my mom is getting hatefully mean with us, how do I deal?

[TalkThatTalk9]

I need help with my mother.

 

she has always had a firey temper, she is Italian and that is just the way she has always been. But it wasn't too much to handle, we just joked about it all the time.

 

Lately though, she has gotten completely irrational and out of control. I just don't know what to do anymore.

 

a few weeks ago, her and I were driving to Chicago (we live in the suburbs) to visit my new boyfriend. she was meeting him for the first time. I was very nervous because they were meeting but also because my mom has extreme road rage. and her driving in city traffic, which she is not used to, is scary to me. I braced both of us... I explained to her it would take a little long, and that we might get stuck in traffic for awhile. not to mention, she kept putting off the leaving time til rush hour and I explaind that traffic would be bad, but since it was a sunday, she felt that we would be fine. so I just let her have her way.

 

by the time we got 3 minutes away from my boyfriends house, she had me in tears. She screamed at me, talked to me worse than a dog, she acted like I was murdering someone when I told her she needed to get a lane over. she was just absolutely psychotic, for lack of better words. I got to the point where I just said calmly "I can not believe you are acting like this to me. I am so sick to my stomach right now, I want to be sick." She just sat quiet. I was shaking and just wanted to throw up she was yelling at me so bad. (the next day she apologized to me several times, so she realized how crazy she was)

 

I had to pull myself together before we picked up my boyfriend, and she just switched on a happy kind face and attitude with him after just going crazy on me. I was very mixed up and upset. it ruined the entire meeting for me. absolutely ruined it. and made me very upset at my mom.

 

so onto last night and why I am writing..... last night my brother left her house with her phone charger by mistake. She couldn't get ahold of him, so she started blowing my phone up. I pick up and she doesn't even say hi she just starts yelling at ME and cussing that my brotehr has the charger. She even goes as far as to call the new girl he just started dating looking for him. she kept claiming her phone was going to go dead (we found out it was fine, it was not)

 

I understood her anger but at the same time she was about to go to bed, and it was not the end of the world. and it certainly was not an excuse to be talking to us the way she was.

 

this morning she was at it again and now my brother and her are fighting so bad that he doesn't want to takl to her because of how she is acting.

 

I called her and tried to calmly explain to her that she has been yelling at us really bad lately, and it is getting a little crazy. she went balistic on me... in a really disgusting voice she said "I don't even barely talk to YOU. and as for him...." she went on screaming. it really hurt my feelings the way she said it. I wanted to say I do not talk to her because of the way she is treating us lately.

 

I understand being upset at a person but to talk to us the way she is.... how can you talk to someone you love like that? my father, who used to beat the crap out of us, who is still in my life..... he would never speak to me the way she does. he treats me so kind and loving now, it is insane how the roles have reversed.

 

i want to write her an email explaining all of this she will just get mad though, but I am at a point where I don't want to talk to my mom anymore and it makes me so sad.

 

she just turned 48, I keep thinking it is menopause but when I bring it up she yells it is not. she is also extremely unhappy with her life... she can't find a guy (which she seems to think is the most important thing to have) she hates her job, she is bored with things. and keeps saying only she can change it. she is pushing away the only family she has....my brother and I.

 

what do I do?

 

I can't believe I'd ever get to the point where I would not want to talk to my mom or have her in my life.... she is getting extremely abusive with the way she talks to us though I just can't take it anymore.

 

I do plan on writing an email (I obviously can't get through to her from talking), I just gotta be prepared for the aftermath

[emma34]

What do you think is the cause of all of this (beyond menopause)?? I see you are 28 and living at home...and also have a brother there...I don't be to sound judgmental...is this possibly a contributing factor?

 

have you tried talking to her rationally about all of this? an e-mail sounds a bit accusatory in my mind...

[thevic]

Has she always been this way to you guys?

[agent1607307371]

Sounds like it's time for you guys to leave the nest.

[ParisPaulette]

I am suspicious that you're mom has some sort of medical issue going on as these types of mood swings are not normal and you say they've gotten much more pronounced than anything she ever did before. Your family needs to set her down and tell her it's time to go see a doctor and make sure this isn't just menoapuse or something else since a bevvy of illnesses and medical issues can cause severe mood disturbances. It could well be menopause, my normally placid sweet mother was a veritable caged lion until all of us got together and told her she was going to see a doctor or we'd all leave and go stay at a motel. Turns out her hormones were way out of wack and after following a hormone treatment therapy and change in diet and exercise she was her old self within a month. Like your mom she always had a temper, but man oh man menopause turned her into Dr. Jekyl plus ten. We were all, her included, just grateful we'd insisted she see a doctor.

 

If she refuses then you guys are going to have to draw a line in the sand and tell her you won't talk to her until she's regained some manners and sanity. Eventually it'll dawn on her after she loses friends and family that maybe she should indeed go see her family doctor to find out what's going on.

[Seraphim]

That happened to my mother too. My sweet mother turned into a raging freak. I convinced her to go to the doctor, it was premenopause. My mother went on to hormone treatment. Now I'm in perimenopause myself and the same thing happens to me. It is extremely difficult to control. Think of PMS all month long every month. I am not doing hormone replacement though that has its own risks.

 

The other part of it too she may have had her children in her early 20s in hopes that they would be gone by the time she was in her 40s that she could have her own life. And you're both still there reliant on her.I think there's a little too much closeness happening. It is two adults competing for their own way. Time to fly the coop.