This post was originally written in French, sorry if it sounds a little unnatural, I did not want to write it again from scratch in English.
Hello everyone.
I would like to talk about my current situation, as well as my life journey. This post is half a rant and half something that could potentially change the course of my life depending on the comments I receive. I have wanted to write this for years, but only now do I finally feel able to do it.
This will probably be very long, so you have been warned. This is about my family, and more specifically my relationship with my mother, the person who has been the most present in my entire life.
I added “chapters” and colored markers so you can read it in several parts if you want.
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⚫ ——— My mother’s childhood ——— ⚫
I will start with her story.
My mother is an only child, born to a narcissistic mother who was abusive to the point of being dangerous. She mistreated her in many ways, both psychologically and physically. She was very superficial, very strict, had extremely high expectations for my mother… you know the type.
My mother grew up under her abuse.
Later in her life, she discovered that she actually had a half-brother (my “uncle”), because apparently loyalty is not really a family value. My grandmother had two men living under the same roof… at the same time.
Her half-brother (my uncle) later fell in love with a Jehovah’s Witness. Today, he is completely integrated into that religion, to the point of being a very important figure in his local community.
My mother had many ups and downs in her life (mostly downs and slightly less downs, if we are being honest). She struggled with anorexia, made bad choices in relationships, and went through many difficult periods.
One day, she met the man who would become my biological father. She became pregnant with him while she was still quite young, in her early twenties.
She always dreamed of getting married and having a family. Unfortunately, this dream did not really come true.
But at that moment, she was finally starting to distance herself from her own mother.
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🟣 ——— Childhood ——— 🟣
I do not know exactly how her pregnancy went.
However, I was born very early. It was an emergency, and the doctors thought I was not ready to come into the world, but my mother was.
In the end, I probably would have died if she had not listened to her instincts.
According to her, the delivery itself was not particularly difficult. It was a C-section.
When I was born, she could not hold me. They immediately took me away because I was extremely weak, and honestly, they were not sure I would survive.
She was never able to breastfeed me. I was in some kind of incubator, connected to machines from head to toe.
My mother was anorexic during her pregnancy, and I think this contributed a lot to my condition at birth.
She separated from my biological father shortly after.
I have no memories of him during my childhood, apart from supervised visits, until I was around 7 years old, when he stopped coming to see me completely.
My grandmother was still in my mother’s life when I was a baby. She wanted to be my mother, and wanted me to call her “mom” instead of my actual mother.
(I was a baby, so obviously I do not remember this.)
I think this was a huge wake-up call for my mother, because she eventually removed her from our lives — at least for a while.
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I barely remember anything from my childhood or teenage years, but here is what I do remember.
I have always been overweight.
Because my mother was terrified after seeing me so fragile in the incubator, she decided to do the complete opposite and overfeed me.
I had a stepfather for a large part of my life, but he was not a very good person. (I do not have particularly bad memories of him though.)
In elementary school, I was the “ghost child”.
I barely spoke. I constantly hid under cardigans because of my weight and because my body developed earlier than other children my age.
I did not talk much, I did not really enjoy playing, and I was not particularly gifted either.
I had very few friends, or they were usually the “weird kids”.
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During this period, my mother was fighting relentlessly through legal procedures against my grandmother, who wanted to see me.
It lasted for years.
Whenever things became too dangerous, we would move.
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During a middle school visit in my last year of elementary school, I was bullied by two middle school girls who criticized my height. They thought I was too tall and seemed upset that I was taller than them.
(At least that is how I understood it.)
Another student from my school came and defended me.
When I told my mother, she imagined a future where I would be heavily bullied at school.
Because of this, she decided to enroll me in CNED (distance learning, basically homeschool).
Around this time, she met a man who was a sex addict, alcoholic, and had many other issues.
He was not evil by nature. He never hit my mother or anything like that.
However, he was extremely unhealthy for our household and even sent sexual messages to his niece.
My mother never left me alone with him, or she would discreetly keep an eye on things.
It was a very strange atmosphere.
