My Mother Emotionally Abuses Me

Hello, I am a 20 year old who stays with my mother. Right now I don’t know what to do or who to turn to. Half of my life my mother has been mentally abusing me. She always has bad things to say about me to other people, then when I say something about it she would get mad at me and say I don’t know what I am talking about or I am crazy, dumb, fat, ugly and so on.

I really cant understand why she treat me like she do. . when I was young I use to take it but now, I feel like its really affecting my life because I find myself down a lot. I really don’t believe in myself at all and its really hard for me to love myself and to be happy with who I am.

No I have not always been right, but I am human and its like she don’t understand that I will make mistakes and I have. I cant handle it no more I don’t know what to do or who to talk with about this. I feel like I am losing my mind, I cant think about nothing but the things she say about me or to me. It hurts me a lot that she will look at me in the way she does. Al ot of people my age go through this much worse than me and the ones who cant handle it are the ones who kill themselves, but i don’t want to do that.

I have a daughter to worry about and I don’t want this to keep getting in to way of my life. Right now I have no where else to go, if I did I would be gone long ago. I just need some advice. Please help me.

-Candice

Dear Candice,

Thanks for sharing your situation with me and I’m sorry you haven’t had a mother that loves and cherishes you, but instead a mother who takes out her own frustrations and insecurities on you.

My advice to you is rather simple. You are an adult and the beauty of being an adult is that we have the power to choose who we want in our lives and where we live. You do have options. I don’t know of anywhere that assistance isn’t given to single young mothers, for housing, food etc. So you do have places you can go.

So I encourage you to go to social services and explore your options and get out from under you mother’s roof. Her behavior is not only damaging to you but also to your child and it’s not a good environment to raise your child in. When you have your own place, you can set the rules such as your mother is never allowed to speak to you in a negative or an abusive way or she will be told to leave.

Also, I suggest you try to see some type of counselor regarding your own self esteem and self perception. Your mom has no doubt done some damage that needs to be undone. You need to take steps to avoid treating your child the same as your mother treated you as these things can be cycles in families. You need to break the cycle of abuse.

All the best,

Ted