What you're keeping inside of you that you need to share - anonymously. To purge.
My own mother despises me, but she can't admit it.
Like have you ever read Ordinary People? It's like that. My dad doesn't despise me, but he won't stand up to her. Every thing she says to me, it's wrapped in hatred, but trying to present itself as love. It's real disturbing. Nothing I do or try to be is good enough to overcome this hatred, but a double standard exists for other siblings (probably because she doesn't hate them...)
Today's first examples: upon opening my eyes, she is standing over me, berating me for being lazy and having no direction in life, implying that I don't have any purpose or am not trying to get anywhere. She says it in a high-pitched voice like it's some joke, but the words are poisonous. She said I was "nothing but an object to collect dust." The funniest part is that recently I've had a big break and a creative work of mine is actually finally getting somewhere and could lead to something exciting! Did she care? No, she refused to even look at it. Yet, for my sister, she was willing to drive to a recent art exhibit and faun over it.
I'm at the point where I don't care anymore, so I'm just shutting out everything she says. For good.
At least once a week, she goes off the handle and implies I'm lazy, crazy, a whore, a failure, or-- fill in the blank.
But I'm not listening anymore. I think I have to choose not to care about her either.




I didn't read the book, but I saw the movie. And I lived it, the relationship between me and my mother was equally contentious but less overt than what you've described. Lots of emotional abuse, gaslighting, pulling the rug out from under me. Nice to my sister, though. Our father never left her. I made a vow to leave as soon as I graduated high school. I went away to college, then moved across the country for a job after graduation. She died before I realized she wasn't capable of changing because her childhood was s wreck that she'd never gotten help to deal with. Now I'm left to seek therapy before I get so depressed I kill myself.
<3
<3 Don't listen to her. Stay strong until you can get out. Then get. out.
I can't guess at the underlying motives for her behaviours. Sometimes, parents behave more like jealous siblings than protectors. They haven't finished growing up. They're stranded at an emotional age when things went awry for them. They may envy some supposedly smooth passage you have that they didn't. Sometimes, they pretend that children are to blame for some destiny beyond their control. Sometimes they project unresolved nonsense because... so many reasons.
Sweetie, she won't stop being your mother and I cannot change her. But if you need a really awesome artsy maternal figure to cheer you on, I am happy to. Happy to be your Art Mother. N.B. I have plenty of superpowers, but I cannot turn pumpkins into coaches.
Yay <3 <3 <3 thank you, art mother (: (: (:
I've had a similar problem with my mother, but she had alcoholism to blame. Noting about my career or life like that in general since I have a more hands-on job that's easier to see a direct outcome. (I appreciate the sacrifice of time and resources from artists, BTW. You work as hard as I do!) however, she would constantly find something I'd done wrong to explode over. But, again, she is an alcoholic. Maybe it's time to have a talk about respect with her, or maybe you start doing more work around the house to make it appear like you're busier. If she refuses to talk, see a family counselor with her. It's almost always better to have that third party on my experience.