Communication problems with my mom... again!

[Mammu]

So,

we got into a fight today, again. She arrived home yesterday after a week of being away. I have recently found a new appreciation towards a musical group (it has severely deepened during the week that she was away) and so I wanted to share it with her. The group is an acapella group and I showed my mom their most recent song, that came out while she was away. At first, she was being very nice and supportive by commenting on their music video, and so on. Then she started: "But you do know that they use a lot of tech in their music, right? Like this is music is very edited," and so on (she is a music teacher as well so at first, I thought maybe because of that). She basically said to me, pretty bluntly, that they aren't as good as I think that they are and that I have no right to say that they one of the best out there in my opinion. Basically insulting and criticizing them in about a thousand different ways (not saying anything positive in between) and when I tried to defend them, to every argument she said that I was wrong to say that. And this is not the first time that she did something like that. Basically criticizing my choices in music, fashion, friends, and so on. And when I do the same thing, she says that I can't do that and it's not right to only mention the negative things instead of the positive things. For example:

 

We were sitting in a beach cafe, in a beautiful sunset. I'm personally not a fan of sunsets and the cliche beach views so as my mom was just going on and on about how beautiful it is, I said that it is like every other sunset (it was too). She got so mad at me and said to me that I need to appreciate what I've got and also appreciate other people's choices and that if I have a negative opinion, then to keep it to myself. Guess what, when I recommended that she do that today, she was just like: "I have no idea why you wanted to get yourself hyped this afternoon and argue with me fine, I'll listen!" To that, I walked away, nearly crying.

 

I love her so much but she just makes it so difficult to share my honest opinions with her/show her something that I love, because she always makes anything feel like not enough or that the choices I make are not okay. No matter what it is. And always when she criticizes me in how I express myself, she also is like: "You can make a mistake with me, I'm your mom and I won't judge you, but other people will." And I hate that excuse because she judges just the same, even worse. After all, she expresses only criticism, not anything positive. Plus, how is being me, a mistake?

 

Anyways, to the end of this long novel, how can I communicate with her so that every conversation that we have, won't lead to me crying my eyes out/wishing that I didn't exist because she makes me feel like I'm not good enough?

 

[Monsoon]

Hey @Mammu

 

Thanks for reaching out to us . I'm sorry to hear that you're having communication problems with your mum again; I can definitely see why this makes you upset. It's hard to stay positive when we feel like we're being criticised constantly. When living with our family, it can be pretty standard to criticise each other and sometimes take it too far, but this doesn't mean that it's okay. I guess that through spending time with other people so intensely, we are bound to wind each other up and pick up on the things we don't like.

 

I'm interested to know, how come you feel like you're not good enough? I do understand how having these kind of experiences can make you feel like you can't do anything right, but I'm just wondering if other things have happened too which make you feel like you're not worthy.

 

Hope to hear back from you soon. Sending positive vibes.

 

-Monsoon