My mother never liked my dad's mother. She thought she was dirty, lazy, and mean. I am the youngest of three. My sister (the middle) was severely mentally and physically handicapped her whole life and my mother cared for her. My mother and I have always had issues getting along. We where arguing about something a few months before she died and she said my brother had such a good heart and that I was like Cora (my dads mother who she hated). This is eating away at me thought it does explain how I was treated my whole life. How do I get past this?
I have a friend of 68 yrs, kindergarten on up. Its one of those friendships where we don't see each other a lot but when we do its like old times. I was invited to her sister's home 7 hrs away for TG. GF was there and other family members I have known for years. We women all went shopping (one man) to a nearby dept store. We all went our separate ways. My GF was driving so when we were done two cousins and I got in her car. She was waiting for another cousin to get gas and have him follow her back to sisters. I am a talker but her cousin runs a close first to me. All of a sudden she sees the gas station has a convenience store and says "I am going in to get a soda" At the same time GFs sister calls to say dinner is ready. Up to now I have not said a thing but I make somekind of comment. My GF says "can u shut ur mouth for just 5 min". I was shocked and hurt because she has never said anything like that before to me. And this time, I have been pretty good. She apologized the next say but it hurt for a long time. It still does and I think it changed our friendship. Yes, I try to let it go but its still there.
So I see where ur coming from. And I do understand that maybe she may have felt this way for a long time and maybe that is why you weren't as close. But, it really does not do you any good to dwell on it. Keep pushing it back and eventually it will deem. May pop up every so often, just push it back down because you know your not the person your Mom thought you were.
When I was 10, my mother started yelling at me loudly for no reason that I could fathom. I was walking through the kitchen when she unleashed that I was mean, selfish, lazy and vain like two other women in our family. It was an attack on my character. I'd never experienced this before, and I started sobbing. I didn't know how she could say that about me. I didn't think I was any of those things, unless "vain" means wanting to hold my hair back with a blue barrette so it doesn't flop in my eyes. I still don't know who those two other women could have been. I never got over it and my relationship with mom was never the same.
As an (older) adult I realized that it had never been about me. My mother was most certainly mean, selfish, and vain, though I don't believe she was lazy. I couldn't see her clearly for who she really was until I grew up and got away.
Maturity is how you get past it, and you will. And by the way, I now know that I was never mean, selfish, lazy or vain. No one in this world would ever judge me to be any of those things - not by a long shot.
I'm pretty sure there are plenty of people in this world who think you have a good heart! Your mother no longer gets to tell you who she thinks you are. Aren't you glad?
You aske someone who 'loved her' and you'd get a 180 degree turnabout by someone who didn't.
Mom was super, super close to her dad. Not so much her mom. So, of course she loses Gpa when he was 64---and he life was never the same, although she lived another 60 years, she never got over his death.
She loved some of us kids. Others, she didn't, so much.
She hated some of my beloved Aunts, endured others. Adored her brother, hated her sister. You never know.
I never figured her out. She could be charming and darling and she could be cold and 'mean'.
Someone else's opinion of me is none of MY business.
Your departed mother was entitled to think of you in any way she saw fit. Didn't make it SO, just made it her opinion, and you know what they say about opinions? They're like buttholes: We all have one and they all stink.
Do YOU think you're a lazy dirty and mean person? If so, work on becoming a better human being. If not, consider the fact your mother had a twisted view of others based on jealousy and other factors which contributed to you two having issues getting along. Consider the source, in other words.
My late mother never had a nice thing to say about anyone. She hated everyone and had foul things to say about them 24/7. I took ALL of her opinions with a grain of salt because they were all tarnished and clouded by hatred and insecurity. Which was a reflection of HER shortcomings, not MINE.
mean people say all sorts of mean things. it could be your mother, or in the future, someone else. sometimes it seems like we just keep bumping into mean people, week after week.
how does one get over a mean comment, insult, jab? good question, especially since it might happen again with some other silly, mean person, so it's good to know how to deal with it.
1. recognize that it was a mean comment.
2. sometimes, that comment will keep swimming around in your head (even unexpectedly years later). that's what they wanted. they wanted to hurt you.
3. better alone, than badly accompanied. in other words, make sure you're not surrounded by other mean people (on the internet, or in real life). those mean people will add more mean words, which you'll need to heal from too.
4. if you're lucky, you have wonderful, nice, kind people in your life. they'll lift you up; and after a while, you won't be thinking that much about someone else's mean words, or mean behavior, in the past.
5. in other words, the presence of good people. the absence of bad people. add good people to your life. subtract bad people from your life. be a good person yourself.
6. stay away from mean people.
7. stay away from mean people.
8. stay away from mean people.
9. you can and you will heal. 🙂
10. create your own life. a beautiful life, full of good values and nice experiences. the happier you are with your life in general, the less your mind will think about the past mean words, mean behavior, of other people.
That would have given her a chance to tell you what was so sticking in her craw, as we used to say in "Missour-ah".
Too late now, however. You describe Cora as mean, dirty and lazy in your Mom's opinion. I guess we can ALL own one or another of those attributes on any given day.
Mary, clearly your Mom was mad when she said that, and she KNOWS you, knows what will hurt you, and she was reaching into her arrow quiver to see what would cause you pain. She likely, if she thought about it later, was ashamed of what she said. I am sorry she couldn't think to apologize and say "Kid, I was just so mad and I know you and I know what would hurt you and I reached for it without thinking; I am so sorry".
Likely you would still feel the sting.
You mention that your Mom had to care for a child with serious needs. All your life this may have robbed you of care you needed, too. There may have been anger there.
The best lesson I ever learned, and I learned it at the end of my nursing career, so well into my 60s, was to let go of something I could never understand. Truly, it kept me up at night. I felt full of vengeance for something that was unfair and wrong. And when I let it go it was like an epiphany. It freed me in a way I had not previously known. I had been accused by someone I loved of doing something I had not done, and I had no way of proving I had not. I felt so helpless, and couldn't figure out why. So I had to let it eat or me or let it go.
Work on it. If you can manage to let it go it will be so much easier for you the rest of your life to understand that not everything can be figured out, can be fixed or repaired. It is such a release into freedom.
My best out to you.