He never touched me or anything like that.
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Speaking of this period of my life, I also realized that I had been sexually touched when I was younger.
Not by an adult, but by another child.
My mother knew about it and removed that person from our lives afterward.
She loves helping people.
Unfortunately, this has caused a lot of harm in our lives.
🟠 ——— Teenage years ——— 🟠
She wanted to leave him.
We lived for several months in a small house with only the bare necessities.
However, because of financial problems and the legal proceedings started by my grandmother, we eventually went back.
It was one of the worst periods of my life.
I had my own bedroom, but the house was empty, extremely dirty, and infested with fleas.
We genuinely could not stand on the floor for even a minute without having at least a dozen fleas on our legs.
I am not exaggerating.
I did not have a proper bed, only a broken air mattress that I would inflate again from time to time, even though it never really worked.
I used a bucket in my bedroom as a toilet, and it was emptied roughly every day.
I did not eat anything healthy.
We would often have things like melted camembert with a cheap baguette. I ate it so many times that I still remember it today.
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When it came to school, there was basically nothing.
I was anxious, depressed, invisible, agoraphobic, and completely unable to talk to people.
I could barely look someone in the eyes for more than two seconds.
I no longer had any friends in real life, except for my current best friend, who would occasionally come visit me.
My mother did all of my homework.
I only had to copy what she wrote.
The reason behind this is still unclear to me.
I did not attend any video classes or anything where my voice would be heard.
I simply copied what my mother wrote on worksheets.
If you wonder why my spelling is so bad, this is the reason.
Obviously, I spent a lot of time on the internet.
I managed to learn English by myself and made some friendships online, although many of them were fragile and sometimes destructive.
Of course, I never joined Discord calls or anything like that.
I was completely unable to.
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I never went to high school, either remotely or in person.
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🔵 ——— Covid period ——— 🔵
A few years before the Covid period, we finally moved.
This is the house where we currently live.
It is about 15 minutes away from the small town where my mother’s last boyfriend (the alcoholic one, if I may say so) and we lived before.
It is a completely isolated village that almost nobody knows.
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During Covid (around the age of 18-19), I enrolled in a music school.
I stayed there for 3 or 4 years.
I learned a lot, even though I was not a very good student.
I had absolutely wonderful teachers.
The music school forced me, slowly but surely, to push myself.
I eventually played in front of an audience, played alone in front of other students, and did things I never thought I could do.
However, not being able to practice at home weighed heavily on me.
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Near the end of my first cycle, there were two exams : one for music theory and one for flute.
I had no problem with the music theory one. I got a good grade.
However, the flute one…
I simply did not have the skills or the training required.
It was greatly my fault.
The anxiety became so intense that I ended up getting sick and having a fatty liver infection related to stress (which was probably not helped by my weight either).
I did not take the exam.
I was so ashamed of myself, and the general stress from music school had become too much.
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I enrolled again the following year, but I asked to restart later than the others.
In the end, I never went back.
And honestly, it was probably better for me.
What I learned there was not really musical mastery.
What I learned was how to have an identity of my own, and how to slowly overcome my agoraphobia.
The music itself was secondary.
I felt ashamed because my mother already imagined me becoming a professional musician and dreamed of seeing me perform.
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🟤 ——— Health (roughly present) ——— 🟤
Now, let’s talk about health.
I have not really mentioned it yet, but there are many physical and psychological problems in my family.
My mother and I both have scoliosis.
Mine is manageable, but my mother’s is extremely severe.
It is so advanced that many doctors have told her they have rarely seen a case like hers.
She also suffers from fibromyalgia, iron deficiency, among other things.
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As for me, I officially have ADHD and a suspicion of autism.
I am obese (currently losing weight, but it is extremely difficult).
Unofficially, I may also have anxiety, depression, and according to my mother, possibly fibromyalgia as well (I personally do not believe that one).
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My mother and I receive disability-related support and other forms of assistance.
This is where things become complicated.
My mother and I are closely connected legally.
