Dear Dr Phil (and staff),
I found your show on the possessive, controlling mother on 5/3/06 to be much like my life EXCEPT that I had a backbone and would never have permitted what this family is permitting from this woman. I used the same term, "emotional vampire", to describe my mother and still do when talking about my past with her.
My mother, until her death, was possessive, controlling and a perfectionist who was impossible to please. She was verbally abusive and had us all walking on eggshells around her when I was a kid. My dad was a lovely, soft-spoken Irishman who would dive into the bottle on weekends to escape. I adored him, but resented that part.
The difference was that later, when I was a young adult and they had stopped drinking (by my intervention), my dad and I could talk about things honestly and so healing happened and there was nothing left unsaid between us and no regrets and we had a wonderful adult relationship until his death. I still grieve for him on occasion and after 20 years I still miss him, but I have yet to shed a single tear over my mother's death nearly 16 years ago.
My mother could not handle any criticism so it was impossible to explain to her what she was doing that was driving me away from her without an emotional tantrum in which she would attempt to make everything my fault. After a childhood of this, my smouldering anger and resentment hit the fan when I reached legal adulthood, which was age 21 back in the day.
When I was 22, I left home for good after I graduated from college. My mother threw an adult temper tantrum and I heard it all, just as the daughter on this show described. However, unlike her, my pent-up rage at being controlled and manipulated all of my life finally came to a head. I was now a legal adult with a college degree and a teaching job waiting for me in a few weeks, and I was moving out, period. Of course my mother panicked and went through all of her 'tricks' to try to control me yet again.
First came the 'bully' behavior.."If you leave this house, you'll never come back again". So, I said.."Fine. This is an empty threat and we both know it, but give me a half-hour to throw my stuff in my car and I'll be gone. No problem". She was shocked, of course. I had called her bluff and her bullying had no effect except to strenghten my resolve to get away from her.
Next came the attempt to pile on the guilt. "You'll stay home and pay board..you owe us." I said.."I owe you nothing. It was your job to take care of me until I reached adulthood. No child is responsible for literally paying his or her parents back for her own childhood. It was your JOB to take care of me, feed me, clothe me, as it will be my job someday to do that for my children. I owe you nothing financially. I paid my own way through college with student loans that I'll be paying back for the next ten years, so sorry, but you're not going to guilt me with that nonsense."
Ok..so, the guilt trip continued. While she stopped short of telling me she'd die if I left..she did pull that later in my life under different circumstances..she tried everything she could think of to make me feel guilty for wanting to get away from her, right up to "the dog will be miserable if you leave!" I mean..give me a break. If I hadn't been so angry, it would have been comical.
Then came her big finish..the tears. Again, an attempt to induce guilt. It didn't work. I asked her if she'd like us to clear the floor so she could lie down and kick her feet to make her tantrum complete. I left two days later and never moved home again, although I did begin to visit but it took over a year before I came home again for visits. I needed to make a statement first.
I needed to make a definite statement because she was obsessed with me and my life and had no life of her own. She would sit at home (I later found out) and make checks on the calender for every day I failed to call home, and was beside herself because she had no power to make me do anything I didn't want to do. How sad for her.
I told her this..that she needed to find something else to occupy her time.. so I really identified again with the daughter on this show. Again, the difference is that I meant it. I told my mother that she was not living my life for me, and I refused to give in.
It took several years for my mother to accept that I was not coming back home, and I literally broke two telephones because we had such fights over the phone that I slammed the receivers down so hard, I knocked wires loose.
The woman was beside herself because she could no longer control me and so she got nasty and tried the guilt trip every chance she got, which infuriated me.
It took me a while to realize that I was an abused child, because while no one ever struck me, verbal abuse is just as bad. Whenever I hear Dr Phil say that, it really verifies my feelings. My mother always negated my feelings when they clashed with what she wanted me to do or think, which was pretty much all the time. The resentment is something I am still working to overcome, for my sake.
I wasn't raised as a child with unconditional love and acceptance. Instead, we had a role reversal. I was responsible for making my mother happy, and when I failed I was verbabally attacked to my core. She thought she owned me, body and soul.
