try to forgive my mother and father (he was more an accomplice and an enabler for her), and I almost did, however when my daughter was born, I would look at her sometimes and all I could think of in terms of them was "HOW COULD YOU DO ALL THAT TO YOUR DAUGHTER, YOUR BABY!!" And yes, I screamed it in my head. I still look at my daughter at times and think "how could anyone be so cruel to their own child?" And yet you read about abusers all the time, atrocities done to children; humans are so confusing in that aspect. I've taken steps to avoid harming my daughter, including parenting classes, reading numerous parenting books, getting counseling, talking to other abuse victims. I'm proud to say my little girl is self-confident, self-assured, has a great social life, and KNOWS she is LOVED!

This last year I finally found a new doctor who accurately diagnosed me with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I posted a full description about it on my blog back in January, my sort of New Years resolution to stop 'hiding'. http://bubblykori.blogspot.com/2007/...evelation.html
That's the link to the post. Many people suffer from PTSD, but it is often overlooked as a possible diagnosis.

Thank you all for sharing your stories and letting each of us know we are not alone!

(((((HUGS))))) to you ALL!

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{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}} I am so sorry that yoiu are going through all this and are feeling the way you are. All I can say at this point is that her reactions are about her and honestly are not about you. There must be something that is bothering her and that is about her. Have you tried talking to her in such a way as to - when you .... I feel ... & then clarify you assumptions as to what you feel? Sometimes this way helps me in dealing with difficult situations because it puts the ownus on me being responsible for my feelings and has me being responsible for what I take it to mean about me, instad of blaming someone else (which I used to be very good at) for how they made me feel. If you ever need to talk I'm here.