The last few weeks

My mom [49F] and I [19F] have always had a strained relationship. From what I’ve gathered, she’s emotionally and verbally manipulative. In addition, she and my dad are both decently strict.I usually have to ask to make purchases with my own money and am constantly told I’m not being safe.As of right now, I’m in my 2nd year of college.Whenever she calls me on the phone, she usually asks about my grades (will expand on that below) or my exercising habits. However, she never fails to comment on my lack of “activity” (I like spending most of my time in my dorm - she tracks my location on Find My Friends frequently) and is constantly worried that I’m not doing well mentally because of such.As you can imagine, talking to her on the phone causes me a lot of unnecessary stress.For the first few weeks of college, I didn’t call the house at all, which was probably not wise of me.I came home for a weekend and it was hell.On the way home, my mom asked my sister and I what we could do for dinner and I suggested something. My dad picked up the food and it was there when we got home. My mom told my sister to wait a few minutes to eat. I figured I had some time to unpack, so I went upstairs and put a few things away. A couple minutes later I get a call from downstairs saying that dinner is ready. I told my mom I would be down ASAP and attempted to finish putting away what was in my hands as quickly as I could.Long story short, my mom came into my room that night and gave me a long talk about ungrateful I am and how I should have come downstairs right when she asked me to. Usually my family doesn’t eat together, so I figured they would go ahead and start without me. Furthermore, she blamed my family’s resurgence of toxic behavior on my return home.My boyfriend (who is also a close friend of my brother’s) later confirmed to me that my family is always toxic - even when I’m not at the house.On the way back to campus, my mom insisted on helping me unpack, even though I told her I wanted to do it myself. When I was about to take the last load in. She asked if I wanted to come back outside and say goodbye to her and my sister, to which I replied “I mean, yeah, I can.” She left in tears and said “I still love you, you know.”I misspoke. I know I definitely fucked up there. I don’t know what was running through my head at the moment. That was definitely my fault.For the next week or so I didn’t call the house. I felt like calling would only make things worse, which was poor judgement on my part.Later on, I get a call from my dad saying my mom was on campus. She was there to check on me because she was worried. We drove to the grocery store because I needed to pick some food up.We sat in the car in the parking lot and she talked to me for a bit. At a point, I burst into tears. I tried so hard not to cry in front of my mom but I was extremely upset and shit hit the fan.What frustrates me the most about our relationship is that none of my arguments against her actions seem to make sense - even in my own head.I told her how upset I get whenever she or my dad comments on my grades. Her response was something along the lines of “accountability” and needing to make sure I was doing well in school. Then we got to talking about high school.Some backstory:High school was really hard for me, especially in terms of my academic performance. I made pretty good grades throughout most of high school but was suffering on-and-off from anxiety and depression.My sophomore year, my grades took a turn for the worse. I didn’t fail any classes but earned a couple Cs and one D. My parents would tell me constantly that I was “shooting myself in the foot” or “drowning,” which only made me feel worse. In an attempt to get me back on track, my parents took me to the worst public school in my county and told me to tell my friends I was going there next year.Last year, I earned a D in one of my courses and my parents constantly claim I “didn’t try” and suggested I retake the course.I have very much been praised for good grades by them. For some reason, the bad outweighs the good in my head.Basically, she brought up that rough patch in high school and I told her that scaring the living shit out of me was not a good move. Her response was, “What else could we have done?” which I didn’t have a coherent answer to.The same goes for most of my arguments. Whenever I tell her that she did something that made me upset, it’s always “What else could I have done?” And even if I do have a response to her question, my logic is always all over the place.In terms of being called “ungrateful” and “entitled,” I wonder why I can never willingly bring myself to say “thank you” to my parents, because they do a lot of nice things for me. If I do, it feels forced.My questions are: 1. For some reason, I seem to only focus on the bad. Is this normal? 2. Furthermore, why do none of my own arguments against her actions make sense? 3. Is she right? Am I an ungrateful and entitled kid? via /r/raisedbynarcissists https://ift.tt/337E1Pt