Family issue..Thoughts?

jrabbit619 · May 19, 2015

Therapy can help you immensely. You need someone to help build you up considering that everyone else around you, by your own accounts, are tearing you down. You already said yourself, you care more about the people who are hurting you than you care for yourself. How can you be an advocate for your patients if you are to be a nurse, when you cannot advocate for yourself?
It can be incredibly helpful to have someone to talk to, to confide in, to give you the support and strength you need in the situation you are in. Like someone else mentioned, it is difficult to stand up to someone in a situation like this. Especially a parent. There is nothing shameful in seeking help and support. Even if you are only meeting once a week or twice a month. You should honestly look into it, for yourself.

So if I don't seek help or stand up to my mother ...... that'll make me a bad nurse? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying but that was my first thought when I initially read that.

I absolutely have someone to confide in and talk to while I'm in this situation. I just wanted the opinions of others that may have had experience with it (or knows someone who has). Not many people I know of have had this issue. So while I can talk to them and vent about it, they don't always fully understand.

jrabbit619 · May 19, 2015

When my parents got divorced, my mom turned me into her best friend. I was 8. I thought it was cool and I was grown up. I won't go into gory detail, but as I got older, I began to realize that the only needs met in that relationship were hers. When I got a little more assertive and tried to impose some balance in the relationship, I was very firmly made to know that I was not allowed to have needs of my own, my purpose was to continue to be the reservoir from which she filled her bottomless pit. She is extremely emotionally unhealthy and incapable of making good decisions about money, dating, or even friends. But I was constant, and at least as a child, controllable. I also had to deal with the favoritism dynamic, as she always coddled my brother and while she would deny it if directly asked, never even tried to hide it in her behavior.
The biggest regret of my life comes from not being able to pull myself out of her orbit in time. As a senior in high school, because of my grades and area of interest, I was offered a full ride by the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. I turned it down, because she couldn't handle the idea of me being so far away. I have no illusions about what a hard place to live Fairbanks is, but what an EXPERIENCE that would have been for a suburban southern California girl like me. My father was devastated. He was raised in the military and joined it himself, and had lived in Germany, Japan, Morocco, Spain, and all over the US, and he wanted me to get out of the small city we lived in and see some of the world. As for me, I almost immediately regretted it, but what could I do? I also couldn't join my fiance at his university in Chicago, for the same reasons. Boy, when he came on the scene did she panic. She realized what a threat he was to the dynamic she had going with me. So, I limited myself to the one four year university in our county at the time and packed the love of my life off to live 2/3 of the country away from me.
And then I spent a miserable year at school only half an hour from where I grew up, mourning the loss of an adventure, missing the man I loved, and dealing with awful dorm mates. By Christmas break I'd had it. I started laying plans to transfer to Chicago. On spring break I flew to Chicago to visit and finalize the transfer. And after that school year, I spent the summer being punished by my mother while my dad celebrated and wished me good luck and fun adventures. When my now husband and I packed up my Honda and drove east together, the sense of freedom was intoxicating.
After I moved to Chicago was when I really grew up and began the journey to adulthood. (Epilogue: my husband told me if I had gone to Alaska he would have followed me there. He was on ROTC scholarship and looked to see if they had it there, so he could plan a transfer if necessary. *sigh*)
You need to break away. Move out, live on your own, make decisions, take risks, have adventures.....on your own terms. But you have to absolutely own what happens. You can't break away while running home for help. You might need to consider moving relatively far away to really get out of the sphere of influence.
Please take this advice from someone who's been there: don't let the emotional vampire steal your life, no matter what their name or title. Good luck.

Wow! That's great. You're absolutely right. Congrats to you!

jrabbit619 · May 19, 2015

Thank you to everyone for the advice and encouraging words!

Graduatenurse14 · May 19, 2015

You have been through a lot at a young age. Only you can decide when moving out would be best but you can start therapy now even if you stay for two more semesters.

I speak from experience when I tell you that therapy is very, very helpful. For example, I had no idea that I was co-dependent due to growing up in the dysfunction of having an alcoholic father until I was in my early 30's. It explained a lot about how I dealt with things.

There are many online resources also. Maybe you will find these helpful.

Signs of Overcontrol

https://outofthefog.net/CommonNonBehaviors/Codependency.html

Been there,done that, ASN, RN · May 19, 2015

Your family situation is a difficult one, that is not helping you towards your goal of becoming an RN.

YOU must choose to spend your energy on that goal, or stay in a family relationship that is sabotaging it.

explorereb96, ADN, BSN · May 19, 2015

My sister is like this with her son. She leans on him constantly for everything. It's partly a desperate attempt at keeping him a child and knowing that he would always be "there" for her at anytime she needed him. You do need to leave. It will not be pleasant, but it will be for the best. Your mother needs to grow up and stop depending on others for financial and emotional control. She has the problem, not you. If she seeks help (which you should tell her to do when you are in a secure position to do so), she may get her life back (back before she had children). It's her process and responsibility, not yours. When you are emotionally ready to do so, you can extend your hand to her, encourage her to seek out new friends for herself, etc. Does she have a job? My sister is 51 and her youngest is graduating this year. I don't see him leaving her side and it's very sad. Parents don't last forever, he will be very ill prepared.

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · May 19, 2015

Therapy will literally save (as in the sense of "preserve for the future") your life.

As one of the many posters here who have shared how we have been there, done that, let me tell you that thinking that just getting out if your mother's powerful gravitational field will be the magic you seek is itself limiting your future. Your emotional growth is incomplete because of her. You seriously will benefit from some better insight to allow you to make that step to being a real (not just chronological) adult. That is, of course, a parent's main responsibility; since yours has failed in that, there's an excellent reason to seek out someone who will not fail you.

