Dear Dr. G,
I just got off skype with my dad, where he told me that my mum has started crying because I told her that I don’t want to come back home for the summer holidays because it’s boring back home without to do for 3 months, when I could stay back in Australia and do summer school while working part time, so I could save up some money for my personal expenses next year.
I am currently going to college in Australia, home is Sri-Lanka and I’m the only child.
The thing about my mother is that she was the typical pushy mum. My parents are great and I love them to death but I have never had this mother-daughter connection with my mum. Though with my dad we are best of friends. When I hear my friends talk about how they are best friends with their mothers and how they can tell them absolutely anything and I think to myself I can never tell my mother anything, or wow I wished my mum was like that.
My mother was always the one who picked me up from school and she was the one who took me for my swimming classes for almost 12-13 years.(I’ve been a swimmer since I was 4) The thing with most mothers who my mum was friends with was that they loved to compare and brag about their children. I remember every single day on the ride home from swimming she would constantly talk about how everyone else was better than me, and how slow I am and that she can’t believe that even after all the hard work she has put in that I can’t perform better
Let me talk about school:
I was a pretty good student in school, I was always on the top 3 until grade 6. I enjoyed going to school.I had a good reputation in school and I had a lot of friends. I was also involved in a lot of sports. The thing with my first school was that everyone back stabbed each other. There were kids in class who would go and narrate everything they did in school to their mothers and I WAS NOT THAT KID. Every time my parents asked me how was school I’ll be like ”it was good” and that was it. I told them if anything important happened and nothing else. I didn’t think it was necessary that I should tell my parents every single thing that happened in school. I was the person who left my problems in school, in school the moment I went through the gates, I never carried it home. Throughout the entire 12 years of going to my first school, there was never a single day that she would not compare me to someone else. She took great pride in talking about how other kids were better than me, never have I heard my mum talk good about me. At first when I told her the marks I got for my exams, the first thing she would ask is how much did my friends get or whose the highest in the class. This was always what happened. So over time I got used to writing down the marks of my friends for each subject and telling their marks along with mine so that it would help my mum to compare.
My mother would scold me, shout at me, call me a bitch along with several other words whenever I get bad marks. I had never got into trouble at school so she never had the chance to scold me for that. It was always either about the grades or my swimming. In school they used to give us certificates if we got marks above 70 and one day I remember my mother smacking me in the head inside school in front of everyone because this boy got more certificates than I did. I remember trying very hard not to cry in front of my friends, I was around 10/11. Another time during parent teacher meeting, I remember my dancing teacher in grade 6 telling my mum that I was not good in dancing and I was just fooling around. (The truth was we had a break in the dance class and I was playing paper football with the boys and one paper ball went and hit the teacher) my mother pinched my hand after the teacher said that, my skin came off and I was bleeding. I still have the scar. My parents used to hit me when I was a kid, whenever I got low marks my father would take me to his office room and cane me. This happened from Grade 1 to Grade 6 that was around 5-11/12 years.At that time I thought they were doing this to correct me and maybe that was what they were doing. But even as a little girl I knew that whenever I have kids I would never cane them. I don’t know whether to think if this was abuse. I’m still not sure.
Also my dad would hit me with his belt. That was sometimes not all the time. One day I got a very bad beating, I remember my hands were red from the cane marks. That was somewhere in Grade 6 because after that I lost hope, I lost my interest in trying to work harder to become the perfect child for my parents. I just couldn’t do it anymore. My grades dropped and I vented out all my frustration doing swimming. I spent a lot of time swimming that at the end of the day I was too tired to even have dinner. One day after school my parent’s picked me up and my dad apologized to me, he said he was sorry and that he would never hit me. True to his word, till this day he hasn’t done anything to hurt me. But I remember thinking whether my mum will ever apologize. She never did.
My mother never trusted me, she never believed anything I say. She will always believe what someone else's mother would say over mine. ALL THE TIME.
