I'm having problems with the way my mum treats me, she is trying to be supportive & I don't want to push her away but if I don't get these problems resolved then it could cause some serious bad feelings. I'll put the problems down as a list for easier reading
1: After 3 years she refuses to use my new name, any attempt to correct her results in me getting either a lecture about how hard this is for her or her "hurt silence"
2: She treats me like an embarrasment, she has foreign students staying in her spare rooms & has told me she doesn't want them to know about me as she "may lose the income from the students", i've told her this would be discrimination from the group that arranges the students & she won't listen.
When my brother gets day release from prison she has him stay at her house even though though the rules on the students says she could lose the students for this as he is a convicted criminal (but innocent in her eyes).
3: When my Auntie passed away a few months ago she kept saying that there was really no point in me going to the funeral as I hadn't seen her for 3 yrs, i'm 100% sure she just doesn't want certain family members knowing about me so to avoid arguments I didn't go.
4: I asked her last year if my neice who knows i'm trans would cut my hair as she's training to be a hairdresser but was told that she no longer does hairdressing, i've now found out that my mum goes to the local college once a month to have her hair & nails done by my neice, I said to my mum that i'd like to go along & she changes & avoids the subject.
5: This one really gets to me, a few months after I came out my brother faced charges for arson, she told me she didn't want me at the court case as me being trans "may" have a negative effect on his case.
When he was convicted she told me "i'm going to have xmas holidays for the next few years as there's no point celebrating xmas with no family around".
This year my brother will be released & she wants to have a big xmas celebration but after 3 lonely, depressing xmas's I don't know if i'll be able to stay civil in such a situation.
6: About a month ago I recieved a letter threatening court action as i'm struggling to keep up with bills & broke down in tears i front of her, I blurted out about how hard i'm finding transitioning, I told her a rarely set foot outside anymore in daylight, I told her that moving forward feels almost impossible but not moving forward would have me killing myself.
The next day she phoned for a chat & all she wanted to talk about was how hard my transition is for her.
I love her to bits but at the same time part of me hates her for being constantly selfish.
On the flip side, she takes me to the gender clinic, she takes me shopping, helps me financialy & visits me at least once a fortnight. In a few weeks she wants to take me out for a big pub meal to celebrate my 40th.
The catch is that every positive thing mentioned is done in places where no-one knows her, I feel that she's ashamed of me & it's building alot of resentment within me that threatens to boil over. Any attempt to mention my gender issues gets me the response of "this is hard for ME". I just can't seem to get it through to her how she makes me feel without being hit round the head with "what about ME, what about MY feelings. . . . . ME,ME,ME"
Does anyone have any advice on how I can break through this barrier or am I destined to spend the rest of her life having to put her feelings first?
Cutting her out of my life is not an option, i've gone from have a reasonable sized family to having only two blood relations left & in spite of everything I love her to bits, just typing this has left me shaking like a leaf, I really don't know how to move past this problem
