Isn't it so much easier to feel like it's you? The meanness of this comment is breathtaking. Maybe with my dad too, but he might go before my mother, so... meh! So you are just another abuser using a threat to shut women up, "Or else your daughter will be...", who also thinks you have agency to voice everyone else's thoughts. This year they are going to Bora Bora. But the effects of this are just as great on men, if not greater. I lived overseas, but I'd come home and find out after a joyful holiday that my parents were talking about how weird my life was, how hard it was to have me there (and I was a pretty easy guest, paid for everything myself, don't smoke or do drugs or have people over, nothing at all to be a "bad" kid or adult guest), how pitiful it was that I don't have a man yet (I have for the past 25 years), how they worry about me and my "toxic" personality, you name it. Both my husband and my best friend now understand. No one should have the guilt and the pressure to take care of a mentally ill parent while trying to rebuild her own life, and take care of 3 kids of her own! sunny February 4th, 2021 . Nothing screams "immature" quite like an inability to apologize. I also suffered panic attacks at the thought of seeing my mom or reconciling with her. Granted, she wasn’t very good at it, but aren’t I supposed to honor her like the Bible says?” Some of the guilt and shame come from cultural pressure, but the daughter’s deep sense of insecurity and fear of making a mistake fuel both as well. - How's your relationship with your parents? And I have tried and tried to build a database of sons and failed utterly. She is incredibly bitter. I didn’t feel any shame: It was a decision I pondered for close to 20 years of adult life and was made more difficult by the fact that she’d been my only surviving parent since I was 15 — but it was clear that the larger world thought I should be ashamed nonetheless. I understand the author has also written a book on the subject specific to women. Some will find the isolation daunting and reinstate contact with their mothers in order to salvage connections to their fathers, siblings, and other family members. Whether her mother was mentally ill, just plain mean or both was unclear, but there was no question that my patient had decided long ago that the only way to deal with her mother … Whether her mother was mentally ill, just plain mean or both was unclear, but there was no question that my patient had decided long ago that the only way to deal with her mother … Many mental health professionals would suggest “detaching with love.” Detaching is a method of setting boundaries to protect yourself by creating emotional distance from the actions of another. At the very least, it can't hurt. Fifty plus years of hurt. "I hadn’t spoken to her in five years, and then out of nowhere, she called me. Everyone's entitled to a minor slip-up or two when they're truly upset. She passed away last year and it was either live with my mother or be out on the streets (anyone want to guess her favorite line? As DePompo says, "She does not want you to be successful without her because it means you don't need her.". I felt like I had been given a clean slate to start my life anew. And after about 12 hours, I decided I was going to respond to her and tell her my feelings about Joe and her decision to bring him to my house that day. I wouldn't say that makes it harder for sons than daughters, just hard in a different way. Are there just more women writing about this dysfunction, who tend to focus on their gender's recovery from it? Yet..your dismissal and bad language is not SLM on December 06, 2011: My Mother has been mentally ill most or all of her life. I’m not a psychologist; these points are either derived from research or from first-person reports. When you finally achieve it...you know that it has been the right decision for your wellbeing and future. Grew up with a cold unemotional mother who could never hug, say "I love you," or tuck me in at night, or even replace the broken light switch in our children's bedroom so we could didn't have to use the bathroom light. She died from the end stages of multiple sclerosis. Even more worrying was that I could connect with every one of the effects you named, fogginess, anxiety and much more. So it was with great interest that I was drawn to the article titled "10 Effects of Separating from a Toxic Mother" -only to find the author's first words single out the effects of this separation on the daughter. Are you very close with your family? When you try to tell her how she hurts your feelings, does she lash out or play the victim? Exactly what I did. Remember pay back is a bitch. I would have probably never gone no contact, at great cost to my emotional and physical health, but fortunately for me, she ramped up the abuse to a point where it was no longer safe to be around her as she began lying to try to get me into trouble. Again, this is about realizing that no contact is a last-ditch effort to save yourself from continued pain and not a solution unto itself. At the time, her response was to say "get over it". Still, when it is your mother who treats you like you owe her and who says she wishes she didn't bring you into this horrible world, you wonder how can such things come to pass given the so-called "maternal instinct" which I have in spades towards my children making sure I'm the opposite of her in how I behave as a mother.