Can someone give me mother/daughter advice?
My two daughters are now, 19 and 26. The eldest and I have major issues. I was a child when she was born. A teenage mother who had no idea or finances to care for her. I had to take welfare. A stupid teenage mistake brought me this beautiful baby and I had her, regardless of how hard it would be. My
mother stepped in and helped me out, but she went beyond that. She was a very controlling woman, who had her own two sons taken by LA county and so to make up for it, she took my daughter. One day, I arrived home, and CPS was there and she had told them I was incapable of caring for her, suffered depression and didn't know how. I explained to the social worker that I was young, and
sad from not having a job yet, but that I loved my daughter. At that point, my mother used that as a reason to overtake my child. Having lived with me because she didn't have money for her own place, at that time, she came in handy with her baby help. I was young and stupid and I really made a mistake letting her take over, because she fell in love with the baby and ended up taking complete and total control of her. Having moved downstairs at one point on my own (leaving her my apartment), she kept a crib upstairs and I'd have to call and ask for my child. When she would allow me to come up to get her (on occasion), she would call me and ruin the entire visit and demanded her back for every reason under the sun, before I got to enjoy her company.
Years went by. I didn't stand up to my mother. I figured I had failed my child and she already showed signs of resentment... when I'd go to pick her up, she'd run to her nanny and ask if it was okay. She always acted like I was going to hurt her (which brought back memories of me as a child going to hug my father, and my mother's words echoing in my mind... "He's dangerous, be careful...he beat his other
children") and I know what she said to her. Well, at 5 years old, I made a huge stand. I tried taking my daughter back. I kept her, against my mother's wishes and told her, look... this is my child. I appreciate everything you did for her and for me but she is MY child and my mother made such a fuss... she would come and retrieve her for an hour, saying it was a visit, and then there was every single excuse under the sun not to bring her back. Days would go by... weeks... finally, I'd get someone to take me over here to get her (I had no vehicle. I was very poor because I lived in the real ghetto and it's all I could afford). When I'd show up, she'd be "sleeping" or "sick" or I couldn't take her that day... try again soon. Weeks would go by and I'd find myself getting her much more often because I really put an effort out... maybe 10 days a month, and as it proceeded, I just got sick of it. Finally, I moved out of
town with my child and my other daughter, then 2, and went up to {location removed} to live. I figured the distance would give my eldest daughter time to bond again with me and we'd be close like we were when she was little. But, she beat on her little sister, and she always pushed me away. She held me in resentment for not being there, yet when I was, she didn't want me. She confided later, as an adult, that my mother was HER mother and that she felt that my taking her home was cruel. She didn't want to be with me.
Well, I hoped all that would pass, and I lessened the time with her grandmother. Our relationship became very strained (mother's and mine) and I almost hated her at times for her manipulative control over me and my child. She would call CPS on me monthly. They were always at my house. After 13 years of CPS showing up, we finally threatened the county with a lawsuit. Not once, in 40 something visits, had they found anything wrong with me or my mothering. They had even gone to the extent of taking my children out of school and looking at their bodies for marks and questioning them. The head of CPS locally, apologized. She admitted that there was a continuous caller and when I said it had been my mother, and I knew it, she said that she could not tell me that. That it was sealed, however, if it was my mother, she would forever be barred from calling again. My daughter was 13 at that point... sister was 6 or 7. At that piont, with no basis for child abuse, the county closed our status (it took 13 years... meantime, I was terrified to answer my own door).
Finally, we had some peace, but the damage was extensive. Why didn't I just pack up and move? I know it sounds ludicrous, but if I had, my mother would have never spoken to me again and although she put me through living hell... part of why it kept going was she had an incredible hold on me and I
didn't know how to function without it. I was young. I was stupid. I made mistakes.
By 15, my daughter would scream at me and threaten me and we'd find ourselves in near-physical confrontations. I would threaten, scream, we'd almost go physical. It was awful. I called the Sheriff and he told me to put her on the ground. I did, and it just felt abusive to me, so I stopped, but not after trying it a few times and I think that really put us further apart.
At 16, she called that same sheriff, while I was at work and I came home to no daughter. She had packed her things and that sheriff took her to her grandmother's and she refused to come home. I gave up at that point and let her stay.
She was happy. My mother let her have a boyfriend who had no parents come live with them and move in (I was shocked) and she let her do anything she wanted. She gave her lavish things I couldn't give her and it didn't matter all the times I had tried to show her love or not. She had bonded with my mother, loved her more and there wasn't anything I could do about it. I had totally screwed up.