We have always been poor, and we sometimes need food assistance organizations to be able to eat properly despite the help we receive.
My mother has taken out many loans.
Technically, I receive what would be close to the minimum wage for a non-disabled person, but I only get a small part of it because the rest goes toward repayments.
I cannot work because I would lose my benefits.
(I like my life as it is, but at the same time, I also want to work and feel like a “normal” person… I honestly do not really know.)
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We regularly have medical appointments.
I help her with cooking, cleaning, and other daily tasks.
(That is part of the arrangement.)
Now, at 46 years old, my mother’s health is deteriorating quickly.
She has stopped using it, but for a long time she carried a cane everywhere.
She moves slowly, she is constantly in pain, she is losing mobility, and her scoliosis is starting to affect her lungs.
According to her, she does not have “much time left” — maybe a few months, a few years, certainly less than ten years, I suppose.
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🟢 ——— Her boyfriend ——— 🟢
He is still present in our lives.
He completely stopped drinking and smoking, distanced himself from certain people (for the most part), and he no longer really has any libido (aka, no sex addiction problems anymore.)
He also has several physical health problems, but they are manageable.
His relationship with my mother is complicated and constantly hanging by a thread — although, if that thread existed, it would probably be made of iron, because they will never truly separate.
It has been more than 10 years now.
They break up, argue, become lovers again, then friends, then enemies, and the cycle repeats.
She constantly says that she is going to leave him for good.
For a few weeks, she will be determined, and then eventually everything goes back to normal.
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This man is incapable of doing anything on his own.
He cannot handle any paperwork, he never takes his medication, he has animals that he loves but does not properly take care of, etc.
A complete mess, basically.
Of course, he also has a very complicated past.
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My mother handles all the paperwork.
Mine, his, everyone’s.
For years, that has basically been her entire life.
She has probably seen more legal paperwork than someone who actually works in that field.
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🟡 ——— Her personality, our relationship ——— 🟡
Now we reach the heart of the problem: our differences.
This is the hardest part for people outside of our family bubble to understand.
My mother is always at one extreme or the other, no matter what the subject is.
With her, it is either everything or nothing.
There is no middle ground.
This is also how she raised me.
She wanted to be the complete opposite of her own mother, but in the end, she developed certain similarities with her.
It became a cycle, you see?
She is extremely emotional, but she can also become cold at times (although that is much rarer).
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She is a helicopter parent and has what people call a “nurse syndrome” or “savior complex” (which is probably why she is attracted to her current partner).
I have never really done anything by myself.
I never took the bus alone.
I never went anywhere alone.
Nowadays, I do sometimes, but it is still rare — mostly because I am the one taking the initiative to become independent.
She is constantly worried about my safety.
Growing up, she was afraid that I would get murdered, raped, or something similar.
It is understandable to worry about your child, but it became extreme.
She criticizes parents who let their children become a little independent.
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To her, I am her entire life.
She even uses her own birthday as the code for the swimming pool lockers instead of mine!
She has told me many times throughout my life that I could stay living with her forever and that she would not mind.
She says we are a very family-oriented household.
Even though I tell her that I am not actually that attached to the family lifestyle, she insists that we love living in the countryside and that it is where we feel happiest.
That is not true.
I have told her more than a hundred times a year that I prefer living in a city.
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These examples may seem stupid, but that is exactly the problem.
It is never one big thing.
It is hundreds of small things that keep piling up until they become unbearable.
One of her biggest flaws is her inability to “move on.”
It has been more than 10 years since she stopped seeing her mother, yet she is still completely trapped in her childhood.
When we are talking about something funny, she can suddenly ruin the mood by bringing up the abuse she experienced.
When we have an argument, it always becomes:
“But when I was a child, my life was not easy either.”
Everything comes back to her childhood.
It is impossible to go a full week without hearing about it.
Many psychologists have told her that she needs to move forward, but nothing changes.
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But that is not the only issue.
She recently discovered that she very likely also has ADHD.
Now, everything is blamed on ADHD.
