Problems with super controlling mother?

[madeupmusic]

[sIZE=2]Hi there, folks.

 

I haven't posted before but I just really need a place to be able to talk and rant. Any advice would be lovely, too.

 

So, basically, I'm an only child and my mother is overprotective and, above all things, controlling. I'm 18 years old and in the past year my relationship with her has become really shaky, though I would never really qualify it as being good. I was born when my mother was 43 and she didn't know she was pregnant. She claims she had always wanted a child, though she was told she couldn't have one. That being said, she's always talking about how happy she is to have me. From the day I was born to when I was nearly twelve, though, I lived with my aunt full time and loved her an incredible amount. I was almost shy around my mother; she never took maternity leave and certainly put her work above her family. Both of my parents have a tendancy to do this, actually, so my relationship is a bit strained with both of them..

 

Anyway, my aunt passed when I was almost 12 years old and it was really hard for me to cope with. She died of lung cancer and I honestly didn't know at the time how I would get through it. After that I had anxiety problems and I guess what might be called abandonment issues or.. something like that. Who knows. The point is, I kind of clung to my mother despite not really knowing her all that well. I didn't physically stick around her much and I didn't ever really mention it, but I often worried excessively about what I would ever do without her and such.

 

Back when I was between 9 and 10 I met a friend on some weird kid site I frequented. We started talking and one day even visited each other. We live 2000 miles apart so it's kind of difficult, but for the past 4 years we've always managed to visit each for at least a little while. He's my age and the only person I've ever really been able to talk to, so it seemed really natural when we started dating two years ago. I never told my mother because I feel like some things are personal and she would flip, anyway; she told me that she didn't want me to even consider dating until I'm 25. Maybe I should've told her, but she knows now, anyway. I'll get to that.

 

I'd like to say that I'm relatively well-behaved, I think. I've graduated high school, I never drink or do drugs or smoke or do anything. The most intense and exciting thing I really do is religiously play classical piano, honestly. I paint and play video games and I'm generally a pretty innocent person. My mother has never been happy with me, though; she'll always come in and tell me that she 'doesn't understand why I turned out this way' and say that she 'thought she raised me better'. That's kind of funny, actually, considering that she did very little in the way of raising me.

So, about a year ago I got a job as a janitor. It was a low-paying job, but I was never late and worked really, really hard. I eventually quit about six months later due to the bosses using my First Nations status to get a discount on cigarettes. Kind of sucked, but I managed to save up several thousand dollars for my gap year trip.

 

My boyfriend, I think I should mention, is a ftm (female-to-male) transgender. This makes absolutely no difference to me and I think he's a fabulous person, but both of my parents are extremely narrow-minded and 'old fashioned', as they say. My mother is religious and hates gays and assumes that transguys are the same as being gay. She often tells me that I have no morals if I accept people, which I think is really laughable. She says that if I stick up for people then I must be like them, regardless of.. well, anything, really. If she makes a racist remark and I stick up for asian people or something, then she says I must be like them. It makes no sense.

 

On that note, I think I should also mention that my mother has recently become very racist. She always kind of has been, but since she was fired from her job by her African-American boss, she has decided that she hates any and all black people. And, of course, my boyfriend is black.

 

So in July I set off to visit my boyfriend, all on my own money. My mother didn't know at the time that we were dating and she also didn't know that my boyfriend was transgender, though it's not as if this was a recent development. I mean, god; he goes by 'Charlie' and spent 6 months visiting me a couple years back. Still, she turned a blind eye to it. So when I decided to go visit, she wasn't too happy and was completely miserable to me for the months leading up to it.

 

It was a really amazing thing to travel by myself. I generally go on road trips with my parents each year, but they aren't to anywhere spectacular and they aren't that eventful. I had never been on a plane or anything and it was just incredible.

 

I phoned my mother most days but she wasn't happy with that; when I left she said that we could talk every other week, but when I was actually there she wanted daily updates. And not just that, but SEVERAL times a day. And she freaked out if I didn't phone her, even going as far as to threaten to have the police check on me. She made many threats, including, but not limited to: 'I'm leaving your father and it's because of you', 'I'm selling the house and all your things', 'I'm killing myself tonight'. A number of times they even said they were going to travel to where I was by car and take me back home over the Canadian border against my will. They said that since I was 18 I controlled it, but they could say I was completely confused and crazy and that would be it. It was really insane that they would even try to pull that.

 

Basically, I ended up stay a lot longer than the intended 3 weeks; I stayed with my boyfriend for 2 and a half months before I had to come home. My mother was threatening to destroy my important documents and all manner of things. When I was visiting Charlie, my parents found out about him being transgender. I spent many many many hours on the phone arguing with them about everything. There really is too much to put here. I should say, though, that I didn't really want to just leave Charlie without knowing that he would be safe; he's also 18 and had enough savings for college and everything. Right before his 18th birthday, though, his deranged father withdrew all the money and spent it on new laptops and clothes. Charlie hardly has more than 1k now and he's in a sticky situation. I wanted to know if he could come visit me here for a while and get away from his parents, both of whom are desperately trying to get him to go to a homeless shelter. They're really cruel people; both of them are college professors making decent money but they want nothing to do with their son. And he's a good guy; good grades, good personality, never getting in trouble. Nothing.

