Almost alone

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It's funny, when I was a kid I got on great with my mum...had rough patches at adolescence like everyone does but I still thought she was great. Then I went to college and every time I come back I leave a little emptier, because I'm realizing more and more that I'm almost completely alone. She's the only person I really have in the world, and I can see that she never made the effort for me, when I was little or now. We have a friendly relationship (most of the time), but when it comes down to serious stuff, I am 100% alone. She either interrupts me constantly, doesn't listen, or tells me that she doesn't want to talk about whatever I happen to be talking about (not like I'm going on about the same thing, it's just she's not interested in me in general). Every few weeks I have to stop talking to her on the phone because she talks non-stop and doesn't seem to give a sh*t about what's going on in my life, and I can't just be a sounding board for her to talk at when there's no reciprocation. When I talk to her about it (and I have, over and over and over), she apologizes every time and says it'll never happen again, and she seems really sincere about it, but of course it does. So for a little while she at least SEEMS like she's interested in my life, but then nothing again. I was the one to start looking up OCD/avoidant personality disorder/depression when I knew something was wrong with me (all which eventually lead to Asperger's, which I was diagnosed with when I took the initiative to get myself to a doctor). I've had behavioral/learning/relationship/depression problems since I was 8, but in the end I'm the one who had to look out for myself since my mom was clearly not invested in my life. The day she threatened to kick me out of the house because I slept all the time had been a culmination of a lot of bad things for months on end and I was dropping hints left and right that I was going to kill myself ("you won't have to deal with me much longer if it's such a burden"), but she just must not have cared. I never felt more alone in my life...I grabbed her wine and sleeping pills and sat in a parking lot and just when I put the pills in my mouth I realized I couldn't do it because she always tells me her life would be over if I killed myself. I know she loves me, but it's like she doesn't love me enough to make the effort to help me live the life I'm forced to live for HER.

I'm always driving home from college to visit her because she misses having me in the house, but when I'm here she's so stuck in her own routine and so focused on her own life that there's nothing....we can never just SIT and BE together, she always has to be doing something...if we're on the sofa then we can talk for a FEW minutes but then we have to watch TV, or if we're at the dining room table we can talk for a FEW minutes but then she has to start clearing up. Her sister and her family came over a few days ago and they said she "puttered" like their dad does, but I wish she could just STOP and BE MY MOM. (She's not manic depressive or anything, she just feels this need to be productive because she always has so much to do). When her sister's family was here, I was always just sitting and talking with her sister...and I felt happy, like I had a family. It was like there were people who could stand to be in the same room with me and actually wanted to connect. I NEVER get that with my mom. We're like two strangers in a house, and after all my efforts I usually end up going to my room and sleeping/surfing the internet until I leave. Then she makes comments on how I must be depressed because I'm always sleeping, or how all I do when I'm here is stay in my room, and I feel like sh*t, like I'm here to be sparkling and charming and keep her entertained or else I'm just a burden. I'm tired of feeling guilty all the time, and I wish she would just be my mom and support me and try to connect with me, but no matter how many "talks" we have about this, she never changes, because people never change.

Yep!

And when you are not around she tells everyone else how great you are doing.

She has no idea of how to help you, what you want, and fears doing the wrong thing.

She most likely started when you were small, those medical types tell mothers it is hopeless, and then you did well, so who is she going to believe?

Maybe she tried doing what others told her, and it did not work out well, so she just lets you, which seems to have worked out, as you drive and go to college.

Just a few more years and you might be married, have a good job, and she can quit worrying.

I would say she sees herself as part of your problem, and is laying low.

You seem a bit touchy to me. I am sure there were incidents that did not turn out well, and she is still avoiding them.

My girl, also in college, has asked why I always agree with her. It started when she was little, all the big people told her she was wrong, I told her she was right, a Princess, and perfect in every way. She never denied it.

My role was always her Lawyer, I defended her. Now in college she asks what I really think, she grew up, is in college, she is a True Princess and perfect in every way. I cannot pick her courses, or her friends, but I cannot stop the support role I play.

She does notice when you sleep a lot, which is good for college students, it is a way of saying I wish you spent more time with me, even though I cannot change, just sit on the sofa and read a book, it is as close as she can get, and does fear making things wrong.

I have been the one person my kid could depend on, I am not very expressive, I am just around.

So she is a constant putterer, there are worse things in life. She hides behind being active. She does want to see you, does care, and there is a gap between all people. We get as close as we can.

The good is your point of view will change as you age, the bad is we are all human.

Talking to people has caused her life problems, she is coping the best she can, please accept the best someone can do as everything, for them it is.

Now lay about on the sofa and be in the same area of the house as she goes about her puttering, glancing at you sprawled on the sofa will make her day.

My kid taught me one, she does not do her own laundry, I asked why? She said her mother liked to, it gave them something to talk about every day, and laundry did not start arguements. I watched, her mother only prepares school clothes for the next day, I would for the week, but there is very important mother/daughter stuff in the laundry order.

Play in her world, try littering, leaving things out of place, show you need her. Loiter about the house.

Find places she can interact, rituals like laundry, when you can speak about nothing, a safe place.

See you mother as a scared little girl and become a better parent. We start out as helpless and dependant, they end up as helpless and dependant. You are seeing the role reversal in life in action.

Child or parent, if someone is doing the best they can, they should be accepted as doing the best.

Now, are you doing your best?

i come home for the holidays and am too ashamed to tell my family how lonely and miserable i am. they bring all their friends over or call them up... just to show me off. little do they know im on the brink of quitting everything.

i'd say write her a letter or something. you have to make her stop... get her attention and just tell her to listen.

I feel very alone at school because my viewpoints are the polar opposite of what most people in my town believe.

Tim