I usually avoid serious or religious conversations w my TBM mom, but every time she ropes me in I end up w at least one feverblister and an emotional wreck for up to a week or so. I want a relationship w my mom but it hurts so much. Sometimes I feel so helpless and alone. I'm never myself around my family because i know they wouldn't accept me. They dont visit or call and expect us to come to them everytime and my mom says I am the selfish one because I walked away from my temple covenants. My siblings just dont want to expose their children to my bad influence. My children want to see their grandparents and cousins but they are too young to understand how difficult it is for me. I have always felt family is important but getting physically sick around my TBM family is making it hard to pursue relationships w them. I'm just struggling here.

And while it may hurt, it may be in yours and your children's best interests if you stopped seeing your family. It can be very difficult making that move, but you have to ask yourself; is it worth the fever-blisters and being an emotional wreck for a week? They've made it resoundingly clear that they are unwilling to accept you for you. Why have a relationship with someone who's verbally abusive towards you? Why have a relationship with someone who can never love you as you are, someone who can never accept you or have a meaningful relationship with you? Sometimes the best decisions are the most difficult ones to make.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2012 10:46PM by Strykary.

Give her fair warning; when she starts, kindly tell her that you'll either have to hang up or leave the room, or whatever the case is, and then do it, with an "I'm sorry, but I have to go now. I told you I won't talk about this because it makes me sick. Bye."

I'm sorry about this - family issues can be so painful. If we didn't love them, there wouldn't be the possibility of feeling hurt. Good luck. I'm not in favor of completely jettisoning a family or member unless the situation is truly dire, but setting firm limitations on certain things is crucial to your well being.

Just remember - don't let her get a foot in the door in regards to certain topics. Calm but firm does it, and stick to it. Don't back down or let her worm her way in. It's hard to set new parameters, and people don't like their family members to change, but hang in there! You're not a scared little kid anymore.

i know how you feel i have a tbm mama too

Run away to another state and create a new life with non Mormons. The world is your oyster. There is a whole world of fun accepting people just waiting for you to discover them!

that the social contract goes forward.

meaning that what your parents give you, you are expected to pay it forward. your obligation is to your progeny, not your parents.

and that's exactly what you are doing. what is best for your children. you are removing them from toxicity by any means necessary.

and for that, your children and grandchildren will thank you.

they're like the internet provider that wants you to Bundle ALL their products together:

If you want X, you have to also pay for Y.

IOW, Y is Bad, at least less desireable, even tho you might possibly enjoy X.

that's the package Mormonism offers ppl when they begin to see its flawed.

'If you want affection & a social relationship, you Must also accept Mormonism'.

Doesn't say much good about Mormonism, does it?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2012 12:28AM by guynoirprivateeye.

Mormonism. the family religion. MY ASS!

I'm so sorry that you have to deal with this. I used to think I was in the minority with this problem. Coming to RFM has shown me otherwise.

I'm so glad that the internet has made it possible for us to connect with each other and tell our stories. Now we know, we are not alone. There are so many of us that are what my husband refers to as the missing and wounded.

MIA, I'm starting to think you got it right.
I somehow thought I could try to keep a relationship with my tbm mom and older siblings
but sadly, I believe I may need to walk away from them...
I thought that my mom would be different,
but she's just like the rest.
It's a bitter, bitter realization, but a bit of a relief.
She has always,ALWAYS chosen the church before her children.
Painful realization, but a relief.

To the op, it will get better, with time...
hang on

You can't have a relationship with someone who doesn't respect you. In order to get her to respect you, you are going to have to amp up your level of verbal aggression with her ever so slightly. Basically you have to put up a better verbal defense. This may seem very foreign to you, but you learn through practice.

My sense from what you've written is that you still see yourself in a diminished position with regard to your mom. This has to change. You have to see yourself as being fully her equal.

Start with eye contact. Look her in the eye. Sometimes just staring coolly and silently at someone who has made an outrageous comment to you is enough to get her to stop.

Develop a repetoire of responses to her. I would start with, "Mom, we don't agree about religion so it would be better if we don't discuss it. You may not like that, but that's how it is. We're going to have to agree to disagree."

If she persists, that's when you need to ramp it up. You can say, "mom, cut it out," or "you'll get over it." If she talks to you about your temple covenants, tell her that she doesn't want to hear your opinion about Joseph Smith, so she'd better stop. When you respond in an appropriately aggressive manner, maintain eye contact and don't smile. That lets her know that you mean business. She's not used to that from you, so she may test you on that for a bit.

You were brought up to be nice, but nice isn't always an appropriate response. She isn't being nice to you. Set some boundaries and be very, very firm about enforcing them.