When I was getting ready for my O/Levels my mum told me to quit swimming and focus on studies which I did. But till this day she tells me how they have spend a lot of money for my swimming and how I just gave it up. I don’t want to argue with them anymore because I just don’t have the energy in me so I keep my mouth shut. I used to get a lot of awards both for academics and sports. I have an entire cupboard full of trophies and certificates. I have another frame full of medals hanged on the wall in my room at home. But the sad part is no matter what I win my mother has never congratulated me. Not even once. She has never smiled at me and given me a hug when I got something. She has never done it. My dad on the other hand would be over the moon when I got something. I remember going for the school prize giving where I got a prize for physics and the only thing my mother told me was ”now that you got the prize, start focusing on swimming” I didn’t want the damn prize it’s not something I asked them to give me, I worked hard to get it. A little ’good job’ would have made my day. But I didn’t ponder on it much, I moved past it.
To do my A/Levels I changed schools, and during the first few weeks my mother HATED ME. She would always be like ”now I have no friends because of you, no one talks to me anymore” Well to be honest I lost all my friends as well, I was all alone in my new school the first few weeks until I started making friends. But I could never tell that to her right, for almost all my life I have never told my mother any of my problems. Whenever I could feel like I can trust her and tell her something, she WOULD ALWAYS, ALWAYS use it against me. I learned that lesson a few times before I stopped telling her anything. Never have I hated her, I was just hurt and I would always lock myself in the bathroom and cry.
I used to have a ”crush” on this boy in school and my parents found out and all hell broke loose that day. It was just a ”crush” that boy didn’t even know it, just a crush. I mean if I was going out and they caught me kissing him I would have understood but this was just a crush. My parents flat out told me that I was to ”suppress all my biological needs till I was 20” That was exactly what they told me. My dad even was like ”You want to get married, okay why don’t I just get you married, then we can be done with everything” Mind you this was just a crush. I was around 13-14 when this happened and I was going through the teenage,adolescent phase. I feared talking to boys or my friend in general in front of my parents. I got a phone for the first time when I went to Malaysia for uni. I had given all my friends my home number so that they could call but I told them never to call me because I was scared of my parents. I hide my Facebook account for years. I got it in Grade 8. Somehow my parents found out and they forced me to give my password literally forced me to but I never did. I have never gone to a friend’s birthday because I was too scared to ask my parents. I have never gone to movies with my friends, or to the mall or whatever kids in school do with my friends.
I also remember this incident to date, I was in grade 5 or 6 (around 8-9 years maybe) I was small and my mum was telling how my friends mother didn’t want her to go for swimming in the morning because the coaches were all male. And my mother told this to my face, she was like ”not like you, she[friends name] is pretty” That night I cried myself to sleep. Another time after I got my O/Level results, we had a prize giving and I got 4 prizes for the 4A’s I received. My parent’s yelled at me the entire ride home, they told me that I wasn’t worth the time and money they spent on me, they were furious my dad couldn’t even drive the car properly because he was that mad. They were telling me how they were so embarrassed to see me walk on stage to get my awards and my mother was like she didn’t even clap for me. This was because a really good friend of mine got 6A’s and 3B’s while I got 4A’s and 4B’s. I didn’t say anything to them, I never say anything to them. I just lock my self in the bathroom and cry while the shower is running so they don’t hear me.
Once school was over, I applied for universities abroad and I had a 6 months break before going to college.