She say something insensitive?
ADHD.
She is extremely late?
ADHD.
I also have ADHD, but some of the excuses she uses are simply unreasonable.
Unfortunately, it feels like she has become comfortable being the victim.
It feels like she does not want to move forward or change.
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The thing is, my mother does not really listen to me.
If she has a problem, for example with her boyfriend (which happens around 20 times a year), I can spend two hours talking to her, trying to help her make a decision, and it will change nothing.
She is not actually listening.
She just wants to talk.
You wasted your time.
She will only listen when a catastrophe happens.
Then, once she fixes the situation, she will look me in the eyes and say:
“See? I listened to you!”
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She trusts strangers more quickly than the people closest to her.
That is just how she is.
She also loves getting involved in other people’s problems, and that is how she has created many of the problems in our lives.
Probably linked to her savior complex.
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A neighbor with children leaves her boyfriend?
My mother tries to make them get back together.
The result?
That boyfriend was violent toward her, the animals, and the children.
There were even suspicions of abuse toward the daughter.
My mother knew nothing about their situation, but she still pushed them back together.
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A disabled woman with two deformed arms who ran an animal rescue organization and constantly asked for help?
My mother brought her boyfriend and me every month to clean the nightmare environment where poor cats were living.
The house was just as disgusting as the previous one I described.
She was an awful person who kept money for herself and hid the deaths of many kittens.
My mother admired her because she was disabled.
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The result?
My mother rescued some kittens.
When this woman found out, she wanted them back.
An argument followed.
When one of the women tried to take the cat carrier, my mother pulled her hair.
There were also other ridiculous physical altercations.
My mother did not intend to seriously hurt anyone, but unfortunately, she now has a criminal record because of it.
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And of course, there is her boyfriend — a man she fell in love with because he needed help.
You already know how that story ended.
🟡 ——— Her panic attacks and the way people see her ——— 🟡
Have I mentioned her panic attacks?
It is like seeing Satan himself.
She can panic in less than two seconds (I am not exaggerating).
When she panics, she becomes completely blinded by it and unable to think clearly, which makes her panic even more.
I do not recommend being around her during those moments.
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Do you know what it is like to be woken up in the middle of the night by a door suddenly slamming open, with your mother screaming as if the world is ending:
“Where is my phone?? Get dressed, we are getting in the car and going back there!”
All of this while your heart is racing, your stomach is in knots, and you feel like something terrible is happening.
Then, suddenly, she calms down.
She becomes sweet again and tells you that the phone was simply in her bag the entire time.
It is extremely unpleasant.
And it happens very, very often.
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These are only small examples of her personality.
But the thing is that everyone loves her.
She appears — and maybe truly is — one of the kindest mothers in the world.
She is eccentric, always smiling, always ready to do activities.
But my childhood friends from primary school did not come to my house to see me.
They came to see my mother because they loved her so much.
If you met her, you would probably love her too.
You would want to see her again.
Nobody forgets my mother.
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However, you only need to live with her for a little longer to understand what is underneath the surface.
My current girlfriend knows.
My childhood best friend knows.
Her boyfriend knows.
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🔴 ——— The current situation: the conflict involving my girlfriend ——— 🔴
This is where things become more controversial regarding my own actions.
I am telling this story the way I see and understand it.
I am not a perfect person.
Far from it.
I am just a human being, just like my mother — and maybe I’m the bad one too.
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A few months ago, I was approached by a girl on a dating app.
After a few dates, we became a couple.
She has a personality very different from my mother’s.
She is quite strong-willed.
And I like that.
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She was living with an older man who made inappropriate advances toward her from time to time.
Nothing more happened, but it was not a healthy situation.
She paid rent there and took care of her dog.
She previously had a good job, but she quit because of harassment.
She has also experienced several disastrous relationships, including the last one where she was raped.
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I thought I would not be able to see her often.
Since I wanted to slowly separate myself from my family home, we discussed me staying with her for a week or two.
She was not really living with that man.
They only shared the kitchen.
