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What are your plans for honoring your mother this year? Mixed emotions? Can't get in the spirit of things? Dislike this Hallmark holiday forced upon us?

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Very mixed feelings. On the one hand I look forward to going out for a meal with my daughter. On the other hand sending flowers to my BPD narc mother is still an effort. Always has been, always will be!
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Wow. Reading through the thread, it struck me how different each of our relationships and experiences are with our mothers. And mothers are such a formative, arguably thee formative, relationship of our lives.

I've been thinking about this year's Mother's Day even before I saw this thread. I'm in a place where I want some healthy distance from my mother, but I don't want to cut her out of my life completely. I also want to be true to my feelings for a change. I'm not "mad" at my mother, but she has endured abuse at the hands of her own mother for so many years... and I just think my mom should've drawn her own boundaries years ago and then maybe she would understand when she's crossing others' boundaries and being abusive. She allows herself to be abused, then "forgives" because that's what she believes she (and me, too) are supposed to do, and it's like the abuse isn't a big deal. Rinse, repeat, ad infinitum.

No more for me, please, at least not right now, not this year. So I'll call her for a brief greeting/chat, but that's it. And I won't allow the conversation to wander to areas that I don't want to talk about with her, because she'll impose her "opinion" on something about me(it's really assumptions, accusations, and criticism), and I'll be hurt and angry. Seriously, like why can't my mom be nice to me on a regular basis? But she just can't seem to, so it is what it is.

A short phone call, channeling my most detached-with-love attitude... I think it will be fine. I rather like this "new me" who knows what can hurt me and finds ways to avoid it. Long may it last.

Jessie, my mom never bought me anything "special"  for birthdays or Christmases either.  If anything, I would get things like socks, underwear, a coat for Christmas -- things I needed.  That's fine.  Now, I go out of my way to buy something nice for my mom for Christmas every year.  It's a tradition of the past 15 years or so.  I want her to know she is deserving of nice things.  She usually gives me nothing but I don't care, I'm used to it.  She gives things like a $10 card to Subway, if she bothers at all.  She doesn't even personalize her cards to me (she does send me a bday card most every year), which I've always thought was a bit low effort on her part.  "Love, mom."  She can't do better than that... EVER?  Apparently not.  Oh, well.    
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I'm just going to give my mother some sugar free candy this year. That's all. Gifts I've given her either get put back or worse, cut up with scissors like the expensive diabetic socks were. I don't have enough money to waste like that, so candy (or nuts) will be a good thing.

Now I am going to be petty. I've had 7 birthdays and 7 Christmases here and haven't gotten a single present beyond a check for $25. That was more of a slap than a present. Each year since we've been about 15 years old all we got for presents were checks. To me now a check says I didn't want to be bothered buying you a present. I wonder why I spend so much time thinking about and selecting a gift. Maybe I should just write a check. (Chuckle)
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Mother's Day 2016 was my last. If you have a great mother then everyday is like mother's day. My MIL was a great mother and I enjoyed spending time with her regularly. I often brought her flowers from my grocery store, which carries lovely fresh seasonal flowers.
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I just vented my spleen in the "whine" thread. Holidays like this are touchy for those of us who have been stripped of all delusions.

I loved my mother. She loved me. We were flawed human beings. (I still am!)

Mom used me like a crutch throughout her miserable first marriage. Mom's lack of coping skills made her 2nd marriage unnecessarily difficult.

Mom devoted the last 20 years of her life to micro-managing things that didn't need to be micro-managed. It was more important to be right than it was to be a companion to her husband or have a fluid relationship with me.

Once the brain changes set in, oh boy. When a control freak loses physical abilities, the dynamic with helpers is complicated. When a control freak loses her ability to reason, the things that fully-able people consider a "no-brainer" devolve into tense stalemates.

Our last Mother's Day together kind of sucked. I brought mom's favorite pizza. We had a good meal.

Then Mom blankly insisted that her current unsafe and unsanitary home issue Could Not Be Fixed. I told her that was incorrect. She simply needed to call her long-trusted plumber, schedule the work and write him a check from her well-padded account.

The response was fury. Pure, unadulterated insistence that I was wrong on all counts.

Then the 5:00 news came on. Mom parked herself in front of the TV as if it was a charging station. She clung to every word and every disaster as if they were all happening in her front yard.

