Dear shadeinthesummer:

I understand that you live with your mother because for one, she needs your financial support, and two: it is culturally expected that you live with her.

Regarding living with her because she needs you brining in money. For that purpose, she needs to be nice to you, so that you will keep brining in the money. What she is doing is hurting her financial source, harming the one who makes the money she needs.

Let’s say your mental health is unimportant to your mother, and by her own behavior, it is not. Can you impress upon her that it is a bad business practice on her part to keep abusing you; that she is taking away future money, the food on her table, the medicines she needs?

This explanation to her may reach her and motivate her to stop hurting … herself; to stop risking poverty.

When you are abused, as you are, it harms you. There is no way to not get harmed when abused. I did my best to take abuse and not get harmed: I developed an impressive ability to not hear the words, perceive them as noise. I developed an incredible ability to daydream and get lost in fantasy of a good life. But the abuse harmed me anyway.

People keep asking for the following advice, and I am using my own words: How do I stay in an abusive situation without being hurt by it? My answer is: it is impossible.

This is why I am suggesting you motivate your mother to stop abusing you by appealing to her fear of poverty, the fear of losing her financial support. Impress upon her how you already became forgetful and how your functioning had suffered, gotten worse over time. Which means it is likely to get even worse.

anita