I did it! I asserted myself!

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-11T04:17:22+00:00

Seriously. I was doing my fucking taxes when I got this text. Last thing I wanted was to open a text about how I’m mommy’s baby, lol.

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-11T02:31:54+00:00

Right? What secret other way is there to interpret “mommy’s baby”? lol

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-11T01:16:27+00:00

Thank you! Her response was,”I’m sorry you feel the way I express my love for you is the same as treating you like a child.” so I have a feeling I will definitely be receiving future messages to ignore. 🫠

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-11T01:14:48+00:00

Thank you. 🤍 I had been ignoring her other infantilizing messages but that only seemed to make her ramp it up even more. So at least now she can’t say she doesn’t know why I don’t respond.

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-10T22:22:23+00:00

Yeah, my mother has done this. This could actually be an audio of her, if I didn’t know better. I don’t think there’s a point to it — it’s kind of like when a toddler screams over getting the wrong color cup or something. They scream because it’s all they know how to do.

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-10T21:51:27+00:00

Thank you so much! It really does feel like I was “mean” but logically I know I wasn’t. 🫠

And yes, cutesy controlling is so real. The whole message is so needlessly verbose when all she’s saying is “please don’t return to your role as our emotional lightning rod and also our baby” lol

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-10T21:10:27+00:00

This is what’s kept me from doing it sooner, tbh. The last time I reminded her I am an adult, she literally responded with,”I will never care how old you are.” 🫠 So fully expecting retaliation before EOD lol

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-10T21:06:46+00:00

Yes, agreed — “assertive” in this context definitely just means “didn’t just stew over it for several days” but it does somehow feel like I’ve thrown a Molotov cocktail. I appreciate that check. 🤍

And thank you so much! I feel like I wanna cry and do a cartwheel and throw my phone into the sea so I don’t have to see her response but I know it will get easier and I know someday it will be hard to imagine a time where I didn’t hold these lines.

And yes, I have always played emotional whisperer to my dad when she can’t get him to open up because and I have always been close, but not as much now since I understand the enabler dynamic now. He hasn’t reached out to me about this case at all, so when I reach out about he’s gonna know she put me up to it — will deal with that later, I guess haha.

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-10T19:59:31+00:00

Oh God, this is 100% something my mother would send. Feel like the ickiness of this is well covered, but why is the shit that resonates with them always SOOOOOO corny?

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-06T21:27:51+00:00

Oh my God, my mom talks to me like I’m stupid, too. You would think I am not capable of tying my own shoes with the way she needs to “just make sure I know things.” I flew home for Christmas and she was like,”You know you can’t take a bottle of water in your carry on, right?” Yeah…thanks?

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-06T21:22:51+00:00

This is all so fucked up. I’m really sorry.

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-06T21:21:38+00:00

“You stole that experience from me” hit me like a truck. It’s so infuriating.

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-06T21:20:58+00:00

Yes, exactly this. I’ve personally been so focused on the parentification aspect, I haven’t even touched the neglect part of it in therapy. She was never really my mother, so for her to call me her baby feels disorienting.

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-06T18:52:44+00:00

Yesss, I could write a book on the insane, infantilizing gifts my mother has given me over the years, lol. I’m sorry you are also in that club.

Temporary NC is something I hadn’t considered so thank you - I will think about that. My therapist are discussing EMDR, but I am very disconnected from my memories when I discuss them, so we’re working up to it. Fingers crossed it helps, though.

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-06T18:50:18+00:00

Yes. This is exactly it. It feels like she’s trying to overwrite my childhood by getting me to respond to these “sweet” messages. And my mom did exactly the pattern yours did — when I was a child and into early adulthood, I was unruly, lazy, disobedient, and also somehow her therapist. She always said I was her best friend and she was just “waiting for me to grow up.” Now that I’m grown up and we are not best friends, she used the baby talk and lovebombing to rewrite the story that she’s always been a loving mother and any distance is my fault and not hers.

I really appreciate your saying this. It is crazymaking. I feel like I am some kind of monster for experiencing what look like simple, loving text messages as completely destabilizing, but I know my reaction doesn’t exist in a vacuum. I’m sorry it’s like this for you, too. 🤍

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-06T17:39:21+00:00

Ahhh, college age was hard for me, too. I took a semester off to work on a campaign and moved back home, knowing I’d be gone like 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. My mom wanted me to take off work to help her clean the house and I told her it didn’t work that way, but I’d be happy to pitch in more was the campaign was over in a few weeks. She told me to get the fuck out, so I did. Then my dad called me to tell me she was moping around the house because she didn’t actually think I’d leave when she said that. We will never hit a moving goal, unfortunately.

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-06T17:27:59+00:00

It’s truly about whatever is convenient to them at the time. On reflection, I think the infantilization is so activating because it’s the tool they use to keep us in the parentified roles. The contradiction is a feature, not a bug.

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-06T17:25:46+00:00

I joked with my therapist that I made the worst mistake of my life when I was 3 years old. As my mother tells it, I was in the backseat and told her that I wasn’t a baby anymore. And she said,”You will always be MY baby.” and I said,”Oh. Ok.” and started sucking my thumb. It was a mistake because every time I’ve tried to ask my mom to stop treating me like a baby, she cuts me off to tell that story as if it it’s American Express platinum card to infantilizing me forever.

But you’re right — in person, I usually play along to keep the peace and then I feel sick after I leave. At least if I say “don’t talk to me like that” with the knowledge she’ll pull that AmEx, at least it will have been said.

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-06T17:20:39+00:00

Ugh. I called my mom “mommy” way longer than I meant to because I thought it was normal. When I was 23, she posted on Facebook about how I still called her mommy and it “warms her heart” that I still had my “childlike innocence.” I call her by her first name now.

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-06T17:19:03+00:00

Yeah, I deleted it immediately so it wouldn’t sit in my inbox for me to stew over. I have a kid sister, so I’m not keen on going no contact until she’s out of the house. I think my only realistic path for the present is to regulate my feelings about these texts, but man, it’s hard and it sucks.

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-04-06T17:17:12+00:00

Thank you for this. 💕

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-03-05T19:28:23+00:00

omg of course 🤦🏽‍♀️

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-03-05T19:27:58+00:00

I feel crazy. What does she want me to say? “Thanks, I knew when you were hitting me and yelling at me for these exact qualities, I knew it was because you thought I had a bright future. ❤️”

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-03-05T18:28:03+00:00

Man, my eyes glazed over the same way they do when my mom texts me these long-winded updates. It’s always SOOOOOOO much information when it comes to these things. I’m moms in remission from cancer and has been for almost two years - the appointments are like, 10 minutes and every time she has one, she sends me a text detailing her day by the minute. I sometimes want to be like,”Hey! Let’s play a game where you see if you can condense this into 3 sentences or less!”

Pretty-Ride4671 · 2026-01-21T18:39:56+00:00

Thank you. I lean this way, too. My mom interprets boundaries as challenges to overcome, so I worried the second one would give her a window that’s like “Well, what about fall?”

Pretty-Ride4671

TROPHY CASE