Therapy will also give you some useful language to use with her when you separate. Just learning a few good scripted phrases takes some of the pressure off you to find the words to make her understand -- BTW, there will be none, so stop hoping for that -- and make you strong enough to move on. Isn't that what you want? Isn't it?

Look, we get how scary this is. We see the exact same behavior in women in abusive marriages. People say, "Just leave," and, "I just don't understand why she doesn't leave him!" They don't understand that the unknown is scarier than the (terrible) known is. It takes courage to do the right thing for yourself. And yes, giving yourself this gift (which you deserve, yes, you do) will make you a better nurse. You will be able to empathize better with powerless people, help them take the scary steps towards safety and health that will give them back their lives, and all because you will have done it yourself.

Listen to us who have done it. We can't be there physically, but we are with you. You can do this for yourself, and for the sake if your future relationships and your own future children. And maybe even your siblings, once they figure out things (they will, trust me on that).

Pity your mother for her terrible limits, and go forth to grow beyond them. We are with you. Let us know how you do.

NanaPoo · May 19, 2015

My father-in-law used to be very manipulative and controlling and tell my husband and I how to run our lives. About 3 years into our marriage (and 8 years total into our relationship) I blew up and told him exactly what I thought about him. It came from a place of anger and I could have handled it much better BUT when it was over he talked to my parents and told them one thing. That was, "you don't have to worry about her. No one will ever run over her and tell her what to do." He had a great respect for me. Sure, he struggled for awhile and occasionally attempted to give tips on how to run my household but old habits die hard. He has always controlled his wife and children with an iron fist.

Now,21 years into our marriage he doesn't even bother. The greatest decision we've made for relationships with our parents (because my mom attempts to control things, too) is live far away. 3 hours is the minimum I will live from our families. It's easy to get home in case of emergency but too far for them to just "drop in." They don't have a say in how we raise our daughter or how we do our daily lives.

My advice is for you to stand up for yourself, even if it has to be in a letter, like a previous poster said. Do it when you graduate and have landed a job but get out ASAP. Your mom will eventually have respect for you. She can't possibly respect you now if she's able to walk all over you like a doormat. She's manipulating you with guilt because she knows she can. Walk away, earn her respect and, in the long run, your relationship with her will be all the healthier for it. Don't ever let your guard down. She could try again later starting with the guilt. Remember her tricks and don't be fooled by them again!

la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN · May 19, 2015

I was in a similar situation as you and I wish I would have just figured it out and left. My parents would have gotten over it. I did the same as you -- did just what they asked, worked, school, home, very little outside life -- luckily they couldn't really say anything about me dating anyone so that was my only social outlet (which is also incredibly unhealthy).

You have to live your own life. You cannot let her determine anything else that you do from here on out. She can threaten all she wants about this and that. You need to call her on her bluff for saying hurtful stuff like that. If she doesn't talk to you again, honestly, it doesn't sound like there's a loss. When you grow up, you have the luxury of making your own family, especially if the one you're born into isn't so spiffy.

In the meanwhile, make sure you don't jeopardize your senior year. You're almost done and then you'll be free!!!!!

Good luck. Do it for yourself. Be your own person. I cannot tell you how disturbing it is to go back to college when you're nearly 30 to do what you actually really wanted to do and see how much you missed out on by giving more of yourself to your parents than you realized and not truly living for yourself. It's so profoundly limiting.

xoemmylouox, ASN, RN · May 19, 2015

I too had a mother that favored a younger sibling, yet expected me to deal with her crap and live with her forever. I was expected to not only pay my fair share, but pay HER bills as well. I paid for ALL of my expenses including college. Thankfully I have escaped her manipulation. I don't talk to her or my sibling, but you know what. I am enjoying my life more than ever now. I don't need her nonsense in my life, and neither do you. Until you parent wants to act like an adult, you may need to seperate yourself away from them. Therapy will be useful. Good luck!

Red Kryptonite · May 19, 2015

I too had a mother that favored a younger sibling, yet expected me to deal with her crap and live with her forever. I was expected to not only pay my fair share, but pay HER bills as well. I paid for ALL of my expenses including college. Thankfully I have escaped her manipulation. I don't talk to her or my sibling, but you know what. I am enjoying my life more than ever now. I don't need her nonsense in my life, and neither do you. Until you parent wants to act like an adult, you may need to seperate yourself away from them. Therapy will be useful. Good luck!

I also haven't spoken to my mother in over two years. I had reached a kind of equilibrium with her, where we would speak fairly regularly but didn't really have much of a relationship. Then she became unemployed and refused to act like an adult about that. She lived on unemployment until it ran out (MORE THAN TWO YEARS!), actively sabotaged the few job interviews she did manage to get, and then expected me to pay her bills when she got an eviction notice. When she first lost her job, my brother had offered her free room and board in his spare room so she could relocate here to AZ and get back on her feet. She basically told him not only no, but hell no. (She refuses to leave California for any reason.) Two and a half years later, after both of us had given help where we could, helped through a major health problem, and tried to get her to see reality with her job situation, she couldn't understand why neither of us jumped at the chance to take her into our home. There's so much more, but it would seriously take a book.....

Some people just never grow up and figure it out. If they refuse, you can't waste your own short, precious life trying to force them.

Last I knew, my mom was in a long term salvation army shelter. I literally have no idea where she is now. That's her choice. My phone number hasn't changed in 12 years.

HisKids37 · May 19, 2015

She can't make me. But when she threatens to never talk to me again that's honestly what makes me stay.

She's manipulating you, and that is very hard to deal with. You will need to make your own grown-up decisions and let her own her reactions to them.