Toxic Mothers & Why Mine Blocked Me

This is one of the most personal posts I’ve written but if this reaches even one person who has been there, know that you’re not alone. I’ve never written about my mother so this is a hard one to write.

I have been dealing with some family drama that triggered me the past couple of weeks. Trigger, meaning, a few sleepless nights due to invasive thoughts and bad memories popping up randomly.

In the past, those memories popping up at random times would be called flashbacks but they aren’t as severe as a flashback. Thankfully, I haven’t had one of those in years due to my continuing work on my mental health.

For context, I am the oldest of 4. I have two younger brothers and a younger sister.

My mother has always played favorites. She has also always tried to leverage her love for us and hold that love over our heads.

My earliest memory of her doing this was when I was in Kindergarten. It was the first week of school. I hadn’t been to school before and was a shy kid so I didn’t make fast friends. The first friend I made was a boy who made me laugh.

I went home that day telling my mother I had a boyfriend (as small children do because they learn language from their parents and other adults around them). I said his name though and her next question and statement scared me. She asked if he was black. I said yes. Then she said if you ever date a (word I won’t repeat) I will disown you.

Even though, at 5 years old, I didn’t really understand what disown meant, what I did understand was that my mother would stop loving me. This is a theme that occurred throughout my life with various people.

I learned at a very early age that love could be taken away at any given moment. It was one of my first lessons. Using love as leverage, especially against a child, is the ultimate form of control.

It’s abuse. Period.

Now, my mother lost custody of us a year later. I’m not going to go into all that but I will fast forward to when I was 21 and all 4 of us were finally in touch with her again. My youngest brother was the person who got us together.

For many years, I was close to my mother. The veil started to fall down though when my youngest was about 4 years old. I was in my 30s by this time.

My sister was the first to break away. Even then though, she encouraged her daughter to keep a relationship with her because we were held back from knowing our mother as children. She didn’t want to do the same to her daughter.

We all believed that our children having a relationship with their grandparents was important and it was important that our kids form their own opinions of their grandparents and not based on our own biases and feelings.

My niece did start to see some things she didn’t like about my mother when she was a teenager but she still tried to maintain some sort of contact with her.

Facebook was the place for that.

My brother’s (second oldest) relationship with my mother, however, was always tumultuous. Yet, he too, wanted his kids to have a relationship with their grandmother.

We all wanted to believe that our mother was a loving person who was just misunderstood and misjudged based on her age when she became a mother (15 or 16).

None of us had complete blinders on though. We knew enough and I remembered enough to understand that she wasn’t perfect and she had made many mistakes that caused us some trauma.

None of which she ever owned up to or apologized for but rather blamed other people. Another common theme in our childhood from various people.

But she is our mother and even as adults, we all want our parents to love us. We all want our parents to be proud of us. When you’re told throughout your childhood that your mother doesn’t love you and doesn’t want you, this becomes a major desire later in life.

Fast forward to recent events though, my siblings and I love our kids. Wholeheartedly and unconditionally. We are also fiercely protective of them. We set boundaries with everyone and we have rules for the grandparents.

Most parents do. One generation of parents does things differently from the previous generation of parents. I’m happy to say that my in-laws respect the boundaries that my ex and I have made in regard to our kids.

I think a lot of grandparents do, generally speaking.

Anyway, one rule we all have is that our kids don’t get any type of medication without our consent and knowledge. Talking with many parents, this doesn't seem unreasonable.

My mother broke that rule. In a huge way. In a DANGEROUS way.

My brother was furious and rightfully so. But rather than accept responsibility for her mistake and apologize for it, my mother turned the tables on my brother and instead said such awful, vile things to him.

Like wishing that his kids hate him and saying that ALL of her kids are dead to her and have been for a long time.

After hearing this, I was upset but not surprised. She has said something similar before. I chalked it up to her being angry and emotionally immature in how she was handling the situation.

She then proceeded to tell him that she no longer wanted to see him or his kids again.

But it didn't stop there. Oh no. My mother had to take it further.

My birthday was last Friday. I turned 46 years old. I had a good, busy day with my boys. Their dad and I watched Guardians of the Galaxy 3 with them and we had ice cream cake and dinner.

It was a good day. The next day, the boys went hiking with me (something we haven’t done in a long time) and went out to dinner afterward. Another great day.

Then Sunday came around and I woke up sad for some reason. I wasn’t really sure why but I knew it was about my mother. I was sad, angry, and disappointed at how she treated my brother. This wasn't the first time she treated him this way.

Last time, I tried to intervene. I wanted to help my mother see his perspective. Instead, she said some really cruel things to me and twisted things to the point I realized I couldn't have a civilized, adult conversation with her. This time, I stayed out of it. I knew any conversation I tried to have would lead nowhere.

But I also realized that she never wished me a Happy Birthday. This was the first year she didn’t since we reunited over 20 years ago.

It was eating at me. I started to get this sinking feeling. So I checked Facebook to see if she posted anything to me. I realized that Facebook never sent me notifications of birthday wishes from people and I missed them.

So I thought maybe my mother posted too. She didn’t. So I went to Facebook Messenger to check to see if I missed it there.

Nothing.

I go to check my friends list. I started getting a bad feeling. My stepdad was still there but my mom wasn’t. Still not wanting to believe what I was starting to think, I went back to messenger to see the messages she sent me. They were still there.

So I click on her name and it said, “This account is unavailable.”

Still not wanting to rule out the possibility that maybe she just deleted her account (the things we tell ourselves right?). I just didn’t want to jump to the conclusion that was in my head, I texted my niece (my sister’s daughter) and asked her to check and see if my mom’s account was still active.

My conclusion turned out to be true. Except, not only had she blocked me but she blocked my niece, my nephew who lives in Florida, and my brother’s oldest child - who is 13.

The 13-year-old has the closest relationship with her. He is deeply hurt and I am so damned angry with her for doing this to him - to any of us - but to him? How could she???

My brother was blocked right after their argument. We weren’t but two days after my birthday I realize that my mother had finally followed through with her threat.

She disowned all of us. Not just her kids but her grandkids as well.

What absolute petty, immature, over-the-top bullshit!!!!

The grandkids did nothing wrong!!

None of us deserved this!

This is her way of “punishing” us for some imagined wrongdoing she cooked up in her own damn head.

Except it’s not a punishment. It’s an answer. It’s an answer to a question that had been plaguing me since childhood. Does my mother love me? Did she ever love me?

She made her answer very clear.

Thankfully, my boys aren’t on social media and were spared this but neither of them has a relationship with her anyway. As my sixteen-year-old put it, “She’s a stranger to me”.

She stopped talking to my boys several years ago, Even when I gave her their cell phone numbers so she could talk to them directly, she never called them.

My relationship with my mother had been deteriorating for a long time. We weren’t as close as we used to be but I still wanted to keep the door open. For myself and for my boys. I never wanted that door to be shut.

She made that choice for all of us.

My mental health has been a challenge lately but I have been working through things. This is one more thing in the pile that I have to work through and sort out.

I will be okay. I am a strong person and have endured a lifetime of this kind of shit but to sit here and say I’m not bothered would be a lie.

I am angry. I am hurt. I am confused. I am sad. But I WILL GET THROUGH THIS. I will not let this interfere with my happiness. This is a temporary setback but one I have to go through.

I have to feel my feelings and work through them. I can’t ignore them. That just leads to depression. But make no mistake, I will get past this and I will be okay.

I know this is long but thanks for bearing with me and

Thanks for reading!