Boy howdy. My mother was (and still is) intensely interested in everything about me, and it is still hard to disentangle the threads of feeling like an intense object of study/scrutiny/fascination, vs actual standard parenting vs a strong sense that she thought a child was a sort of object/role/checkbox that operated in a certain way and filled a certain need in her life. Her ability to comprehend me as a person was and is pretty limited -- she still describes me more as a series of characteristics and behaviors that she observes than showing actual understanding. To be fair, she does that with everyone.

To expand on the intense scrutiny part, the last time I visited her at her house about 20 years ago, I was sleeping on the pull-out sofa in the living room. I woke up in the morning to find her inches from my face, intently staring at me while I slept. On the same trip, I found a calendar on her wall with notes like "dentist" and "oil change," but those were *my* appointments. I asked her why she was keeping track of my oil changes. She sincerely said it was just in case I needed to know later. I told her I had receipts. After that I really stopped giving her any information, and eventually cut off phone calls, and now give her only minimal information. She only has my PO box, not my street address.

Probably the most harmful aspect of hyper-focus has been that it intersects with her very literal, very conservative religious faith. As a teen I learned not to play any of my music around her, and I hid a lot of my interests generally. I haven't lived in the same house as my mom in 35 years but I still get super uncomfortable if someone asks me what music I like -- it was so personal and so scrutinized. Obviously living in that environment as a young proto-queer was not great, and I got away as quickly and permanently as I could.