19
I try to be careful about where I post my age on forums, as I usually receive a lot of negative feedback for posting my age because there are always a handful of people out there who think that because they are 10 or 20 years older than me that it gives them the liberty to make condescending remarks and refer to me as a "baby", but for the sake of this thread, I'll go ahead and be open with my age. I'm 19. Not that big of a deal, really. At least, not in my perspective.
My view-point may be pretty limited on this subject because I am indeed not an older adult, but rather a young adult. Despite that fact, I do know a thing or two about possessive mothers. I have one. All throughout my childhood and my teens, my mother's main way of controlling
me was through manipulation. Guilt. Passive-aggressiveness. You name it, my mother used it on me. She told me a few times - when I was in my mid-teens - that she took psychology in high school. At first, I didn't pay attention to it and I just shrugged it off, thinking to myself "So? What's her point?" Later on in the future, I ended up figuring out that her reason behind telling me this was a subtle message, to me, that "If you get out of line, I'm going to see to it that I make you suffer physically as well as psychologically." And that she did. If I upset her in any way, she would say things to me that convinced me that I was a bad person. For this, I grew up cutting myself and hurting myself. My mother - on occasion - would see this and reprimand me further, but then in the back of
my mind, I would think to myself "If she is so cruel as to
want me to hate myself, why does it bother her for to see me
hurt myself, physically, if she knows that she's putting me in a state of mental anguish ALL the TIME? It does not add up."
As I grew, I came to understand that there are different types of abusive parents. I was lucky enough to stumble upon a blue book, floating somewhere around in the lost book collection in our house, that had to do with abusive parenting styles. It's a psychology book.
Ah ha. Here it is.
I didn't get to read the entire book, but upon skimming through it, I found that my mother is listed under the Guilt Tripper category. All throughout my childhood and teen years, my mother used guilt to control me. One of the things that my mother would do is refuse to let me spend time with friends. I wasn't - for the most part - even allowed outside of my own
bedroom without my mother's permission. She instructed me to stay there just about all the time, and to "leave everyone else alone". As a young girl and a teenager, my mother turned me into something of a recluse, (so if any of you ever wonder why I've never been to NEST or any other gathering ... ta-da. Side effects from the abuse). And if I did spend any time with friends - either at their house or mine - she would find a sneaky way to turn them against me, by either teasing them or smothering them until they were so uncomfortable to come over to our house, that they no longer wanted to spend time with me anymore. My mother almost always forced me to tell them to come over to
her house - so she could make them uncomfortable, it's just that she didn't tell me that that was her intention, as I had to witness that for myself - and if I wanted to spend time at their house, I was only allowed to spend time at their house
once or
twice until she decided that they had to come to
my house from then on, whereas my mother would proceed to tease them, usually their names, hug them profusely, and get too far into their personal space... Never leaving them be... Etc.
It was awful. I lost many friends because of that.
My point to all of this is that I am agreeing that there is a difference between living with someone and having that someone control you. I currently live with my parents, but you can bet that I'm trying desperately to get out,
not because I am afraid that I will be looked down on for staying with them on into my 20s and 30s, but because my
mother still thinks it's okay to tell me what to wear and how to look, and if I
don't look a certain way, she has to guilt trip me - don't worry, however, as I no longer fall for her tricks anymore, but rather just get fed up with them and get into screaming matches with her until she finally fucks off for the day
- or act passive-aggressively until my whole day|week|month is ruined; because I have a stepfather who likes to cop feels on my ass and breast when my mother isn't looking; because I have
told my mother this, but she called me a liar and a bitch for trying to get her to come to terms with this truth (that my stepfather is a pedo. as well as my biological father, who went to prison for about 13 years for sexual crimes against me when I was a
toddler); and finally, last but not least ... because my stepfather threatened to perform sexual deviant acts on me, were my mother to no longer be around, therefore I have the ever increasing desire to
escape current living conditions, lest I am forced into some sexual matter via my stepfather that might truly, fully push me over the edge.
...
With that being said, Mitch, I'm glad you have a good mother. Great moms are hard to come by.
I can attest to that, that's for damned sure.
