I feel like my mom is holding me back, is it secret sabatoge?

Abrie

My mom has an extremely big heart.. and I warn her all the time that that can get her into some situations she will not like. My grandmother is a narcissist and the whole family acknowledges that, leaving them not associating with her much. I try to maintain a relationship because I never want to have a chip on my shoulder about someone and then we end up never seeing each other again (if you catch my drift, knock on wood). I feel so bad for both of them though. My mom hasn’t worked since 2013 and has been living off my grandparents money ever since then. When I finally had the courage to escape that toxic household and the grasp they had on me at 23, I remember her crying her in the phone like “you can’t just leave me, what am I going to do?” It tore me up inside, but I tried to encourage her to do the same, get away from my grandma. That’s easier said than done, because family right? Anyway, she hasn’t been the “perfect mother” and I don’t expect her to be, but she’s done some things that justify slight resentment from me. When I was in college, I had leftover fafsa money from the college I was going to, and she had it in her purse. I took it out of there, and put it in my room. She found it and got mad as if I went through her purse (my check was sitting up vertically, so I grabbed it easily). She was like “how dare you take my money out of my purse” and I’m literally like “but.. you’re not the one who’s going to be paying it back, it shows up on my credit report”. For her to send me off with my grandparents at 16 (because she found out I lost my virginity and needed a break from being a mom) that was pretty crazy to me. She always sticks up for my grandma.. times when I’ve been humiliated by her and talked down by her, she just goes into “peace maker” mode when I’d ball my eyes out. Yet if someone does anything shady towards her, I’m on it right away. Still to this day, she does not work. There was an incident when my dad had to pay back child support, and I told her about it. She was so excited and said she’d give me 1000 of it. I didn’t really believe it, so I took matters into my own hands and tried to get all of the money to be sent to me (I was a broke college student at the time and I had bills that needed to be paid). I told her that I tried to get that money sent to me, and she went off. She was pissed, throwing things she done for me (raising me) in my face and how I had hurt her to the core.. yet she can’t even tell my grandma how bad she’s been hurt by her.. to “keep the peace”. She eventually did end up getting that CS money, and of course as suspected: I didn’t get any of it as she promised.

I stay with her now, and it’s hard to save money because she always needs money, but won’t get a job and doesn’t put in full effort to make her own money. She procrastinates a lot, and I’ve told her this. She never thinks she’s wrong and rarely apologizes.. unless it’s to my narc grandma. She’s always on her phone watching videos (some educational) , but she complains alot. Whether it’s about her knee pain or tooth pain (we don’t have insurance, so I had to pay out of pocket for both of our previous dental health). She’s always saying how tired and drained she is, doesn’t sleep at night, and sleeps throughout the day. She used to get dressed and care about how she looks, and make money for herself, and be able to live for herself, but everything changed after we went back to live with my grandparents years ago. Idk, it’s been weird. There was even a time when she found out I was hooking up with someone (only one person) and she ridiculed me for it. Saying I was like the girls that boys would talk bad about in her time and age. It stung. Bad. I was at an unhappy stage in my life when her and I were living together.. even back then though, we had more fun than we do now.. I keep trying to help her build a brand for herself (I’ve shown her how to maybe freelance since she took an interest in doing what I do for a living) so she could make some money. Currently we live with her bf , I pay the lighter bills and groceries , he pays rent and some utilities.. she may have paid a few bills using the grandparents money…

It’s like.. I don’t feel like I’m where I want to be right now and I enjoy taking action to change that, but now it’s like.. if I move back to my home city, they’ll both be left struggling bad.. I don’t understand why she never really sounds happy for me unless it involves her getting something… for example, I took a trip to AZ earlier this year and before I went , obviously I told her about it and was really excited about getting out of our boring town.. she looked sad.. unimpressed.. asked some flat question about it.. I’m not exactly sure what’s wrong here and I don’t want to make assumptions about my own mom but.. kinda torn.

Glow Resources

Let’s Glow

Glow is here for you on your path to pregnancy

Glow helps you navigate your fertility journey with smart tools, personalized insights, and guidance from medical experts who understand what matters most.

25+ million

Users

4.8 stars

200k+ app ratings

20+

Medical advisors