My critical Mother

Most of my feelings of complete lack of control over my life have come from living at home with mum and dad for the last year. I am 48, I had massive surgery on my knee last November, and had to return home for 4 months. I then had set backs, needed to sell my London flat, and here we are, 12 months later and I'm still having to use their house as base. Imagine being at home for a year with your elderly parents and then add fucking depression and cancer to the mix. Mum's depression, Dad's cancer.

I hate mornings, especially I hate early morning when I wake, yet again, in my parent's house. I used to love waking up early. The quiet and calm. The pottering around my flat hours before anyone else had woken up. I like to wake up gently. I don't like to be questioned, asked how I've slept (especially when I only manage 5 hours a night) or constantly nagged or criticised about something.

Mum, with her depression has become anxious about everything I do. She criticises everything from how I cook toast to what plates I use, to what I put in the bin, to using the washing machine, running the bath, what shelf I put my food in the fridge, where I put my bread in the larder, to having my window open by even a crack, in my bedroom. It doesn't stop. But it is never a straight forward request. It is a passive aggressive criticism, a twisted way of saying things I do really annoy and upset her. This morning, she did the typically passive aggressive thing by saying something mean, hidden behind pretend concern.

I woke up at 5am, freezing, so I crept to the kitchen to get hot water bottles and a cup of tea. I crept silently, in the dark, down the 15 metre hallway (the spare room is on the ground floor) until I got to the kitchen and then put the kitchen light on. I was super quiet. I pushed the door closed. The kitchen light is not bright. At 9am, my mother greets me at breakfast by saying ,"Oh darling, you must have got up early. The light woke me up but it's ok, I managed to  eventually find my eye mask and put that on. I didn't get back to sleep but it's ok."

I was incredulous. "Mummy, you're saying the downstairs kitchen light woke you up. The light travelled through the door, down the long hallway, up the stairs, through the crack in your bedroom door and woke you up." "Yes, but it's fine. I don't mind. It was bright that's all. And I don't need much sleep anyway." I began to explain that it was impossible. The light couldn't possibly have woken her, it must have been something else, but my father glared at me and said, "It was the light. Her eyes are really sensitive."  She then gave me a small smile and came to hug me... as if saying, it's ok, I forgive you. But I shrugged her away. It was a reflex reaction because I was pissed off. I'm sick of being made to look bad for doing completely normal things, and yet again here I was being blamed for her waking up, which was a blatant lie. A bloody stupid ridiculous lie. And the way it comes across is with this passive aggressive fuck fuck fucking attitude. I absolutely detest my mother when she does this.

There I've said it. I hate my mother when she has her depression. I hate my father for enabling her and backing what she says, and I hate myself for reacting the way I do.