How to Set Boundaries with a Toxic Mother

By Rosa Acosta

With a new therapist, I love to start by saying: ‘My mother left us when I was seven years old.’ Quickly, it lets them know that I have a lot of self-confidence issues, abandonment issues and fear-of-missing-out issues. Then, at least, they know what they are working with. 

For me, the worst part about Mom leaving was that she kept coming back just to leave again. Even though she became predictable, and I should have gotten used to her coming and going from my life as she pleased, I always got hurt when she left. In my adult life, I learned to put up boundaries to avoid this pain and have a semi-healthy relationship with my mother.

A huge part of our relationship was over the phone, and I absolutely hated this fact. Did you know you can’t hug a child over the phone? Did you know you can’t make a child feel safe or valued over the phone? In middle school, before Facetime became a thing, I occasionally got videos from her. The second I saw her face on the screen, I would cry. I hated when she sent videos because it was a constant reminder that she chose not to be with me.

One day, while I was in high school, she posted a picture of her, her third husband and his two sons and captioned it ‘Mi Familia’. I screamed, I cried – at school. My guidance counsellors suggested I call her to tell her how I felt. But it didn’t get us anywhere. She played the victim and claimed it hadn’t meant what I thought and that she loved me very much. I was so mad that I couldn’t speak to her for a while. I told my dad what happened and how I made her cry. He said, ‘Do you know how many times you and your sisters woke up in the middle of the night crying for her? She’s a big girl; she will be fine.’ 

I learned after high school that my mother struggles with Bipolar Depression. My mom would experience extreme mood swings that left her so depressed and exhausted that she couldn’t get out of bed. Not even her children could motivate her. Those were her lows. Her highs meant never being tired, overly concentrating on doing a bunch of things at once and running herself into the ground.

Some other side effects of Bipolar Depression are lack of self-esteem, irritability, inability to concentrate, getting physically angry and making erratic decisions without considering natural consequences. For example, she blames me for her not getting custody of us when we were kids because I told her I didn’t want my dad to be alone. Instead of her taking responsibility for leaving and not even trying to fight for custody of us, she would rather blame a child. That way, she doesn’t have to feel that guilt.

The only way to have a relationship with my mom was to put up healthy boundaries. This was very difficult for me; I was so used to being mistreated that I didn’t know any other way to live. My boundaries are very simple. One is that I don’t want to hear about her relationship problems with her husband and how she hates that he does not listen to her. She chose to leave her children to be with him. She is not to unburden herself and load all her emotional problems on me, which she did when I was young. 

Another way I put up boundaries is by not letting her in emotionally. Since I can’t trust that she won’t hurt me again, I don’t tell her too much about my life. I wish I could trust her, but I’ve made that mistake too many times. With all my boundaries, there isn’t much left to talk about. Luckily, since the pandemic, we accidentally started bonding over a Nintendo Switch game called Animal Crossing: New Horizons, so that has been the topic of most of our conversations. 

Without these boundaries and me being completely honest about what she does that bothers me, we wouldn’t have a relationship. It’s important in any relationship to have honesty and open communication, but that doesn’t make our relationship perfect. I still have anger towards my mother that I have been trying to let go of for years. 

It may sound like it would be easier to cut her out of my life than have her in it, but I know if anything happened to her that I would regret giving up on her. Unfortunately, this means I’m gambling with my heart. But it’s okay. I’ll take the chance.