My mom often tries to make my gender and my sexuality about her. When I came out she was upset that I hadn't told her. She didn't say Im proud or I love you just made it about her. She tells people about my gender and sexuality when Ive tod her multiple times not to. She often makes jokes that aren't really appropriate. She won't accept the fact that she does these things and I can't take it anymore. She wants me to open up yet when I do I'm apparently self centred. I cant take it anymore and she's driving me insane. I know I have it better than most but I can't stand her making my private life all about her. I've tried talking to her multiple times but she never listens. Please help.
It sounds like she has a problem with her boundaries. And unfortunately, with people like that, it's very, very difficult to establish clear boundaries, because they'll do their best to just bulldoze over them. What you can do is set the boundaries you want, and set consequences when they are violated, and let her know in advance that these are the rules. It's harder to do if you're dependent on her for housing/food/etc, but you can at least try. Basically, it would involve letting her know what the boundaries are (not telling others; not prying when you don't want to talk, for example.) Let her know this is really important to you, and that if she wants a good relatinoship with you, where you will feel trusting enough to share things, she will need to respect those boundaries. And then, when she doesn't... you can withdraw, and basically make the boundary stronger. She won't like this -- people with poor boundaries HATE it when people establish healthy boundaries -- but hopefully over time she will understand the necessity of it. The truth is, it is very, very hard to get parents with poor boundaries to acknowledge their contribution to the problem. So this may or may not work in the short term. Once you are out of the house, then you get to set the rules a lot more clearly. But for now, you may have to do what you can, and simply see if she will go along with it.
