Anita, 

Thank you for reading the whole thread. 

You wrote

Maybe I will complete that post today and be done with this thread- if you prefer to communicate in a new thread

My first thought – better to close this thread. However, it does not bother me writing here, but it is also okay for me to close it.

Yes, the whole thread began with the person I was dating at that time and our conversations made me realize the reality of life with my mother, as the main source of my issues.

I am sure that if I was born with smart clothes on and a bag of money, she would have respected me too!

 I remember you pointing that out, Anita.  I always believed I should have looked different. Even now, I sometimes still have thoughts, seeing an attractive person „ What a different life I would have if I looked like her”, „”If only I had that long and thick hair, my mother would admire me” – just like she admires other people. The admiration in her voice. I still hear it. 

When it comes to similarities between our mother (the example with kitchen and my things on the table) I agree with this one:

Your mother ‘sounds’ like mine, what an amazing similarity: my mother too 1. Complained about my ‘wrongdoings’ but insisted that I do not fix those wrongdoings. 2. Blamed me for thinking what I was not thinking, for feeling what I was not feeling, for having intentions I did not have“

still, I will explain further, this is how I see it and feel it, as this was the most frequent of my everyday life:

She, as she wants to present this situation –  just said something casually „This table is so messy, all your stuff there” (of course it was not casual, but she pretends to – the whole point of being passive aggressive) and she now can see I disclosed her aggression,  so now she makes me look crazy – “I only said this one little thing, and now you doing this- showing off, cleaning this, showing me how offended you are when I said something harmless, you do this on purpose so that I look like a bad person, I do everything wrong, I am a bad person, is that what you are implying by doing this right now? Why are you so sensitive, I can’t tell you anything anymore because you are always like that (sensitive). She often added „I will go away, and I won’t be here and you will see..” I put in bold sentences that I used to hear every time, very very often. It was like a patch, something sewn on me. It was my second name. It defined me almost. “I can’t tell you anything anymore. That’s what you are” – That’s who I was. I can almost feel it.

Then there was always a second round, as I liked to call it. In 5-10 minutes she used to come into my room saying something random for example „I bought an orange juice”. I, knowing what will happen next, would be silent and scared. And then she would start „oh so now you won’t speak to me huh? Nice. I am the bad person, I am always the bad person. You are you always like that? Why are you so sensitive? I can’t even say anything to you anymore” Then she would leave and not speak to me for couple days. After that she would make a dinner one day, or bake a pie and I would wake up one morning obviously hungry and came to kitchen and eat, happy she made this food.

The cooking/baking gradually stopped working out when I was in high school/college, as I did not want to play along and felt deceived. She still tried though.

I would really really like to recover from this one day.

Thank you for pointing out paranoid personality disorder, and borderline disorder.  It fits the description of my mother, and I admit, it is very weird reading the description while knowing what is REALLY means. And it is a nightmare, we both know that because we lived in it.

My mother accused everyone. She accused delivery company of sending emails at 2 am “on purpose” so what she would not read it right away. She accused my cat of saying “meow” only once and just waiting for food in silence, as an indication of malice (not going around and meowing happily like he used to).

It was very exhausting trying to persuade her that people do not mean that, and that I do not mean that.  

Other characteristics of paranoid personality disorder:

• Are hypersensitive and take criticism poorly – my mother would remember for years when someone said to her “you’re ugly” when she was 8, or the time her sister told her “you are an oligarch” (not sure why she said that to her, maybe did not mean that or did not fully understand the meaning of this world) – My mother would not speak to her sister for years and quoted this repeatedly as a proof how she (her sister) hurt her. Or the time my cousin called her and said “hello aunt, I am calling you because you have not called recently” – she stopped speaking to my cousin after that because she felt offended that  she (my cousin) suggested that she is the one that should call first.
• Read hidden meanings in the innocent remarks or casual looks of others – the example with the dress and the colleague you have quoted, but also that day, when she wore this dress, the colleague was sitting behind the desk all day and did not get up from her chair because she did not want to get a closer look at my mother’s dress – as she was jealous. When we watched a movie and I wanted to explain “see, this is the actor that played in.. (some other movie she saw)” she scolded me for explaining what she already knows, and that I imply she did not know that and therefore that she is stupid. When she used to look for something in her bag and I asked “what are you looking for there?” she used to yell at me “why are you so mean? can’t I just look for something? what is ALWAYS your problem?” – still after all these years when I sometimes saw her looking for something in her bag I suddenly had the weird feeling in my stomach.

It may sound ridiculous but this was my reality. This is how my mother thinks. Every time she yelled I learned to not react, just be happy, talkative, act normal, because I was scared of round 2 (accusing me of acting offended). It happened frequently though.

It is interesting how you wrote it is quite rare for you to see so many similarities, please correct me if I do not understand it correctly, that after all those stories here on this forum, there are not very much stories where someone’s mother’s personality/behavior is so similar to your mother’s. Do I understand it correctly? Your mother treated you pretty horribly. My mother treated me pretty horribly. They have a lot of behaviors in common: narcissistic, paranoid personality disorder, borderline too. Is it rare to have that particular behaviors all together? I apologize if this is phrased badly.

Anita, you wrote:

In summary: growing up with a paranoid mother (one fitting, no doubt in my mind, the PPD criteria) is a horrific experience: She didn’t only portray … everyone as malicious, she portrayed me, her own daughter, as malicious, misinterpreting my words (said with no intent to mock her or hurt her, and often said with the intent to help her) as malicious. The result: untold suffering on my part, expecting the worst of people, trusting no one, doubting my own intentions, believing that something is very, very wrong with me, with my thinking itself;  chronic confusing, and distress. When I was absolutely sure that I was not guilty of a particular intent she accused me of, I tried to explain to her the truth.. I really, really tried but I failed every single time. All my efforts to explain were cut short and interrupted with her listing of “proofs” that indeed I was intended to hurt her. What a TORTURE

this was exactly my reality. I still expect the worst of people, I trust no one, although I try to change that every day. More often I doubt my own intentions, cannot make a simple decision, do not know what I really think of something, what is really my opinion – I am confused every day.

Couple of  weeks ago a girl i know from work said to me „I don’t think we would ever argue, I think you are such a good person” – I want to believe that, not just think “she does not know me enough”.

This is how I grew up. This is how I was raised. I played along my mom’s game for almost my whole life. 

Why did she choose me? Why did she do all those things to ruin me? Is she ever sorry? I don’t think she ever thinks of this like that. 

When I was younger I liked to sing, I played the harmonica, I used to write poems and short stories. I was creative, I used to make things. All this was ruined for me. I could be a different person now. 

She used to lock me in a sanatorium/hospital for weeks because I was not standing straight. She was forcing me to swim and led me to almost drowning. She made me believe I could not pronounce „s” properly and forced me to visit a doctor once a week. She told me my dad was a rapist in our village and asked me how about we move out and they will divorce. Me answering „yes” agreeing to this would haunt me till the rest of my days. And that was only the beginning of my nightmare. 

Anita, once again I thank you. I hope you have found your peace. I am still looking for mine, day by day.