Maybe covert? Maybe not?

Hi loves. I hope you're all well.

I don't know if this is what's happening for me. I've read some posts from people with covert mothers and I don't relate to a lot of the examples of abuse. I'm just confused, and hurt, and I want to understand what's going on and what I can do.

My mom was a hard and diligent worker for many years. She has a lot of physical health struggles that I've inherited from her, and definitely mental too, though her level of self-awareness is, I'd say, significantly lower than mine. She's not built her life on helplessness basically. I'm a young adult living at home out of college, and she is always anticipating and tending to my needs. She tells me I'm beautiful and so special and likes to chat with me and *tries* to listen when I have feedback - though I always feel like she's being a bit... I don't know. Histrionic, for lack of a better word. Performatively upset, like she's trying to signal that you saying that makes her feel bad about herself. With anything. Maybe I'm an ass for thinking she's doing that. Maybe.

But, like... I don't know. It seems like any time I need emotional support it becomes about her. And it's made me feel quite bitter and a bit cold towards her, which makes me feel really guilty because she really has given me so, so much. And yet sometimes it's felt like too much.

When I was younger I had really a lot of mental health struggles. Extreme sensory overwhelm, extreme emotional anguish. At some point I told my loving mother how big of an issue this was for me because I thought she would understand, she would care and want me to feel better. I remember how cold and callous she felt when she asked me if she "wanted her to put me on someone's couch, or something". Just really dismissive and kind of strangely quietly cruel in a way I'd never experienced her. When I ever tried to bring up again that I felt I needed help managing my emotional pain, she would go cold again and ask me if I didn't think she did a good enough job in raising me. There was a lot of that theme. If I think she's such a bad mother. Quietly, but it was there.

She's supported me so much all my life, but in a way that's sort of felt like... not really about me. I don't know if that makes sense.

She tells me sometimes how proud she is of me, and how I've become so emotionally intelligent and capable, and it makes her feel like she did something right. Which I agree, I think I'm one of the most emotionally intelligent people I've met. I do wonder sometimes if I kind of had to be. Reading in between the lines.

I mentioned to her a little while back that I used to be suicidal, at this point for about half of my life. She looked at me like she was just totally stunned. Which is maybe understandable, except that I very much thought she knew this. Like I'm pretty sure I said explicitly in several moments of crisis that I didn't want to be alive anymore. I was self-harming and she knew about it in my preteen years & beyond, I only stopped because she acted so betrayed when she found out. So I didn't think it would be a shock. But she started crying a bit because she thought our memories together were good, and what kind of a mother must she be for never realizing something like that, and never once did she try to comfort me or seem genuinely in tune with how I must be feeling. There was no "I'm so sorry you felt that way", it was "I always try to understand you but I just can't even relate to that". I ended up feeling like I was comforting her. Which is like... the thing, isn't it? I feel like maybe my expectations are just too high. And then I feel like maybe that's the thing, too.

There are definitely some patterns of... taking everything as criticism, as personal attack, as proof she isn't good enough. Wilting. Throughout much of my adolescence I mirrored these behaviors in social interactions, vyed for attention then brushed it off like it wasn't good enough... visibly wilted to garner sympathy, like I thought it would fill me up, but I always needed more, nothing was ever enough... I had a "come to Jesus" moment a few years ago and am truly a different person now. It was not easy to break those patterns but I broke them. I'm extremely proud of that. I always thought I was just fucked up and wrong, that these patterns started with me. But it's like. I don't know. Maybe not. You know?? Maybe nothing like that ever starts with you???

Her mother is what she refers to as a narcissist. Overt is what she means. I'm not as close to her, because my mother kept a distance between us when I was a child. But I'd be inclined to agree. The behaviors I see from my grandmother now, and the stories my mother has mentioned here and there, seem very textbook overt narcissist. I just don't think my mom sees how there might be similarities, behaviors she picked up. Maybe it's not a full-blown thing... covert-narcissistic traits... I don't know, man.

I do really think she loves me. And in most areas she's an absolutely wonderful mother. But my god, I cannot think of a single time she's provided me genuine emotional support without making it about herself or just offering a barrage of bandaid platitudes to try and get me to calm down, even when I tell her over and over I don't need that, I just need you to be here with me through this. Emotional support is really like, the one thing I need most from her. Recently she hugged me as I sobbed but I somehow got the sense that it was a burden for her; she never cried with me, never felt truly warm or open. She did this tiny little exhale, very specific, like she was trying to calm herself down, like it was just too much for her. But she wasn't crying, she wasn't holding me close, she was just trying to calm me down. And I was crying very, very hard, and if my child were crying that hard I think I'd be overwhelmed too. But I think it'd be with emotion, with "my sweet baby, I can't imagine how you're feeling, I'm feeling it with you," I think I'd be crying too. You know?? I don't know. She just totally checks out and then gets emotional when she makes it about herself.

I don't think she's abusive. Not at all really. And the insane and horrible stories of abuse I see are not anything like what I have experienced. I think whatever she's got going on she really is trying her best. But it's just. It's a lot for me. I feel so so so alone. And I can't express it to her at all. Maybe she's just emotionally stunted and raised by people who never modeled to her what support is supposed to look like. I can tell she really does try, she is trying. She does care. It's just in a way where like, I feel like I can't get through to her at all in the ways that really matter to me.

Thanks for listening. I really just need someone to listen, sometimes. It gets lonely like this. If you have insight about this it'd be much appreciated. Or even just some kind words. I know most of you have gone through a lot more than I have when it comes to your parents. I wish you so much peace and healing.