Those six months was the worst days of my entire life. This was between June 2012-Dec 2013.I left to uni in Feb 2014. I absolutely hated being at home with my mother, I would stay upstairs in my room while she was down. At home I was not allowed to close my doors until it was bedtime. Staying at home was hell to me, I was literally pulling my hair out. I couldn’t go out anywhere, I had no one to talk to. Just me and myself. So I did what every kid would do, I was on the computer 24/7. My computer was kept in the living room cause after the ”crush” incident my parents never trusted me. I didn’t do much I was just on Facebook and checking my mail, that’s all I did. During those months the internet bill would be very high and my dad would scream at me. But that didn’t stop me from using it, I mean what else am I supposed to do. There’s only so many times I can stare at my toes. I felt like an outsider in my own house. Even at night when my dad would be home from work,I would be upstairs while they were down. I also used to watch the show ”Los Vegas” on cable tv. And every time my mum passed the TV she would scold me for what I am watching. I mean it’s a show not porn, Jesus. One day she flat out asked me if I wanted to be a prostitute. After a while I stopped watching TV. I would come down for dinner then I would go back up, I just didn’t know how I was supposed to be around my parents. Because I have never spent so much time with them, I was always in school or at swimming. I was literally home to just sleep and eat during school days. So this was all so new to me and I also just didn’t want to disappoint them, because I had come to realize that I was a failure and everything that I did was just not enough, I knew I could and can never please them, they will never be satisfied. My mother always used be like ”you and [my friend] have the same brain why can’t you get high marks like her”. I would never talk back and be like we are not the same.
This was where it all changed:
One night in December my dad called me from downstairs and was like ”What are you doing on the Internet?” and I was like nothing. He them stormed upstairs and disconnected the Internet. The next day was the worst day ever, I’ll remember it till the day I die. We would normally go to the park to walk in the morning. From the minute we left to the park my mother was yelling at me, I thought she would stop when we came to the park but she didn’t she kept on screaming at me. Everyone in the park was staring at me. I have never seen my mother look so angry in my entire life I was 17 at that time. I couldn’t take it anymore so I ran away from her, one the way home she was screaming at me. She brought up every single mistake I had done in my entire life and she basically tore me apart. I still don’t know what made her so mad but she said somethings that she could never take back. I had thought of dying before this incident but that day was the last straw. I just couldn’t take it anymore so after we went home, I waited till my parents left to go shopping and I wrote a letter. I wrote it to my parents, I told them how sorry I was that I was such a failure, and how I’m sorry that I couldn’t get a scholarship to go to college and that how I couldn’t be smart like my friends. My mum had left her phone at home and gone so I took her phone and messaged my best friend, I asked her if I was a good friend and she was like ”yeah” and I told her to tell that to my mother if anything happens to me. I then went to the bathroom with the note in my hand and I was going to drink the bleach bottle which was there. At that moment my friend called me shouting telling me not to do anything stupid. She was going to come to my place that moment. I told her everything and she was like I’m going to talk to your mother but I told her ’no’ because I didn’t want my parents to hate me anymore. I didn’t go through with my plan because my friend’s call calmed me down. From that moment I didn’t talk to my mother, not a single word. I only talked when my dad talked to me and that was just for the question. Nothing more. It continued for days I did not speak a single word to my mother, and my parents picked up something was wrong, my mum left me at home and went, we never spoke. Around the 2nd day my dad phoned me from work and he was told me that my mum has come to his office crying telling that I am not talking to her, he told me to resolve whatever issue I had with her. I hanged up on him. I felt bad for my dad because he was caught in the middle, my mum never talked to me for starters and I clearly didn’t talk to her as well. The first time I spoke to her was on the 31st of December, I did that because it was a new year, I was going to college and I wanted to turn a new leaf. I didn’t want to start a new year angry and hurt. So I spoke to her, just a few words here and there.
I spent my last 1 1/2 years studying in Malaysia before coming to Australia. My parents came with me to Malaysia to drop me off. They dropped me at uni residence before going to the airport. My dad stayed at the gate after I said bye, but my mum walked behind me with her hands on my shoulders. She was crying but I didn’t look back I just walked away. During the last year my dad would sometimes tell me that they miss me and my mum would be crying, but I do not feel any emotion towards her. If my dad was upset I would start crying but with my mother nothing, like I don’t feel anything towards her.
When I went home in June leaving Malaysia for the last time before coming to Aussie, I was standing with my mum at the arrival lounge while my dad bought the car and my mum was like ’she doesn’t know what she will do when I go to Australia because it’s almost a 13 hour flight from Sri-Lanka, 5 1/2 hours ahead in time.She was like I’ll die if you go. I just smiled at her, because to be honest I was waiting to come here.
