I’ve just recently acknowledged to myself that my mother was abusive to me for most of my life. She experienced a lot of trauma and I have a lot of respect and compassion for her. While I don’t excuse her behavior, I don’t blame her for it either. In the last two years she’s changed massively, and for the first time in my life she’s been consistently kind and supportive to me and I’ve started to develop some trust. But for my whole life before this past couple years she would frequently become explosively angry in an instant with no provocation. It was often because of something I said or did. When we were alone she would call me names, tell me I was spoiled and selfish, and tell me how she thought about hurting herself. No one else ever saw her do this.
In the past she has driven to visit, and most visits ended with her getting angry and packing up and leaving in an instant. She doesn’t visit often. She has just booked a flight to visit in a couple of weeks for the first time in almost 10 years and I’m panicking. I’ve realized that even though the past two years have been great, I don’t trust her yet and I’m just not ready to have her stay in my home.
I’m afraid of telling her not to visit. I can’t think of a good excuse and I don’t want to lie anyway. I’m afraid of hurting her feelings and sending her into a mental health crisis. I’m afraid of ruining the progress we’ve made in our relationship. I’m also afraid that if I tell her not to come, she’ll tell my dad and my grandmother and I’ll be shunned or told that I’m bad/wrong (this kind of thing has happened in the past). They have never understood why I don’t “forgive” her or why I draw boundaries and keep a bit of distance. (I do forgive her, I just don’t want to set myself up to be hurt again.)
As an added challenge, I’m very worried she’ll expose my partner (31M) to covid, which could have catastrophic consequences, but she doesn’t agree with my concerns. I think the risk can maybe be mitigated, but if she tests positive she would have to isolate in my house and I’m afraid it would be a disaster on many levels.
How do I tell her I don’t want her to visit? Is that even an ok thing to say?
TL;DR - My mom used to be abusive and has recently changed but I don’t fully trust her yet and I’m not ready for her tor visit
Submitted March 12, 2022 at 12:59PM by exorcasm https://ift.tt/lLKQqeM
No comments:
Post a Comment