I’ve just come back from dropping my younger sibling (21M) off at college. After I graduated, I was lucky enough to find a remote job in my field, so my family suggested I stay home while I pay off student loans. I love my family, I really do, but some of the things my mother has been saying over the last few months have really made me think.
On top of being very “don’t show don’t tell” in regards to romantic relationships, mom is the type of person to whisper behind others backs about their weight, hair color, or behavior. I’m very much in the camp of “it literally doesn’t matter, do whatever makes you happy”. What’s hurting now is the realization that all the things she complains about with others are things that I do. My brothers new roommate has been friends with him since freshman year. He talks a lot and enjoys video games. She’s already started complaining about how he won’t shut up and how he’ll “keep my (senior in college) brother from making friends by staying inside all the time”. I was really liking talking to him, because we have similar taste in games and music.
The big thing is my aunt. I can see myself in my aunt a lot more than my mother. Mom likes plain boiled chicken, Aunt likes to go to a local Filipino bakery with me, that kind of stuff. But the thing is I know my mom does not like my aunt. She complains she’s not invited anywhere, but when she is invited she complains about how “misbehaving” my twin cousins (5 years old and very quiet kids, just a little picky eaters) are. When I was a kid she always said I should have been my aunts kid. Now I know she hates my aunt and her kids, so what does that mean about me?
I know I can’t fix her. Having conversations with her doesn’t work because she just starts yelling. I’m saving up money to move out but it’s slow going. I just want advice on how to internally understand that I will never be the daughter I know she wanted because right now fear, guilt, and love are keeping me in her house. She doesn’t have a great relationship with her mother, and has said she does everything to raise her kids the opposite of how hers raised her. This relationship I have with her isn’t exactly encouraging me to have kids of my own one day. I don’t want to treat anyone the way she treats people.
TL:DR my mother doesn’t like anyone who shares even a bit of personality with me and it’s mentally draining to hide who I am from her. I just need advice on how to grow past that feeling of failure.