Another effective option is to walk away. Once you have informed her that religion is off limits, if she violates that, hang up the phone immediately ("Gotta go! Bye!) or walk out the door.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2012 08:58AM by summer.

Your head is not smart enough to stop your TBM mom from discussing her religion with you and so your whole body is suffering.

You can either continue this abusive pattern or you can put an end to it -- that is your choice. Ending this abuse from your mom means cutting off ALL contact with her. Do that for five years and see how much better your life is.

The difference between friends and family is that we get to choose our friends. When your family is toxic then they are certainly not the type of people you would choose as friends.

So cut them off. *NO MORE CONTACT*

so I never had to take that part into consideration.

Also, I don't know exactly what you have done so far, so, of course, take what I say with a grain of salt.

I've had some success with just saying "I don't discuss religion." Once someone replied, "everyone discusses religion." I just repeated, "I don't discuss religion." The second time it worked.

How did, the most recent incident start? We're you discussing some other interpersonal issues that sequed to religion? Maybe you have to avoid discussion of interpersonal issues. Not much of a way to have a relationship, I know.

Is it possible to always have a 2nd person with you when you are with your mother so you are not alone. Someone you trust and who would take your point of view, not gang up on you along with your mother?

Is it possible to limit the time you spend with her? Say 1/2 hour with a long break and then another 1/2 an hour?

Frankly, I think that would be more work than I would want to put in to most any relationship.

Then you would have to decide if you want to escalate as summer pointed out so well above.

I finally decided I didn't want to be in contact with my TBM mother and was not for about 20 years. I knew at the time that such would deeply affect my relationship with my sibs and indeed it did. That was the hardest part. But if they could not relate to me as me, and not be part of a triangle with my TBM mom, it wasn't good for me to be in touch with them either.

My mother died about 1 1/2 ago, so I have some perspective on the whole thing now. I'm sad that it had to be that way but I'm still very clear that there was no other way that it could have been. Otherwise, I would never have become a happy, autonomous adult.

As it turned out, I spoke briefly at her funeral and I had a lot of good things to say. There had been good things between us and she was a very good person in many ways. But that was no reason to let her hurt me at other times and it was clear to me that she couldn't stop hurting me when it suited her purposes.

I don't have regrets, all though there are times when I wish it could have been different. But I'm very sure it could not have been. That's why I did things they way I did them. And there are times when I remember the pleasant times and miss them.

I'm told that after I cut contact with her, she let up a lot on some nieces and nephews who were not TBM, so maybe it helped the whole family system. It's hard to be sure about that sort of thing and such was not my motivation. My motivation was simply to protect myself.

I'm rebuilding some relationships with some sibs. They sure don't mess with me maybe because they know where that might lead. I get on better and more with some of them than others, in part depending on how TBM they are.

Thanks for giving me the chance to process and hope at least some of thie helps.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2012 08:40AM by lulu.

In fact, I have several people in my family who has, in the past, gotten physically ill by interacting with certain family members (or even anticipating contact with them).

One person's solution:
* backing away drastically (almost completely) from those relationships and figuring out what was bothering so much. *Also, redefining the relationship (more distant, with you as an independent agent with the choice in your own life)
*learning to say "no" to impositions on time or other requests/demands, including demands for information
*Learning to discount the opinion of those who would judge and condemn. Stop trying to appease or please them. Learn that YOUR opinion counts the most to you. They have the problem, NOT YOU.
*Talking to someone reasonable who understands, or even has witnessed the situation
*speaking up and disagreeing when someone tries to impose their warped view of reality on you, while having a safe place to retreat to (the ability to leave or hangup).

I'm happy to say that this person is much less vulnerable to manipulation (and getting sick) from interaction than they were a few years ago. The relationships are much more distant, but they are happier this way.

There are other people that require the hard boundaries I listed above.

When any relationship has reached a toxic stage, most mental health professionals recommend a separation. This is not meant to be permanent necessarily, but to allow the dust to settle and some clarity to be introduced.

If you stop all contact with your family, after a time they may contact you. When they do, you can make it clear that you would like to have a relationship with them but it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up between a mormon family and a non-mormon family.

It must not be between a Mormon family and an Apostate family. The word apostate, while fun for us here, actually ties you back to the church. Your apostasy must not be part of your future relationship with your family. If it is, I doubt you will ever have a relationship worth having.

In my case, the distance I created with my family and my unwillingness to address any of their religious issues payed off in the long run.

I really feel for you. I hope all these great posts here help.

Sounds like you need a vacation away from your entire family. I recommend starting with 6 months to 1 year of zero contact so you can decompress.

During that time period, visit a therapist who can help you develop tools and techniques to cope with that kind of stress.

Re-introduce family into your life a little at a time to see what your tolerance level is, then maintain a lower level of exposure.

Best wishes.

