What It’s Like To Have a Controlling Mother

My home life isn’t like your average household. My mother has possessive issues and is also very controlling. I have had a very bad relationship with her for a very long time. I've even been to counseling about it (without her knowledge because she would freak out). I’m 19 years old but I have always been treated as if I were 10. Let me just give you an idea of what she is like… Last year, when I lived at home for senior year in high school, we had a pool in our backyard. I wasn't allowed to get in the pool without adult supervision. I also wasn’t allowed to go check the mail by myself. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere with friends. I wasn’t allowed to do after school activities. She even got mad that I kept going to my counselor for help with applying to college. She said “If you want her to be your mom so bad just leave!” My mom didn’t go to college when she was my age. She didn’t know how to go about applying so I had to go to someone else for help. Not only is she crazy in those ways, she has never been supportive. She told me I wasn’t good enough to go to college and a stupid girl like me would never get in. I had a 3.8 gpa but I believed her. I always believed that I wasn’t good enough because that is what she raised me thinking of myself. I used to win honor roll awards in elementary but my mom would never care to go to the award ceremonies and she would just throw away the awards. I grew up thinking that awards were no big deal so I stopped telling my mom about them and she never cared to ask about how anything was going at school. I did everything on my own. Even more, when I was in middle school she would compare me to the other girls at school and ask why she couldn’t have a pretty daughter like them. She asked why I was so ugly and weird. Before 8th grade I had a snaggle tooth and when I would smile my mom would be like “shut your mouth please, no one wants to see that smile”. In high school, if I wanted to hang out with friends I could only do so every once a few months because if I asked to go out again she would get mad and say, “so you want to be a part of their family now! Then leave! I won’t give a shit about you ever again.” What made me want to write today though was her controlling behavior when it comes to her homework. She enrolled in online classes back in my Junior year and since then she has made me do her work for her almost every night. I would explain to her that I couldn’t because it was her work and I had my own homework, but she would get mad and make me put her work ahead of my own. Every night I would have homework for 6 classes plus whatever work she had. If I didn’t want to do it she would threaten to get my phone disconnected or give me giant lectures about how she does everything for the family so I should do my part. I began to believe that it was my responsibility to do her work. On days where I wouldn’t finish her work she would make me stay home from school to get it done. If I didn’t get a good grade on something or I didn’t know how to do something, she would yell at me and tell me I was lying. She would just continue to yell and yell. I had to do her math work for her and I suck at math! Finally, I went away to college and things got better. She couldn’t yell at me when I lived away from home. But even then I couldn’t escape her. When I would come home on the weekends she would make me do work, threatening to stop paying for college for me. She would make me pity her, saying that we are family and I need to help her since she pays for stuff. One weekend, I needed to get back to school because I had an 8 am class monday morning that I couldn’t miss. She told me that if I didn’t get her work done she wouldn’t take me back to school. I worked and I worked and I didn’t get back to campus until 3 in the morning. I was so tired in class, my professor asked if I was sick. Now I’m back for the summer and I’m still being forced to do my mom’s work. She threatens to not let me go back to college or if I want to do something I have to do her work to earn it. Today my mom was yelling at me in the car telling me how stupid I was for not getting a 100 on her essay. She had an 18 in the class and I brought it up to a 90. I might not have gave it my all but I think I did pretty well given that it’s not even my work. It doesn’t matter what I do though. My mom will always be over controlling. She will always be possessive. She will never be proud. I just have to keep pushing until the day I can move away. Like Rapunzel, I’m locked away in a tower, awaiting my escape.