 

My parents made many many promises that Charlie could visit me soon and, foolishly, I returned. I need to be here physically to get my dual citizenship, so it wasn't completely pointless. Things have been really bad here, though. My mother at me down and crossed many lines, asking me if I was dating Charlie. I confirmed it and then she yelled at me to tell her all of the sexual things I've done in my life, which I really think is inappropriate. Even if I go to an adult store or anything, she wants me to show her any toys I get or anything. It's really creepy and I told her that and refused to say anything. I also never told my father about me dating Charlie. He still has no idea.

 

Right now I spend most of my time studying for my SATs and applying for jobs, but my mother is never happy with that. She's constantly in my face telling me that I'm a failure and, suddenly, she's very determined for me to become a slut, seemingly just so I'll break up with Charlie. Kind of odd how that conflicts with the 'no dating until you're 25' thing.

 

I don't really have any friends aside from Charlie. No close friends, anyway. I did that one very close friend that I knew since we were 2, but within the past year or so she has become completely idiotic. She can't remember all of the guys she's slept with; she drinks every day; she goes with people 10+ years older than her. She has really made things awkward for me by getting around my cousins or people I've known for a long time. So I suppose it is me that has ended the friendship, but it's certainly her who has ruined it.

 

Anyway though, my mother is constantly telling me that my ex-friend has the right idea. She'll come in and say, 'Stop talking to that person (she won't call Charlie by name) and get out there so you can meet some boys'. She's been with my father for almost 50 years and yet tells me that life is too short to be with only one person and that I should leave Charlie and sleep around. Is this right? Is this honestly what I should be doing at this age? I'm a really private person and I also firmly believe in self-respect and general happiness. I'm certainly not a prude or anything one might assume; I really believe in accepting everyone, despite their colour or sexual preference or anything. So is it really so wrong and 'immoral' for me to want to be with one person? I'm not saying that I'll spend the rest of my life with this boy; I'm not a fortune teller. But I'm happy in a monogamous relationship and I really don't see how this is odd. Everyone I ask, though, turns their nose up. That, or literally asks, 'What's monogamy?'

 

Within the past few weeks my mother has desperately been trying to drag me away from Charlie in any way possible, and my father has been equally harsh on me. Since he knows that I accept and support that LGBT community, he has really changed. Constantly yelling at me and calling me a deadbeat.

 

My mother doesn't like me doing anything. She freaks out if I want to work, go out for coffee, go for a walk, ride the bus alone, go to school, drive, anything. She wants to control every single aspect of my life.

 

There is so much more that I would like to include, but I think this is really long enough. Hahah, I'm not sure if anyone will even read all this. I'm sure I left out some crucial things and I would really like to include a conversation I had with my mother while I was with Charlie, but yeah.

Any advice would be really appreciated. Am I really a terrible daughter without realizing it or something? Do I deserve this? And if not, then how can I deal?

[/sIZE]

[norajane]

Honestly, you need to get yourself in college and start living your own life.

 

I have no idea if Charlie is good for you or not; he is the only person you know, so that can skew your perspective on a lot of things. Your mother, in her own way, is trying to get you to see that so that you get out there and meet more people before settling on one.

 

Go to college. Become independent. Meet people and make friends. The rest will fall into place sooner or later.

[Lucky_One]

You have a lot going on in your post (application for dual citizenship, studying for SATs in prep for attending a US college, you didn't live with your parents until you were 13, you are a member of the First Nations, you are dating a US citizen who is FtM, you lived for 10 weeks with your BF who has cruel parents who are trying to force him into a homeless shelter, you visit adult stores and buy sex toys, etc.)

 

To be perfectly blunt, if you were MY 18 year old child, I would think that you were confused, too, and I would push you to date other people. If you are out buying sex toys at the tender age of 18, I would assume that you have sexual needs, so I would encourage you to participate in sex acts with guys. I would be tremendously over-protection and tremendously controlling. And I very very likely would not allow a (basically) penniless barely legal adult to cross an international border to stay with my daughter for an unspecified length of time, when I had concerns over their relationship, and especially when you say his parents are whacked out (but what sort of cruel whacked out parents let their kid's GF stay with them for 10 weeks?). Matter of fact, I would ideally be in family counseling, and at a minimum would have made you appts with a therapist and would see a therapist myself. And IF I were that controlling and manipulative and over-protective, I never would have let you leave the country anyway to go to the US at age 18.

 

Sorry.

 

Count yourself blessed that you don't have me as a mother, because I would be even worse than your mother.

 

If what you truly want is to live your life as you see fit, then you are of legal age. Get a job, and move out. Your parents will probably go crazy with worry and will try all sorts of things to get you to see your decisions from their viewpoint, but you can cut them out of your life. If you move to the US, it will be even easier to cut them out of your life.

 

PS. You are Canadian, yes? If your parents are US citizens living in Canada, you automatically have US citizenship, even if you were born in Canada. So it appears that you are wanting to get citizenship for the US by some other means. If you do obtain your US citizenship, you will be required to renounce your Canadian citizenship status. You can still consider yourself as having dual citizenship, but officially you are required to go to the Canadian consulate and fill out of a form there in front of Canadian officials.