Dear sossi,

I feel for you, really. I hear you and your struggles.

Basically its lonely to deal with all this and accept, my life is not going to be like others. I know that most women my age are dealing with family issues of their own, kids and husbands and so on,

You were expected to get married, have kids, have an amazing social circle etc… and these expectations came from your mother. You not having what other women have makes you so bad about yourself. You feel like a disappointment (ive always disappointed people), and a large part of it is that you haven’t met the expectations of your mother. And I believe you’re still trying, but then failing, and it just makes you feel worse each time.

But you know what? Even if you had a perfect life and ticked all the boxes, you still wouldn’t make your mother happy and proud of you. She is unable to be truly happy for you – on the contrary, she tends to get jealous at you because that’s how narcissistic mothers are. She would find ways to bring you down and put the attention on herself.

My mother wasn’t narcissistic but she was/is wounded in different ways, and it took me a long time to realize that no matter what I do, how great successes in life I might have, she’ll never be happy. Because she was inherently miserable, and there was nothing I could do to make her happy. And boy did I try, all of my childhood and adolescence…

You wrote earlier:

But my mother was depressive and certainly in my teens i remember spending hours sorting out her problems with her. I think i believed in my early teens that i could fix these things. She must have felt very alone herself but is also a very complicated and demanding person.

I too spent hours sorting my mother’s problems, trying to make her happy, trying to make her realize that her life is good, that she has all the reasons for happiness… but to no avail, nothing I said or did could make her happy. This made me felt like a failure, like I wasn’t good enough. And it created a big wound in me… I believe something similar might have happened to you – no matter what you did and how “perfect” you were, it was never good enough, it was never acknowledged… it’s traumatic for a child.

I didnt think i had to make the choice to stay away from my parents but i see i should have instead of seeking any comfort there which was a bad choice. My mother´s negative interpretations colour my own.

That’s very true. After your breakups, you sought comfort from your parents – which is a logical thing to do – but with narcissistic or otherwise toxic parents, it doesn’t work. They aren’t able to truly empathize – they end up hurting us even more!

Every time my relationships have broken down, i have lost everything i built…my home, friends, work and social status, this last relationship was the only one where i did not move country afterwards.

This means you made the man you were involved in the center of your life and you actually built your life around him. With your ex you had not only a romantic but also a professional  relationship, right? Maybe his friends became your friends? You were attracted to people similar to your mother, whom you dedicated yourself completely, believing that they would finally give you the love and appreciation you deserve. Bit they never did in the end, did they? And you ended up without everything, because you built everything around them…

Built everything around a person who reminds you of your mother…. who will never give you the love and appreciation that you crave for… and that’s why you suffered great losses.

But none of that is your fault. You were just a little girl wanting her mother’s approval. Even as a grown woman, you were still that little girl.

That’s why I say, please try to forgive yourself. Have compassion for yourself. You didn’t have it easy. But you can turn your life around, slowly but surely. You can learn how to build your life around yourself and your own needs and preferences. You can learn how to let go of trying to please your mother… and how to make your life about yourself, not about her.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by Tee.