How to deal with an overly critical mother?

[Anonymous]

My mom criticizes every single aspect of my being. But what kills me is that she'll compliment something on other people while criticizing the exact same thing in me. For example, we were watching a tennis match, and she said that she loved the player's body. But she keeps criticizing my body, even though I have the same body as that player. Another example is when I bought a dress, she said it looked ugly, but a couple weeks later, we saw a woman wearing the same exact dress, and she said that it looked so beautiful. What hurts me is that she's not criticizing me because she truly believes it, but it feels like hatred for no reason. What would you do in my position?

[molonski2]

Wholly sht ! We must have had the same mother , this is exactly what my mother was like , my entire life ( she died in 1998 ) took me years to work out her manipulative ways , I think it came from her past , and all the put downs she went though , plus loosing my father at age 7 to a car accident , destroyed the " check and balance " of her temperament , I spent a lot of time with phycologists working though all this stuff.

Yet it wasn't ALL bad , and this kinda made it worse , if that makes sense.

In my opinion , you must distance yourself from her , she will never change , she will never " encourage " or be on your side , her put downs will be constant and subtle and she will do all she can to destroy you and put you down.

[slatyb]

You can't change her, but you can change your attitude. This is all about her insecurities, and it has nothing to do with you. It's hard, but you'll have to accept that you'll never gain her approval. Spend less time with her, and more time with supportive friends.

[Anonymous]

My mom is similar like yours in terms of behavior but I don’t deal with her that much anymore and I just distance myself and I still love her but just in the right amount


She needs to heal herself inside, only her can do it

[kylee2437]

I would confront her. Give her the examples you just stated and ask her why she does it

[jshm2]

She;s probably got mental issues, and you're not helping.