Now that I am here, she is constantly calling me on viber or on skype. Sometimes I get annoyed because I have work to do and I really don’t see the need to skype with her the minute I wake up especially since I skype with my parents before going to sleep. I don’t know whether I should believe her when she says she misses me. I think I forgot to mention but I get bullied at home from my mother and my cousins, they say I am too fat. I’m 18 years old, my height is 5’4, and I weight 60kgs. I mean I would like to come to like 58 or 57kgs. But they call me a hippo, my mum takes away my food plate while I’m eating, she joins my cousin’s when they call me fat. That is what really hurts me this is my family you know, I have a lot of pain inside me, I’ve kept it with me all my life, my parents have hurt me a lot but never have I done anything that would bring disrespect to them. I am not the smartest person in the world, but I still pass my exams, I got into one of the best universities in the world, I have completed almost 2 years of my 3 year course. I have never smoked or done drugs. I have never done even a fraction of the things my friends have done and I just don’t understand why my mum hates me so much. Her biggest issue at the moment is how I am fat. I hate it when she joins my cousins in making fun of me, like that really hurts me because I’m a person with feelings I have been through a lot with no one to hold my hand, I am the only person there for myself and I feel so lonely when they are all sitting around me and making fun of me and commenting on me as if I can’t hear.
So when my mum calls and cries telling she misses me I get very confused and angry because we have no connection whatsoever, I can’t even bring my self to tell her that I have my periods. A few days ago she asked me if I was turning 20 on my birthday, I’m not turning 20, I’m turning 19. This is the same women who tells me she misses me. Like it doesn’t add up to me. I am so confused I don’t know what to think or feel, I feel very sad, and I cry a lot because she made me almost kill myself because of her I haven’t been able to look myself in the mirror for a very long time. I have managed to create a wall around me. I am a genuinely happy person, I have a lot of friends and I LOVEEE spending time with them. No one knows this side of me because I hide it. I don’t want to go back to those dark days, and something that helped me was One Direction, I listened to their songs during those 6 months. They were the only thing that brought happiness to my life that time.
Lately I have been feeling down, I was crying day before yesterday as well, which is why I am writing this because I need to get it off my chest. I don’t know if I need help. I don’t hate my mother I just wished I understood what she really feel towards me, because her crying and telling she misses me now is confusing me a lot. Because I was waiting for her to come talk to me for a really long time, just have a mother-daughter talk, or a mother-daughter day but she never did so her now acting like this makes me want to know if she has another motive behind her.
Please help me Dr G, I’m going crazy over here, I am also really sorry for rambling but above is my entire life story of the relationship with my mother.
Thank you spending your time to read this.
Love,
A Very Baffled Young Woman
Dear Sweet Woman,
I am more than delighted that you have reached out to me. You must be aware that you have indeed endured physical and verbal abuse from both of your parents for several years. You describe being humiliated,shamed, bullied and harmed badly by both of your parents. I understand completely why you got depressed and even suicidal at one point.
You describe having an easier relationship with your father. I am happy about that. Your mother may have some good qualities but you must understand that her behavior toward you is unacceptable. In addition, her behavior indicates that she is a very angry and unhappy woman. It is unlikely that any child would ever meet her expectations. My guess is that your mother has little else going on in her life than her family.
Of course, you are confused by your mother's erratic behavior. She is and has been displaying erratic and unstable behavior for many years. Yes, she may miss you but that does not mean that you should go home for the summer and be further humiliated and hurt. It is not your job to please your mother. I understand wanting to be a good daughter but up until now your efforts have failed. I am so very, very sorry for that. I am even sorrier that no one protected you all these years other than your friend. Thank goodness for that friend.
I suggest that you stay where you are for the summer. I also suggest that you spend less time on skype with your parents.You are a young adult now and you have a right to some independence.
Since you are feeling sad I would very much like you to go to therapy to sort out your feelings and to work on your self-esteem and your reactions to your parents. I am very happy that you have made a good group of friends. Please write back to me and let me know how things go for you.
Dr. G.
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