My mom is getting on my nerves more and more. I've been thinking about it and talking to Steve about it a lot lately and there's so much to cover that is fucked up about the way she acts that going into detail would take pages. But something she did a few minutes ago bothered me a lot. Steve was leaving, standing at the doorway. I was holding in tears. He's leaving - it's a sad situation, obviously (or so I thought). But as they're saying their goodbyes, my mom stares as me and says in an almost uplifting voice "you look depressed. Are you depressed?" I just stared at her, unable to believe she was even asking that. Of course I'm upset. I've been living with my boyfriend and we've been doing pretty much everything together for 2 months, and now he's suddenly leaving. Not only will I miss him, but the abrupt change of lifestyle will be a shock to my system. Of course I'm upset. How could I not be? Plus, she knows that I don't like discussing my feelings with them and that when I'm in distress I want to be alone (or should know, maybe she's so bad at picking up cues she doesn't know). Not once has she asked me how I'm feeling and it's ended well. Yet when I'm in obvious emotional turmoil she still doesn't understand that I'd like to be left alone? So not only am I upset because he's about to walk out the door, but now you've told me that I look like I'm depressed, so now I'm self-conscious of my facial expression on top of that. Thanks. It almost feels like my mom tries to make everyone uncomfortable, perhaps on a subconscious level. It's just that... that's the kind of situation that you should just keep quiet in. You don't ask someone who's going through something upsetting "are you depressed?" It just sounds condescending. I don't know what to think about her - whether she's just being passive aggressive, doesn't understand when it's okay to ask certain questions or just doesn't understand getting attached to someone romantically so she honestly couldn't comprehend why I was upset.
Another thing happened a couple days ago, as an example. Steve and I went hiking in this forest area. We had the idea to 'smoke when we first got there, to help provoke a nice relaxing awesome forest walk. Unfortunately some huge summer camp group of kids was there, and it was a sunny day so the place was overwhelmed with teenagers too. We both get pretty nervous around people in general, especially kids and teenagers. But we couldn't turn a corner without some kid running around, or some shirtless fit group of teenagers standing around looking cool and judging us (or so it felt like). We went to a restaurant after that and were both extremely exhausted by the time we got home. When you're an introvert and not used to going out in public at all, being surrounded by people all day is exhausting. We wanted to go right up to my room when we got home, but we had this layered cake we had to make icing for. While doing that, my mom walked into the kitchen. She stared at me for a bit, making me extremely uncomfortable. I looked away from her for a few seconds, then back to her to find her still just glaring at me. As someone who gets really self-conscious even when no one is staring at me, this was quite irritating.
Then she started talking. "Why don't you even look at me? Why don't you say hi to me?", etc. Normally I'll say hi to her or whatever (even though the fact that she finds it so important that I say hi makes it extremely unnatural and uncomfortable to do so), but today I wasn't in the mood for any interaction. She kept staring at me and asked me if something's wrong. I said "we've been at [forest place] all day and I'm kind of exhausted." She immediately gets upset. "You're exhausted!? [Forest place] is like.. fun! I'm exhausted. I had to work all day! Going to [forest place] is no excuse ([disgusted voice])." Then she goes on to yell at me, asking me why I never talk to her, etc. She even brought Steve into it. She asked him "Does she say hi to you and smile when she sees you?" I didn't say a thing, just remained silent, since I honestly didn't know what else to do. She just seemed insane. I tried to explain myself, to tell her the reason that I might seem upset right now (because I'm exhausted) and she basically responded by telling me I don't have a right to be exhausted. Basically telling me I'm lying about the way I feel because she can't imagine feeling that way. Does that attitude make me want to tell her anything personal? Not really. Maybe if she actually seemed to care and listen openly without judgement I'd consider telling her some things about my thoughts and feelings. But instead she acts like she has a right to know how I feel at all times, and yells at me if I don't tell her. She doesn't respect my desire to keep things to myself. Which is really weird, because she claims to be an introvert, so you'd think she'd understand that, as well as being 'peopled out'. If she understood being peopled out, not only would she understand that I might get exhausted by being out all day, but she wouldn't have instantly started yelling at me after her 'long day at work' in the first place. I could go into more but I didn't even plan to talk this much about her so I'll stop now.
