The final straw for me in seperating me from my abusive family has been the hope to raise my own daughter with love and support and to try and protect her from them. I have seen my mother try to do the same things to my daughter that she did too me. Something snapped in me when I saw that.

I am 30 and I had to move back home. The emotional abuse I received as a child has gotten 10 times worse as an adult. As a result, I get those terrible emotional pains in my heart and gross amounts of panic and anxiety. I am moving in 3 months but I don't think I will look back. I also will never allow my children around her. She has taken my self esteem and my confidence. I start a new job in a few days and I am avoicing her negative comments. She is sick. Mentally sick. I plan on seeking counseling to avoid acting this way with my children.

I also grew up with an emotionally abusive mother. To make matters worse, my sister learned very young that if she was to survive, she would have to join forces with my mother. I never understood what was happening to me, and also experienced terrible panic and anxiety. I did end up going to therapy when I entered my 40's. The day I entered therapy is the day my life began.

As a part of my liberation from my mother, I have written a novel about an abusive mother and her spiritually gifted son, called "Dover Graye." Woven in, is an interpretation of why a mother might emotionally sequester herself from her children. If you believe in past lives, or are not sure, and would like to check it out, my novel can be purchased from the eStore and from Amazon.com. It will be available in about 3 weeks.

Shay

i am a 17 year old girl, living with a single mother who is very emotionally abusive. i will be going away to college in the fall time but until then i need help on what to do because i don't want to become like her and i am most happy when i am not around her, but i am only seventeen and cannot afford a place on my own right now. my mother also likes to communicate with people in my family who i am also very close too, telling them horrible things about me and making me look like a bad person, and then when i see these people i feel like they look at me completely different and it makes me feel as though i am alone, when it comes to family. i recently only started to educate myself on this subject because i always thought i was the problem, i was doing something wrong but then there were days where i would do nothing at all wrong and i was being verbally attacked. therefore causing me to defend myself with words, which only caused my mother to slap me across the face, which i found was another sign on someone being an emotionally abusive mother. also read that children who are emotionally abused and verbally abused can become addicts or become depressed, i dont want it to get that far but i feel like i am on the edge of getting there. i drink and i have tried drugs and my mother found out, she told people around us that i was an alcholic and a drug addict, there is no way in hell that those accustions were true. yet, i am extremely hurt by them and i often find myself thinking are these things she are saying true? am i really as bad of person as she is describing me to be? but when i am out with my friends, i only seem to recieve compliments and hear good things or constructive crictism never the words that i've heard many times come out of my mothers mouth. one day i would like to have no communication with my mother, but until that day comes, can anyone help me on ways to deal with life at home?

I'm so sorry to hear what you are going through. Mothers come in all forms. The emotionally abusive mothers sometimes were emotionally abused themselves and have low self-esteem. They feel competitive with their daughters and find ways of bringing them down.

In some cases, the mothers don't mean to be abusive and don't recognize their actions and words as being abusive. They are tying to "mold" their daughters into their idea of a perfect daughter, perhaps trying to get their daughters to live a life they themselves were incapable of achieving.

Sometimes, the mother sees all of her own defects in her daughter and that bothers her. So she attacks them.

Whatever the reason (and there could be many), you should not fall prey to those unhealthy beliefs. You MUST MUST MUST be strong and KNOW YOU ARE NOT THE ONE WITH THE PROBLEM. Keep your self esteem in tact and it will be hard if you've only heard negative feedback throughout your life.

It would be better to bunk with a friend than stay with this abusive person. But, if you must stay...

Try to tap into her good mother side. Open dialogue and apologize for any hurts you may have caused her. Be the little girl again and hug her and tell her you're sorry. A lot of the problem is that mothers have a hard time adjusting to their little girls growing up into their own womanhood. My dad always said it was impossible for two grown women to live under the same roof. That is why teenage girls and their moms begin to have problems. Partly too, it is a way for them to separate more easily when it is time.

But try to rekindle the mother-daughter bond while you're there. If she has any amount of good mothering sense in her, she'll melt.

If this is impossible, keep your head low, do your share of the household chores, if you work buy her little gifts she'll like whether it is her favorite ice cream or perfume or flowers, etc. In other words, kiss her rear so she'll keep off your back!

Do NOT attempt to go head to head with her in arguments. Don't start them and don't get involved in them. Learn the important lesson of biting your tongue.

Then, go to college as a free and healthy person! Remember above all else that YOU define yourself. YOU make yourself into whatever you want. ALL the horrible things she said about you proves how low she thinks of herself and what type of heart she has.

BE YOU AND THRIVE!

JamalAnneMarie

I am sorry to hear about your problem with your mom. Is there a counselor at school you can get advice from? Or some information packets on places to contact to talk to someone about this issue?

You shouldn't try to continue to handle this on your own. If you feel like you just need to make it through this year and summer and then you're on your own in college, then please seek help then. Colleges have counselors too and you certainly can talk there, away from her and try to work some things out on your own and in the future maybe you can work some things out with her.

I am fifteem yearls old. And my life is a complete torture. She puts me down all the time and calls me by all sorts of name: [censored], piece of [censored], she even uses the f word sometimes. I really don't like that. In the end I feel like i am just worthless [censored]. I know I am not but sometimes I just can't do anything except cry in my room. she hates my friends, she doesn't like the way I talk, my clothes, and she snoops around my room to check what I am doing. I am teenager but I am not bad one. I am like one of the sweetest girls , I don't get why she is mad at me all the time. HELP!

