Caring for your elderly parents what dark secrets have you all learned about their lives?

lillyvalley, your mother cleansed her soul in a damaging way that hurt you, but may not have really helped her for she dumped something on you that she really should have told a therapist or a pastor and gotten some closure on for herself. Sort of reminds me of a statement that my mother maid when I was 36 and still single that she knew the way she raised me was going to cause me a lot of pain in life but that she could not help it. I was not sure if that was an apology or just another narcissistic statement coming from someone who used me for her own needs, never met my emotional needs and never met the emotional needs of her grandchildren. I was not allowed to have my own identity as a child, a teenager or a college student. One would think that after being a single parent for several years that she would not have kept so attached to me once she got married again, but she did and that made me think as an adult., years later, that she married that man just to get out of her home town. He had his own children from a previous marriage, but she never bonded with or accepted them and she did not want them to have a bad influence on me, but I did rebel against that some.

I have learned that her mother never met her emotional needs and discovered some dysfunctional facts about her family via her younger sister that I do not want go into.

I've had several years of therapy to help me deal with my anger and a lot of flash backs that I wish I'd never remembered. At the conclusion, I wrote my mother a letter, read it to my threapist, we burned it in a trash can and threw the ashes to the wind. That did help, but I do better visiting with my mother in the nursing home when my wife or one of my sons goes with me.

A grew up with a friend that had been told that he was a late born son of this couple with an older brother many years older than him. It was all a lie for one day his real brother showed up. Then, he learned that his so called parents were really his grandparents and that his so called older brother was really his dad. Talk about an identity shock. That experience sent him into a social/psychological tailspin for years.

Know this, you did not make your mother the way she is; you can't control how she is nor can you fix how she is. All you can do is place yourself on a healthier path with boundaries.

Thank you so much Caregiver1963 and Jeannegibbs. I am sitting here in the hospital
cafateria for my other (2) siblings to come so that we can walk over to the nursing center together. I have learned when I visit my mother alone in the nursing home she attacks me, insults me and humiliates. So I have to wait for my other sisters to show up before I can go in and see her. I am now at the point whereby I will not be alone with her because the insults are unbearable. Caregiver1963 I guess you have hope like I have that I will see signs of our mothers loving us or being kind to us. But guess what? I am giving up! I can't take it any more. Maybe I will never ever get her love. Maybe my mother doesn't love herself and so I say to myself how can she love someone else or me? Thank you for your kind post because I know now that I am not the problem, my mother is. God have mercy on her soul!

my moms divorce papers say "to my knowledge there are no children from this marriage.".. uuuhm... excuse me?! i do exist and am sitting right here!? I have yet to learn why that actually says that. i'm ready to DNA test her hair and mine.

wow! someone else in my boat....only my mother made me know as a child she can't stand the sight of me, because my "real" father had raped her, so my sister was the golden "legit" child and I was the outcast...I hope for your sake Lilly that you have not fallen victim to being scapegoated in your family, because if you have, my heart goes out to you especially when they direct insults at you as a person and parent, and they let you know your home doesn't measure up or rate as nice as what the rest of them have....it is a terribly painful place to be put in because they refuse to acknowledge or take responsibility for themselves....once you come to the realization you are not the one with the problem and you can come to terms with forgiving them, it may ease the hurt this has caused you, but in the end as long as you can accept yourself then what they think really doesn't matter

I am so sorry for you pain. Mother "cleansing her soul" might feel good to her but it wasn't a kindness to you, was it?

Just because it is possible that two different men fathered you and your twin doesn't mean that is what happened. Do you and your sister both want to know? DNA testing could determine if you have different fathers. Would that make a difference in your life, to know for sure?

Your mother confessed that she hated you. How extremely awful! Did she also say she was sorry and ask your forgiveness? Were you aware of this hatred while you were growing up? Or did she go to great lengths to treat you well? You say that you "never knew." Too bad your mother didn't allow that to continue!

Is your mother now in her right mind? Is there any possibility that these "confessions" are delusions?

This bombshell is a huge trauma for you and your sister to deal with. Have you sought counselling yet? I urge you to see a family therapist. This in not because there is anything wrong with you and that you need to be "fixed." But you have been dealt a very harsh blow, and you deserve some trained, professional support.