I began to come to grips with this as a young adult, with professional help. I was never accepted for myself unconditionally by the same-sex parent, so you can imagine what that did to my sense of self-worth for a long time.
Up until the day she died, when I was 41 years old, my mother was manipulative and if I didn't do things her way, she was mean and nasty. She would call neighbors, my friends, my in-laws..just about anyone she could think of to put me down and complain about how 'selfish' I was for not putting her needs before my own. She never understood that she drove me further away from her by this behavior.
The day she died, when we all visited her in the nursing home, she asked me if I loved her after she turned her face away from me when it came time to kiss her goodbye. I said yes, but the truth was, "I don't know because you make it very difficult sometimes" but I knew I'd have to live with my answer for the rest of my life so I chose to be kind.
I didn't know that she would die that night, and I was planning on coming back alone the next day to tell her why I could not take care of her myself, something she was sulking over for the entire time she was in the home. It would have meant a lot to me to get that off my chest but I never got the chance.
Fortunately for us all, she was only there for 6 weeks, but it was 6 weeks in hell for us all, including the staff. My mother was impossible to please, she was mean and nasty and when they would call me to discuss this, I just said, "Welcome to my world. I can't help you."
I would hate for the daughter on your show to have unfinished business with her mother. She needs to speak out and get some professional help to understand that she is NOT responsible for her mother's happiness, from what I saw, because she doesn't seem to really believe it yet.
It took years of therapy to regain my self-esteem..something I am still working on..and to begin to forgive my mother.
Iam proud that I created for myself in adult life what I did not get as a child, so when Dr Phil says that we must sometimes give ourselves what we did not get from others, I can really identify and it makes me feel really good about myself because that's exactly what I did as soon as I got the personal power (legal age and a job) to do so.
For this particular family who was just on your show, I cannot even imagine letting it get so far. I would move again..if not to Ireland, than an hour or more away at least..and tell the mother that she is not to follow or a restraining order will be issued to keep her away from her grandchildren and daughter until she learns boundaries.
If the daughter can't do it, then the law should and I hope the husband stands up more. He's probably trying to get along with his wife's mother and keep the peace, but this has gone too far and must be stopped one way or the other.
I don't believe for a minute that this daughter has the guts to stand up to this woman, or that the mother took Dr Phil's words to heart because she is so self-centered and controlling that she'll rationalize it away and believe that she is right. Her behavior isn't going to change without something drastic or without professional counseling.
There was another daughter, I think, but she wasn't mentioned much. I imagine it's because she won't put up with this nonsense from her mother and so the mother sticks to the one she can still control.
It's too late for me and my mother, but this daughter still has a chance. However, she must be firm and she must not buckle, and living next door to her mother is unthinkable when the mother respects no boundaries and feels like she's in charge and can walk right into their home unannounced. They must get away from her both physically and emotionally, and they need to do it now.
Thanks for listening. I'll keep watching. I find a lot of shows really touch on what happened to me and Dr Phil and I seem to be on the same page.
We cannot look for our sense of self from others if it was not gently nurtured as children. We can't give away our own personal power to the opinions of others, which is something I struggle with all the time because of my past. It's taken me years, but at this stage of my life I'm finally realizing that I can't please everyone and that's ok. I'm a good person, I deserve to be happy, and my sense of self-worth must begin within my own heart.
Thanks, Dr Phil, for reinforcing this for me and for everyone else who has had a destructive emotional history.
Yours,
Caitie Franklin
(Original Air Date: 05/03/06) Claudia describes her mother, Bernice, as an "emotional, psychological vampire, sucking the life blood" out of her. She feels smothered by her mother's controlling, possessive behavior toward her and her two children, and finds herself snapping at her husband and taking it out on her kids. When Claudia and her husband, Thomas, built their new home, Bernice built a house right next door, so she could drop in at any time -- an opportunity she has taken full advantage of. Claudia says Bernice makes her feel like a terrible mother because she won't stop questioning her decisions and undermining her. If the situation doesn't change, Claudia and Thomas say they will move their family to Ireland. Bernice says her grandchildren are her life and if she loses them, she will die. What is behind Bernice's possessiveness? Is this just grandmotherly love, or is she crossing the line? Share your thoughts, join the discussion.