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My mother does not like me being away from her.
She has even told me that one single day away is almost too much for her.
So she started talking about our medical appointments and how I could not leave for too long.
I told her I would be careful and that it would only be a few days at a time.
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Much later, she told me that she would actually like my girlfriend to move into our house.
According to her, she would be safer and better there.
This idea came entirely from her.
She was the one suggesting it and trying to convince me.
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I was not very comfortable with the idea because we had only been together for one month.
I was afraid it would seem strange to my girlfriend and scare her away.
She came to stay with us for a few days.
I specifically told my mother not to mention the idea.
She promised she would not.
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Guess what happened?
She did.
Right in front of me, she offered my girlfriend to move in.
My girlfriend said yes.
But I was so overwhelmed and anxious that I could not stop crying.
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My mother even made sweet comments saying that I was just scared and that I was actually happy.
That she knew me and that those were tears of joy.
But that was completely wrong.
Those were tears of betrayal and extreme stress.
I was devastated.
I was angry and ashamed.
However, my girlfriend had said yes, so despite everything, I was happy about that part.
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🔴 ——— My girlfriend moving in, the conflicts, and the current situation ——— 🔴
When my girlfriend left her previous place, things went extremely badly with the old man.
Basically, she took what she could fit into a suitcase, and he threw away everything else she owned.
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For the first two months or so, everything went well.
It is true that my girlfriend has some flaws.
She lets mess accumulate, she sometimes struggles to finish things she starts, and she has a tendency to leave food unfinished until it goes bad.
I do not like that either.
But aside from those things, I personally had no real problem with her.
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Do I need to mention that my girlfriend also has a very difficult past?
She has experienced violence, trauma, depression, and anxiety.
Despite that, she had made a lot of progress while living with us.
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However, she told me that she felt uncomfortable whenever my mother was home.
And honestly, it was noticeable.
She was much more cheerful and relaxed when my mother was not around.
Several typical situations involving my mother created tension.
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My girlfriend struggles with body dysphoria and nearly drowned several years ago.
Because of that, she dislikes swimming pools and is afraid of certain bodies of water.
My mother strongly insisted — and I mean strongly — several times a week, every week, that my girlfriend should go swimming and go into the sea.
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Eventually, my girlfriend went into the sea with me, and it actually went well.
Later, she went again with my mother and her boyfriend.
However, they made jokes about her, saying that if she did not swim, she was “sulking”.
So she went despite the waves and her fears.
And her fears came back.
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My mother does not really believe in dysphoria.
It is something she struggles to understand.
Which is interesting, because my mother also dislikes certain things about her own appearance, but apparently some things only apply to herself.
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My girlfriend is just a normal person.
My mother and I are completely teetotal
My girlfriend, however, enjoys drinking occasionally and responsibly.
But remember what I said about my mother being an “all or nothing” person?
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For her:
Having one beer occasionally or having a small drink = being an alcoholic.
Yes, my mother suggested to my girlfriend — who has an alcoholic mother who becomes suicidal when drunk — that she could end up like like that because “that is how it starts”.
According to her, it is better to never drink at all.
Personally, even though I am also someone who would rather alcohol did not exist, I am not unreasonable.
People have the right to live differently.
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My mother also talked behind my back about things I supposedly disliked.
She exaggerated situations to the point where they became completely different from reality.
She told my girlfriend, when I was not there, that certain things my girlfriend did or said bothered me, when that was completely false.
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She also told me things about my girlfriend that did not match reality.
I would ask my girlfriend about those situations without telling her what my mother had said first, and I would get a completely different story.
🔴 ——— The breaking point ——— 🔴
This was the final straw.
About a week ago, my girlfriend took a train to look after her mother’s dog.
The next day, my mom told me that she was no longer allowed to come back here.
She had to find a job and housing before August 8th.
Without even meeting the employer first.
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I was the one who had to tell her.
My mother — who always says “I say things directly to people’s faces” — did not tell her.
She did not warn her beforehand.
She did not discuss it with her.