At 5:30, Mom started snapping blinds shut and told me I had to leave because "it's getting late." Hello, sundowning.

I don't mean to sound rueful. For what it's worth, Mom was being exactly who she was -- at that time. As was I.

Not the first holiday that didn't live up to Hallmark's standards. Won't be the last. The best we can do is ignore the marketing, love our loved ones and be true to ourselves.
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CWillie, exactly! I hate the pity looks. Twice I've had the minister announce joyfully "how many of you have a mother?" and then I burst into tears and felt like an idiot. No more setting myself up for that
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Oooh, church on mother's day. In the past (I haven't been able to go for a few years) all the ladies would get a flower and thank you which is kind of embarrassing because I'm not a mother. Then people will ask me what I'm doing with mom..... well, given that she doesn't know one day from the next and could care less if she did, and that the NH will have "staffing issues" due to it being a weekend the truthful answer would "why nothing at all", which would cause pitying looks and guilty feelings. Bah humbug.
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I've never been a big fan of the day, and now dread it's arrival every year, mostly for the endless ads preceding it encouraging everyone to buy something and spend time with their mother. I had a great mother, and I miss her everyday. She was a quiet person to most, but to her family she was devoted, wickedly funny, brutally honest in that mom kind of way, and someone I loved spending time with. It's hard for me to see moms and daughters out shopping or other things, I wish I was doing those things. I fully get the people who don't have such good relationships with their mothers as there are assuredly other relatives in my life like that. I so wanted my mother in law to step in when my mom died and be someone special to me, be a friend to me, but she's simply not interested, never has been. I won't be doing anything to care for her in her old age. I've reached out to her countless times and come up empty, I don't bother anymore. Mother's Day is just sad for me now. I've learned not to go to church that day as I end up in tears everytime. I'm not normally a crybaby, but the huge focus does it. I'm thankful for my children, they understand and try to make it better for me. Miss you mom, happy Mother's Day.
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I like your idea, Carla! Make sure you are at the opposite end from your mother at that big table!
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I dread the false sentiment "holiday" even more than I did when I was younger. Of course my mother expects to be honored - she has no idea how the years of catering to her whims have damaged my feelings towards her. I have a pretty good plan for the holiday this year, though.

There is a mother's day dinner at the restaurant in my mother's senior community, and I'm going along with my mother, my one local sister, my BIL, my mother's live-in helper, and one or two other local friends. A big table-full to take some of the focus off the mother-daughter relationship. I've switched from a sentimental card to a jokey/sarcastic card the last few years. Maybe a handful of flowers from the grocery store. Hoping it's over quickly. It's very hard for me to muster any positive feeling for my mother when I've been trapped in caregiving for 6+ years.
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I'll start. It's been a year since my mother and I had our argument that has changed out (already not good) relationship. I was screamed at and told that I'm a liar when I said how much time I spend on her, and also told I would be her on-demand driver when she gave up driving (because she would be giving me her car). Lots of pushback on the car issue, but I set firm boundaries and she's mostly accepted them. (She gave up her car in mid-October.)

I have three golden boy brothers, all out of state, of course. They are "wonderful and caring," as she told someone she knows in my earshot. Me? She refers to me as her "driver."

She is controlling and always right. Lots of anxiety and OCD rules. Won't listen to alternate viewpoints. While I have been going into the doctor appointments with her, I have been ordered to sit out in the waiting room from now on. Of course this means the doctors will probably be telling her things that she won't hear or process or remember correctly. Oh, well! She's legally competent, so what happens happens.

I will not be having her over to dinner for Mothers Day. She was last here at Christmas, and said she didn't want to come over anymore and to just bring her a plate.

My brothers might call/send a card/maybe flowers from one. I have thought of calling her only (as my most-uninvolved brother does -- my mother likes to admire the cards she gets for various occasions and he didn't even send a card), sending her a card only or getting her a grocery store bunch of flowers and a card.

I'm not inviting her over for dinner, and am not inclined to bring her a plate, either. I am probably going to get her a card and the grocery store bunch of flowers. That's it. We don't have a good relationship, so I'm not going to pretend it is a good relationship just to live out society's expectations.

Mothers Day is for me, too, and, quite frankly, having to share it with her is something I don't want to do. My family will be over here, and if my sons want to stop by her place, that's their choice!
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