Then you have to learn to set boundaries.
and have to stay in touch for those reasons, then be polite but firm.

"I can't discuss religion, when I do so it makes me feel ill."

"Can we agree to disagree and please keep religion off the table?" and talk about other things instead.

If doing that fails (I've tried it and it really doesn't work with ultra serious super TBMs), then I just limit my contact to sending birthday cards and happy mother's/father's day phone calls etc. Anything more than that and it gets really challenging to the point of me feeling sick.

Breaking off a relationship helps your recovery because you do need time for your own internal work to help you regain the real self which Mormonism erodes for its own benefit.

That being said, there is no need to hurt your mother unnecessarily but to speak your truth with love, i.e.,

"Mom, I am working some things out with my leaving the church and I need some space to do some healing, so I won't be visiting for a while. I want you to know I love you and am asking for your understanding."

There is no point in asking her not to talk about religion until she has had some breathing room so she can adjust to the idea that her heart still beats and you still love her, so she can feel like a good-enough mother despite your choice to leave the church.

When you are ready, you can say something like, "Mom, you are much more than your religion. I want to connect with you in other ways, like interests we've shared with (cooking, sewing, camping, quilting, art, writing, history, scrapbooking, whatever). Do you think we could do that?"

She should be so hungry for contact with you that she will be much more willing to sacrifice her brainwashed directive to preach, preach, preach, for the chance to connect with the child she loves and fears she has lost.

Here's the most important part for you to think about: When contact with a person on a subject results in physical symptoms, these are a conversion of feelings. When our feelings have to be converted to appear in our conscious life, it is a signal that we need help to deal directly with them. I don't know you at all, but my guess is that your mother's voice and criticism of you choosing to love truth more than the words of a corporation triggers the very conditioning she instilled in you--that you are a failure, a disappointment, not good enough, an enemy of god, a bad person, dangerous to children, a bad influence, a bad sheep, a prodigal daughter, you name it.

If you didn't have those ideas deep in your subconscious already, it wouldn't bother you. So while you are on a break from the guilt-tripping, I suggest that you work with a professional therapist, if you can afford it, to directly counteract the conditioning and to express the feelings of anger you are repressing.

If you cannot afford it, and most of us can't, you can do it yourself. Alice Miller, the famous psychologist who broke with Freud on the subject of child abuse, she did her own with the help of her art as an outlet. You can do your own with Tara Brach, the therapist, who has a remarkable series called "Radical Acceptance." She teaches meditation and visualization techniques that I have used and have taught my daughters and people here on RfM.

Through a growing belief in learning how to speak my truth with love, I recently was able to tell one of my daughters that I was not a good mother, that I did not do my best, and I was sorry. She teared up and fell into my arms standing right there on the street. I told her in her ear that I did not have the courage to confront my own childhood pain and worked it out instead on my children--leaving my still defensive/selfish/manipulative and damaging them. I told her my hope for her was that she would have more courage than I did and talk to me about her memories and the real neglect/abuse that she suffered.

She told me she wanted to forgive me. I interrupted her and said, "Not until you process your justified feelings and remember accurately some of the things that happened." (Some of these things I remember, like leaving her when she was very sick with a babysitter so I could go partying. She was so feverish she was having hallucinations. I had worked hard all week being a mother and was determined to have some fun, so I just did what I wanted. She has a screen memory of that incident that is much more flattering to me. We will work on this together in the future.)

I am telling you this because love is the strongest force in the universe and mother love is stronger than Mormon brainwashing. And she can change. If I can change (I was a Nazi Mormon mother), so can she.

What changed me? One of my children said she never wanted to see me again. My youngest child. Some years later, I thanked her--boy was she startled. So don't think cutting your mother off is necessarily a bad thing.

It may be the greatest gift she ever received.

Anagrammy

Anagrammy,
Thanx for that.
I just recently experienced the benefits of cutting off contact with my parents.
They came for a short visit about a month ago after almost 2 years of minimal contact, and it was literally the first time in my life (I am 35) that I felt complete acceptance from them.
I was even able to have a good and honest conversation with my dad about why I left the church and they both agreed that we had very good reasons for leaving, but that Mormonism works for them and they understand that it doesn't work for everyone.

They had been some of the most rabid and judgemental TBM's before, the change was almost twilight zoneish.
My dh, kids, and I were actually sad to see them go- a total first.
They are off on their senior mission right now, and I hope it is an eye opening experience for them, and I am looking forward to visiting them when they are done, an idea that always gave me a migraine before.

So, people can change and we are doing them a disservice if we allow them to comfortably treat us poorly when they need the discomfort of being expected to treat us like human beings, or not get to interact with us at all. Then the ball is in their court, to either change for the better, or go on with their life without us.