I have 2 step children that were in 3rd and 4th grade when I married their father. I have never looked at them as "step" but always as mine. Their mother left them with my husband when they were 2 and 3 years old. She maintained contact once a year because I think she thought she would lose her parental rights if she didn't. Believe me, they were better off without her as I had seen her at work after we married. The first two years she would get them once a year (at Christmas) and tell them she and their father would remarry and they would be a family again. She would tell them to make my life miserable and their dad would divorce me. So in my opinion they were abused by her, but not as much as you all have been. They have both suffered with problems of self worth. The mom had 2 other children after them and kept them. She also had an older daughter that her mother kept. A couple of years ago my son who was 24 at the time finally came to terms with feelings about her. I told him she is your mother and you will always love her, but that doesn't mean you have to like her. It is ok. My heart goes out to you all....and the lady who said her mom kept threatening her that she would kill herself....I think most of the time people that are serious about killing themselves will do it and not tell you. She is just hurting you any way she can. All you should be commended for wanting to be better than what your mother was to you. May God bless you all and put his arms around you. Connie

I have the exact same problem. I notice many Asians, especially Chinese people have such problems. Alot have to do with tradition, respect (so-called), and most of all - filial. My parents, especially my 'mom' haunt me so much that I just want to get away from her. my dad has some part of it and he keeps on telling me to not scream and let myself out. with all the problems my mom has thrown me in (both direct and indirect) and all the [censored] I have to clean up after my mom, who by the way, is only 56 but behave as if she's in her late 70s and that i must be there and help her in everything. i used to just scream and swear like nobody's business. now i try to calm down and keep it to myself and hide in the room when i go home but i can't take it anymore. i can't release and believe it or not, it's been 4 times and earlier in the evening, I had to deal with their email 'threats of me being unfilial' so much so that my heart beat so hard that i suddenly felt my heart just deflate and whole thing just turn to vacuum. Can anyone please help me. I really need help!, I'm in singapore. please. i want to cry but i'm so disturb so much that i feel like i can't breath and can't speak. Philip S.

I can empathize with most everyone who has posted a comment about emotionally abusive mothers. I am from a dysfunctional family -- my mother is the main reason for the dysfunction in our family. She was abused as a child and I really don't think she is capable of having true feelings for another adult... she only wants to be around people that she can control, like children or elderly people. She's very sneaky about how she delivers the abuse... if you try to talk to her about it she'll just tell you that you misunderstood her or are blowing it out of proportion. I'm in my 40's now and I've tried and tried to have a normal relationship with her over the years and what I've finally concluded is that she doesn't really want a normal adult relationship... she's not happy when I'm happy, instead she seems to only get satisfaction when I'm insecure and needy... she never builds me up but instead tries to bring me down. She seems to be jealous of my life which I really can't comprehend because I have a 15-year-old daughter myself. Please tell me how can she love me if she is not happy for me? She is always preaching and talking to me in a condescending way -- about religion or just about her own life philosophies. She discounts most of my opinions and acts like it is work to talk to me. Recently we were having a debate on the telephone about politics and she blurted out "you just think you are so smart, don't you" and hung up on me. My mother never went to college. I was the only one in my family to get a college degree and I did it all on my own. I moved out of her house when I was 18 (to get away from her), worked two jobs to support myself through college. I haven't asked her for anything since. I eventually went on to get a Ph.D. She came to my graduation and said she was "proud of me", but that she was "proud of all of her kids" and hoped that I didn't get the big head. I have been married to the same man for 22 years now and we have a great kid (she's 15 now) and, with the exception of my relationship with my family, I am happy. The most hurtful thing that my mother does is that she doesn't even try to disguise the fact that she prefers my younger sister to me. I believe that it is because my sister is more like her, but it still hurts. My mother will intentionally try to make me jealous of her by talking about her and my nephews all of the time -- it dominates our conversations. My sister knows that she does this but I think she gets some satisfaction from it -- I think that she has a chip on her shoulder about me since she never went to college (she got pregnant in high school). My sister has been sucessful as a hairdresser and has invested her money well -- she has a beautiful house and a condo on the beach. I am very happy for her -- thank goodness! -- I have always wanted success for her. But I am hurt that both she and my mother seem to get some real satisfaction in constantly reminding me that my education doesn't mean much to them. I think I know why they do it... it's some kind of insecurity or something... but it still hurts. How can they love me if they constantly try to make me feel like my opinions are not important? My sister has started taking up some of my mother's tactics... our relationship has become very strained in the past year or so. We used to be close. I feel like I don't have a family at all, but if I don't limit my exposure to them I start feeling really bad about myself. I realize that I might just be too thin skinned, and I do want to show my mother the respect I owe her for giving me life, but I'm not mentally healthy when I am around them too much. And I think my daughter is starting to notice how they treat me... she hasn't said anything to me, but she mentioned it to my husband. It makes me feel bad that she has to see her mother being treated like a stepchild. I'm also afraid that it might "rub off" on her, too -- she might start treating me the same way my mother treats me. Any thoughts?