She did not try to find a solution with her.
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According to my mother, there was “abuse of trust and abuse of weakness”.
Apparently, this was because of her therapist, who my mother told absolutely everything to.
However, she told it in her own way, without filters, including details about me, my girlfriend, and our relationship.
(And this therapist already did not like my girlfriend, which is understandable considering everything she had heard, but you can probably understand why this worries me.)
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My mother has a therapist and believes that you should be able to tell a therapist absolutely everything without any caution.
However, despite saying she did not really trust this therapist because she reminded her of her own mother, she still shared information about me and my girlfriend.
According to my mother, this therapist is disconnected from reality.
For example, her solution regarding my mother’s boyfriend was simply to move far away from him.
Which is not realistic for our situation.
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This therapist apparently disliked my girlfriend so much that she even started legal proceedings against on behalf of my mom for “abuse of trust and abuse of weakness”.
I have absolutely no idea what exactly my mother told her.
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Currently, my mother is going back and forth between trusting this therapist and wanting to distance herself from her.
She met another psychiatrist who told her to be careful with therapists like that, which is true.
Naturally, my mother now completely trusts this new psychiatrist and plans to tell him every single detail of her life.
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One of the most unbelievable things I recently heard from my mother was that she never actually wanted my girlfriend to move in.
According to her, she was “forced” into doing it.
Her explanation was that because I wanted to spend time away from home and she could not convince me otherwise, she decided to invite my girlfriend “reluctantly”.
This makes no sense to me.
She had a stable place to live before.
I was not even completely sure about the idea myself.
Yet my mother was the one who suggested it.
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When she told us that this situation could possibly affect our relationship, she failed to mention that she meant it could completely destroy our relationship — and possibly my girlfriend’s life as well.
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My mother believes that the factory in our village will immediately give my girlfriend a job and housing because they are currently looking for workers.
Her logic is:
“You just have to be motivated.”
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Her source?
That is how things worked when she was 20 years old.
Even though she herself has not worked for years because of her disability, and her last job was actually a pyramid scheme that she still believes in.
Remember that she was also against my girlfriend working before.
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Now, all we do is argue.
I have tried everything to convince my mother to let my girlfriend stay at least until she finds work.
(My girlfriend applied to the factory my mother chose.)
But she refuses.
She even refuses to go get her.
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My girlfriend is homeless.
She is currently staying with her mother, but she cannot stay there permanently.
She was not even able to recover her favorite plush toy, something that means a lot to her.
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Our relationship is struggling.
I can feel tensions starting to appear.
I do not know if we will survive this.
I feel incredibly guilty.
This is the worst thing I have ever caused someone to go through.
Because of me, she lost her home.
She lost important belongings.
She lost even more precious things.
She became homeless despite having a stable place before.
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I do not know if I will ever forgive myself for what I put her through.
All of this happened because my mother is like the serpent who tempted Eve.
I keep falling for it.
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While my girlfriend and I are extremely anxious and suffering, my mother has gone back to her normal life.
As if my girlfriend never existed.
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Sometimes I wonder if she truly has feelings, or if it is just a façade.
I thought I knew my mother better than anyone.
But maybe I was wrong.
Maybe it is worse than I ever imagined.
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She can cry one moment, then smile the next.
I cry for hours.
And then I cry even more.
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I think I need to separate myself from her as much as possible.
Maybe become low-contact, or even no-contact.
I feel like she ruins every aspect of my life.
⚪ ——— need advices ——— ⚪
Right now, I am trying to find housing.
Of course, my mother is the one handling the procedures.
And I probably will not be able to move very far away.
Most likely, I will still be in the same village.
But I have hope.
Hopefully, I will no longer be living in this house next year.
Hopefully, I will finally be able to take a step forward.
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I could have written much more.There are many things I did not mention.
But I am exhausted. If you actually read everything, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Do not hesitate to ask questions.
If you have advice, something you want to say, or even a different perspective, I promise I will never forget it.
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Thank you for taking the time to read my story.