Well, she's 26 now. On my birthday, 2010, I turned 45. We went to the bar my daughter worked in (bartender) and she bought me drinks. I don't drink anymore (I did for a couple years.. the pain was a lot. I was burying it, but stopped when it became a habit), but we did some karoke and had fun and I thought things were good, but soon as she started to take me home, she started on me and screamed at me how horrible a mother I was and what a bad person I am, how lazy, manipulative, and disgusting
I was, all the way home.
We had lost my mother in July, six months prior, and it was devastating... but in a way, relieving. I was thinking maybe we could bond... I was hoping. Well, after over an hour of bantering me, telling me I failed, things you should never say to a mother... some true (I admit it, I screwed up but I was so young and so easily manipulated), and how I had let my ex husband be mean to her (I never saw it, but she says he was), and how I had failed her completely,
I finally told her that she had never been unwanted and I had always wanted to have her all to myself. She grimaced, with her teeth, looked at me and said, "I don't care what you wanted. I didn't want YOU", and at that point, I realized how much she's truly loathed me.
Well, after she said that, she took it back and said she was sorry and we needed to try to work out our relationship. She laid her head on my chest and I sobbed. I felt such hope. I thought, I will do anything I can to fix this! Anything.
She's always been on me about my house, and about my animals, and about several things she views as shortcomings by me, so I have been working very hard on those. My home is spotless. I got rid of my dog I loved so much for her (he lifted his leg on things, and she's right, he was not a good dog, but he was someone I loved, regardless) and I am lazy, it's true. I am really heavy. 400 lbs. I am in very very poor health and I have gone through 10 months of cancer screening, but when you are ill and depressed and heavy, it's hard not to be lazy. Well, she says I am and she is right. I could do more, so I have been trying.
This week, she was ultra cruel. During a conversation about picking her sister up (her sister lives with her and she uses her to control me, like my mother did... she controls her sister too and is very very hard on her about work and anything she can do to compare her sister to me. She views me as a complete failure and she tells her sister she is just like me that she has to change or she will be ruined like I am), during our conversation, I was trying to be nice and I invited her to the holiday dinners. I explained I've got a spotless home now, for you and I have got rid of my dog and I have wonderful plans how to make our holidays better, and she totally went off on me. She said holidays were always my thing and my other daughter's thing (my other daughter never saw a babysitter. I kept her and if my mom asked, I refused), and she said that she didn't give a F about the holidays and had no plans spending them with me. She said later, "My mother died in July. You are manipulative, a liar and lazy".
She has been really hard on me. So I sought out some help. This person told me that I have completely deluded myself. That my daughter has no intentions of ever changing her feelings toward me and she's just got me jumping through hoops to change myself and better myself for her so she can continue her punishment of me, for whatever she sees as my failures. I told her this and it ended on a bad note. I also told her, though, that the pain stops here and I can't stand this anymore. That I am discontinuing contact until she can talk to me like a human being.
I feel guilty. I am questioning my decision. I don't want this arguing and hate to continue. At my birthday, we both promised to try harder and I begged her forgiveness for anything she thought I did wrong as a mother... naming several things she had stated while screaming at me... and I named and asked for each one as forgiveness. I am not shucking the truth. I screwed up, I am sorry for it, it's time we go forward... but even though it was supposed to be the epiphony that changed our lives, and fixed it all, it hasn't. She's been harder on me than ever, the past 3 months.
I'm afraid my daughter will never try to contact me or doesn't want to and those horrible things, and my deliberately cutting her loose (which she already resents me for in the past) will cause her not to ever want to see me again. I'm afraid I made the wrong decision and totally ruined it now.
My mother's death anniversary was July 5. I have had so much loss. My father, mother, best friend, 2 sisters, ex, aunt I loved, and people in my life who meant SO much and all I have left, truly, is my family here. These two girls are everything.
I don't know what to do and I'm totally at a loss. I am all ears. Let me have it. If you want to tell me something about this situation, I will accept the truth and words at face value. No whitewashing it folks, please, give me some advice.
I find myself so depressed. I cry every single day. I cry when I'm supposed to be sleeping. I can't function. I don't bathe. I have truly considered suicide over this pain and although I am going to seek out some medication for depression, I honestly have NO idea what to do at this point.
I'm all ears. I will respect your opionions, negative or positive.
Thank you in advance.
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