Dear Worldofthewaterwheels,

I am glad you are seeing a therapist, even if you’re not sure if “any of this introspection will lead anywhere.” It’s good to talk to someone non-judgmental and someone who doesn’t compete with you. Because so far, when you complained to your mother, you said she was “a narcissist” about it:

My mom offers her advice but is very much a narcissist in that, she is able to play the expert when i am depressed and when i have achieved something great..she goes a bit quiet, pulls away and doesnt look happy

Does being a narcissist mean that when you complained about your problems, she offered you advice but had no empathy? Like, criticizing you and almost lecturing you while trying to be “helpful”? (because that’s what my mother did)

You also said:

Whenever i am super vunerable, feeling mad at the world and upset like this..my mother has no words of support for me.. She will in fact find ways to tell me off and make me feel worse. There are times when you just want someone to hear you out, for them to tell you something that will calm you..to listen to you.

So when you want to have some empathy and understanding from your mother, and some comforting words, she doesn’t listen. In fact, she will say things that will make you feel worse. She will mention someone who is successful (e.g. your sister), or she will start complaining about some minor problem of her own, totally disregarding your pain:

She invariably talks about someone who has everything going well or some really small problem that SHE has and my mom is really well taken care of. In this case she said how my sibling is looking for a property to buy and i wasnt helping her (my sister just recently bought an expensive property last year) they are doing amazingly well because where they live the income is relatively good (in USA), he works and my sister raises her child and supports business but generally has a lot of free time. She wants to buy something near us and i want to be happy for her but she has had so much good fortune its sometimes too much to hear. It feels like my mom wanted to thrust that in my face again.

You said your parents support you, but unfortunately I don’t see any emotional support (at least as far as your mother is concerned), even if they might be helping you financially:

Im tired of looking to my parents as a source of my problems..even if they fit a picture, they have been supportive through this. I know you might say its perpetuating a certain pattern in my life but right now..i have no one else really around me.

I have needed their help financially quite a bit

Emotional support is at least as important as financial support. And in our childhood, emotional support is KEY for the child’s healthy development, much more important than having plenty of material things.

My parents also provided for me materially, but I was very much deprived emotionally. And in my adulthood too, as my mother gave me money, she also expressed her disapproval of me and in general made me feel weak and not good enough. She never said she has faith in me, for example.

I think something similar might be happening with you too. It seems to me that your mother’s support comes with a “twist” (dismissal of your feelings, criticism, comparison to others). And it might be actually contributing to you feeling hopeless and like a failure (I also just dont have faith that what i put my heart into will be a success, ive seen so much disappointment that i cant bear any more.)

That’s why I think you shouldn’t really expect to get emotional support and understanding from your mother, because it will only bring you down. Instead, keep going to therapy and talk to someone who can really hear you, someone different than your mother.

I hope you’ll keep sharing here, as well…