Puck, on 20 February 2019 - 09:42 AM, said:
I have a general question. Maybe I'm really in the wrong here though I can't see how.
Been having HUGE issue with my mother again the past couple of days. She's stressed at work, which I understand (though what I do not understand is why she works so much, seeing as she's retired and doesn't have to work, she just does and overworks herself for no rteason) and our ideas of what a normal apartment Looks like differ drastically. This morning, she blew up in my face (and not for the first time) because I keep my gym bag next to the washing machine. Not in the way of anything, just tucked away in the corner because we can't use the space any other way anyway (slanted walls). I also literally got my scarf throw in my face because I keep it on the Sideboard in the hallway.
Now, my issue is that I do not see any problems with that. For me that's the normal clutter of a lived-in space. Not to mention that our living room, which I DO NOT use outside of hanging the laundry up to dry, looks like a bomb exploded in it and it's somehow my fault, because apparently I have too much time? Because I work from home for three days a week? Neve rmind that she doesn't have to concern herself with things like cooking food or groceries or utility bills, which I take care of. She, despite being a grown Woman, is not able to so much as go to a bank to look at her account balance or make sure her phone is charged up with enough money. In fact, she doesn't even know her own bank account code and I have full access to her bank account because I have her bank card. She doesn't want it because she doesn't want to bother herself with these things (claiming she's got no time for that). I also do all of her paperwork.
I mean, I am not the tidiest person, but I generally keep my clutter to my own room (which she has no Business to do anything in, yet when I was away for two days two months ago, she had the audacity to "tidy up" my room and expected me to thank he ron my knees or or something), and I don't cosider things like a gym bag or a scarf too much to keep in a common living space. Just because she changes jackets and scarves daily and puts them away each time, I don't see why I should. Also, I'd like to Point out that she owns so much stuff, it takes up a full one third of my huge wardrobe despite her having two wardrobes in her own room already.
I pay half of the rent and utilities and some things I pay in full, like phone and internet bills, and the phone I don't even use. I would think I have a right to make SOME space for myself in the apartment. Again, I don't use the living room AT ALL.
Maybe I'm in the wrong, but I really don't see why. We share the rent, so we should be able to share the space as well, as well as the chores. I cook and stuff, every day, but she also expects me to do everything else as she's not home at all except for food and sleep.
Additionally, she expects me to come over to ther work and help her there and also blew up on me about not doing that the other day. Which I get even less than the "I don't want your stuff all over the apartment" thing. First off, I'd have to buy a bus ticket to get to ger and second, I have shit to do. Just because I'm hoem doesn't mean I'm not working. We've already has this same issue when I was still studying where she though if I'm home I have nothing to do even though, you know, I had assignments to do.
Ugh, overall, I've heard so much screaming and so many accusations of the past couple of days I don't know what to think anymore. The worst part is that I'm just at a point where I could say I'm mostly recovered from my depression, yet this shit keeps throwing me back because it's the biggest reason I ended up depressed in the first place. And I can't even talk back because EVERY WORD I say makes it worse.
I still can't afford to move out, but this is not bearable any more. Also, since she's officially on benefits since she's doesn't have enough retirement Money, if I were to move out she'd lose the appartment because for her alone it's too big and too expensive and she's been putting a bunch of money into renovating it (though you've got three guesses at who did the actual painting of the walls and shit).
Ugh, sorry, I guess I really needed to get that off my chest. I realize I Need to get out of there but I'm not really seeing away yet.
Good luck to you and if you succeed let me know your secret. I think we can all relate to one degree or another. My mother is of course my mother and also a teacher of primary grade children. I have learnt that this leads to a dynamic of making her unteachable.
No amount of rational argument, explanations or examples can help her see her hypocrisy or change her behavior. I think the key is to break as said above the mother-daughter dynamic but its extremely hard to do, since you are primarily mother-daughter and not room-mates.
My mother too cant manage her own finances so I do it. Since she insists on providing me the wrong information and turns a 2 min exercise into a 30 min conversation and insists I do it right now, I asked her to please just right down the name, bank account and amount she needs paid to certain people and Ill take care of it when I chance a chance. Since she finds writing 3 pieces of information harder to do then to talk to me for thirty min that took 6 months of work to convince her, then it took 6 months again to get her to stop talking to me for 30 min in addition to given me the information in writing (she would explain what she wrote, it really doesn't need explaining). I'm now trying to work on getting her to stop promising people immediate payments when she doesn't know what I am doing. I have gotten home at 11:20 in the evening from work and been shouted at that she has been waiting for me all day to make a payment (I should also add, I need her phone for two factor security so have to meet her to do the transfers). Since I cant always stop what I'm doing to do an eft for her. The whole thing is incredibly stressful, needlessly complicated and needlessly annoying and all stems from the fact that she is my mother. If it was for work, myself, a client, a friend etc it would be so much more simple because the dynamic would not be so difficult to navigate. Even though she cant do it without me, even though I know more then her, the power dynamic is wrong. Just the nature of the beast.
I get a chuckle when she gets frustrated with my 98 year old grandmother, explaining some finance thing to her for example.
Mentalist 
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