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Post by Susan Peabody on Aug 14, 2008 15:11:02 GMT -8
I have a client who is addicted to her mother. She cannot make a decision without her mother's approval. She broke up with a perfectly fine man because her mother did not approve. She calls her mother every day and has anxiety attacks if her mother does not answer the phone. As a child she had what we call an emotionally incestuous relationship with her mom which continues to this day. |
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Post by sobrietythirst on Aug 14, 2008 18:58:19 GMT -8
I don't know if I'm addicted to my mother but I do crave her in a strange sense. Her silence kills me when she's upset at me. Her criticisms and remarks are so much more important to me and even after all the years I fear her. She didn't have a close relationship with her mother and we have never gotten too deep. The times I have opened up to her...if she was uncomfortable she walked away. When I was young, she was working...we never were really close and she's married and I feel like we didn't have enough time, not really. I love compliments from her and often I fish for them. I'm still holding on to the relationship I wish we had when I was a child.
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Post by brokenone on Aug 15, 2008 10:07:11 GMT -8
With my dad, he will object to something that i am doing or ask me a question and i only say what ever i say because i think that he will approve. if he is dissapointed in me my whole world comes crashing down, since his divorce he practically treats me as a spouse and its hard because i cant live up to everything that he is asking of me. But i cant say no to him. I have never been able to say no to him. When I was little everything that i did was so that my dad would maybe think that i was amazing and majority of the time he didnt even look my way. Its hard to feel pushed away by your father.
-Broken1
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Post by LovelyJune on Aug 15, 2008 11:56:23 GMT -8
VERY interesting topic. I've always pointed the finger at my dad for being the cause of all my suffering in relationships while putting my mother on a pedestal. She did NOTHING wrong for many many years and truthfully, i still think she's as close to perfect as they come. Sweet, kind, loving, wise, smart, respectful, great listener, non-controlling, accepting, giving, etc. The list goes on. And yet sometimes, I find myself unable to make decisions without her. Like, WWMD??? I'm not going to consider this a problem though. Since I have my own kids now, i see her faults and drawbacks. I've been able to put things into perspective over the past few years and i am really getting the hang of making my own decisions.
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Recovering
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Men's Forum Moderator
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Post by Recovering on Jul 30, 2009 11:38:57 GMT -8
I am addicted to my mother emotionally. I am a grown guy yet i feel like someone else is trying to live my life. i feel guilty if i make choices or even express opinoons which are contrary to my mothers. i constantly feel the need to "counsel" my mother. after reading Dr. Adam's "Silently Seduced" I am begining to see how this is not normal and is actuallly keeping me from acheiving intimacy in my own life.
My mother is a grown lady and not a child. I cant take care of her emotional needs. But the emotional parasites that my parents are, they expect their children to take care of them. they are both children of alcoholics and I suspect they had secret addictions themselves( drugs and prescription pills) I cannot know for sure as my father is dead now but the amount of fighting in my house as a child wasnt normal at all.
i feel so much of rage at my mother, I want to go on with my life without feeling like i have to be stuck to her. as if i owe her something!
I am tired of trying to be there emotionally for my sisters or mother. I am not their father or partner, resp.
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Post by bushbiyu on Sept 5, 2009 7:13:42 GMT -8
Once again coming to these boards have given me a way to figure out what is going on with me.
I have not been working recovery for the last two days. I must admit this because I haven't posted or worked the steps, and I've spent the last two days deep in fantasy. I have broken NC three times now. I emailed him twice and called him Thursday.
I've wanted to post and figure out what was happening to me. Why was I giving up? Why didn't I even want to reach out, show support for my fellow board members, talk to my therapist. What in the world was going on.
But I read this old thread and it hit me like a light. My mother, my mother, my mother.
My mother has schizophrenia. She takes medication. She's high functioning, she can do some things for herself and aware of her own illness. Mostly she just has auditory hallucinations and delusions from time to time. She has had this illness all of my life. Needless to say I know that growing up with her is the reason why I became a LA. She did her best, I'm sure, but I know that I was severely neglected.
My mother lives with me and I am her caregiver. I've always believed that I was emotionally detached enough to deal with this situation. I get frustrated, of course, but really I never questioned the arrangement because. She needs a caregiver and in my family it's always been assumed her staying in my home is better than a group home or institution. She is incapable of living in her own home or by herself (she'll leave the stove on for days, she can't clean up after herself, et.).
For the last few weeks my mother has been going through a "well" period. She is taking classes at a community college (ceramics) and generally doing very good. Early this week I discovered that she is no longer taking her medication. She's done this before and it always sends her first into a depression and then her illness escalates (the voices get louder, her behavior gets more inappropriete and so on).
I didn't see it at the time but I "gave up" on recovery right after I discovered this. I feel sad and angry and really frightened. I think I am realizing for the first time in my life that I cannot deal with my mother's illness on my own. It relates to this post because I can see my own addiction to my mother. I don't know how to work on this, though because I am her caregiver. I want her to have access to safety and healthy life, yet I don't know how to do this with her living with me.
First steps: recognition.
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Recovering
Junior Member
Men's Forum Moderator
Posts: 52
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Post by Recovering on Dec 6, 2009 17:35:05 GMT -8
I am realizing that I am addicted to not only my mother but my family of origin in the following way
1. My father: Even though he is dead I keep dreaming of how his failed career could have been better. I fail to take into account that he was perhaps a closeted drug addict and definitely a love addict who abandoned his family and was definitely mean and very abusive towards me. He never was successful in life. Parents are there to take care of children not the other way around.
2. my Mother: I constantly keep worrying about how her life is going to be. I never worry about my career or my life. She never bothered to work, even though she had a college degree and now when I should be worrying about my life I constantly find myself worrying about my mother even when I don't want to. Its a compulsion and i feel it controls me...almost like she has powers over me...
3. My sisters even though they are always COLD and even mean at times, constantly keep worrying about them. They have decent jobs, overspend and then I worry about how they are going to pay their bills, ignoring that I am more educated than then and yet don't have a job and am in an abusive relationship!!
I have tried CoDA but I think "love addiction" best explains my relationship with them. and since my emotional energy is so much involved with them, I never have been able to have a successful romantic relationship. I want to get sober in my love relationship. I was indoctrinated with the idea that I must sacrifice for my family of origin. It is interesting that my family never expects me do that for a family that I will build of my own but for them!! sounds rather selfish.HP help me as I feel so helpless in this area.
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Post by lotus on Dec 6, 2009 20:43:57 GMT -8
My brother has sever bi-polar disorder and substance addiction, but doesn't believe anything is wrong with him. My parent's take care of him. When my parents pass I WILL NOT ENABLE HIM. I will help him only if he is seeking treatment for his problems.
Just wanted to get this off my chest.
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Post by primrose on Feb 14, 2010 9:20:49 GMT -8
I thought that i'd broken my addiction to my father in my late 20s. I cut off from my parents completely for 5 years, I didn't take any of their money, I set up my own business, I worked on myself very intensely. But at 35 I found the biggest father substitute I ever had in the form of my POA. I see it as a process now. I might have broken most of the obvious bonds of being addicted to my father, but I still haven't dealt with everything. And I still have to deal with all my early childhood with my mother. I have little idea of what's lodged in my unconscious about her. Oh well. Am sure I'll get to find out sooner or later. P.
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