Arvayn
Face the end.
- Nov 11, 2025
- 13
Long context, because it's necessary. My mother suffers from depression and experiences passive suicidal ideation; she's never seriously considered it or felt the need to act on it, but she has stated that she hates her life and would find it relieving, but my existence is keeping her from it. She has been like this since late adolescence, and it's slowly worsened with time.
She also has gone, and goes, through a lot. Daily 12-14 hour work shifts as a maid for snobby rich people, domestic abuse as a child from parents and as an adult from my father (whom she divorced on an impulsive whim and essentially kidnapped me away from), issues with body image, dropping out of middle school due to teen pregnancy, her current husband suffering brain damage and constantly insisting that she's cheating on him out of extreme paranoia, addiction to smoking, financial debt, and somehow more factors leading to general chronic stress.
I want to make it clear before I start complaining: I love my mother. I think she has an absolutely inhuman level of resolve and willpower for going through all of this and still managing to raise me essentially on her own. She has never laid a finger on me, and thanks to her, I was taught to be pragmatic and skeptical of everything instead of buying into the typical social narratives. Her being so open about her struggles to me when I was a small child, without breaking into hysterics or emotional outlash, helped me develop defenses around it early on and it saved my life later when I had an encounter with severe depression (as a matter of fact, it is likely that I only recovered thanks to her).
BUT...
She has been starting to crack recently, and in pretty toxic ways that are hard for me to deal with. She is constantly frustrated in the mornings and gets angry over the tiniest thing, without fail. She insults and personally demeans me to cover her own shortcomings, which I think also comes from a place of resentment for her that she was keeping buried until now. She is extremely punitive and actively attempts to harm my future prospects and social life whenever I do something that isn't to her taste, only to become incredibly withdrawn and emotionally repressed after I protest in return to assert my autonomy. Whenever I tell her of a negative thing that happened, no matter how minor it is, she starts to panic and disassociate, where she stares into the void with a blank expression and can only muster to give very short responses while she runs through all the worst possibilities in her head.
It is driving me mad. I do not want to be around her because of how much she stresses me out and how downright cruel she can be with her words and actions at times, but I also want to be around her as much as I can because of how much she has supported me in the past and proven her love for me on many occasions. It really feels like her worst side is finally coming out after two decades of repression.
I am not sure how to tell her this without tipping her over the edge completely and potentially causing her to do something harmful to herself. It feels like I am walking on a minefield. So, here I am writing about it. But, I do feel better after I got it all off my chest, so hey, at least one thing worked out, right?
She also has gone, and goes, through a lot. Daily 12-14 hour work shifts as a maid for snobby rich people, domestic abuse as a child from parents and as an adult from my father (whom she divorced on an impulsive whim and essentially kidnapped me away from), issues with body image, dropping out of middle school due to teen pregnancy, her current husband suffering brain damage and constantly insisting that she's cheating on him out of extreme paranoia, addiction to smoking, financial debt, and somehow more factors leading to general chronic stress.
I want to make it clear before I start complaining: I love my mother. I think she has an absolutely inhuman level of resolve and willpower for going through all of this and still managing to raise me essentially on her own. She has never laid a finger on me, and thanks to her, I was taught to be pragmatic and skeptical of everything instead of buying into the typical social narratives. Her being so open about her struggles to me when I was a small child, without breaking into hysterics or emotional outlash, helped me develop defenses around it early on and it saved my life later when I had an encounter with severe depression (as a matter of fact, it is likely that I only recovered thanks to her).
BUT...
She has been starting to crack recently, and in pretty toxic ways that are hard for me to deal with. She is constantly frustrated in the mornings and gets angry over the tiniest thing, without fail. She insults and personally demeans me to cover her own shortcomings, which I think also comes from a place of resentment for her that she was keeping buried until now. She is extremely punitive and actively attempts to harm my future prospects and social life whenever I do something that isn't to her taste, only to become incredibly withdrawn and emotionally repressed after I protest in return to assert my autonomy. Whenever I tell her of a negative thing that happened, no matter how minor it is, she starts to panic and disassociate, where she stares into the void with a blank expression and can only muster to give very short responses while she runs through all the worst possibilities in her head.
It is driving me mad. I do not want to be around her because of how much she stresses me out and how downright cruel she can be with her words and actions at times, but I also want to be around her as much as I can because of how much she has supported me in the past and proven her love for me on many occasions. It really feels like her worst side is finally coming out after two decades of repression.
I am not sure how to tell her this without tipping her over the edge completely and potentially causing her to do something harmful to herself. It feels like I am walking on a minefield. So, here I am writing about it. But, I do feel better after I got it all off my chest, so hey, at least one thing worked out, right?
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