On Tackling a Overprotective Mum

My Mum is undeniably overprotective. She herself didn't see herself that way. She said it's caring and she worries too much. That's why she wants to know everything. She calls every evening at 8pm to ask me if I've had my dinner of if it rains in KL. And when I was so unlucky to be outside when she calls, I had to tell her some lie that I was out with my colleagues because telling her I'm with one of the bloggers would eventually lead to something never ending.

Blame it on myself because I never told her from the start. But if I did, perhaps I wouldn't even be blogging nowadays.

All my life growing up, she looks after what I do. What I wear to school or to outings. What I did in school she'll find out from my teachers. Who I'm friends with I'll have to report to her. Where I'll be going on the weekend with my friends she wants to know.

But things change after I moved to KL. I was on my own. That was when I started to meet up with people outside from medical school. She knows who my close friends are in school. But she didn't know that I have other close friends who are already working, i.e. not from medical school. I didn't tell her about the later, because she'd probably interogate me about them and even up to the extend of wanting to meet up with them before they could pass her screening and become my friends.

I wanted so much to tell her that I'm old enough to pick my own friends. But most of the time I just couldn't do so over the phone. It's going to be a lot of explanation, and grew impatient easily, once she touches how come I don't go out with any girls from schools instead. So I ended up telling her more and more lies.

Until one day when she told me, "You are obliged to tell me everything, because I am your mother."

So I told her.

Half of the essential stuff until she got a rough picture of who these guys really are, and she stopped pressing further.

But I finally decided to write her THE letter. It was 8 pages long, front and back, half on who I hang out with when I go out if I'm not with my colleagues, and the other half about my life in medical school. I was hoping very much that she would see things my way, that she would slowly let go. Living my life is not the solution.

"You have to let me live my life, you cannot keep controling who I am. How long do you still want to control everything when I'm already an adult? I'm not young anymore. I know what to wear when I go out to mamak stall. I know how to brush my teeth before I go to sleep. And I know how to pick my own friends for that matter."

I don't know how hurt she was when she read the letter. But I do really hope that she sees thing more openly after that. And she would slowly let go, walking next to me instead of in front of me. All these while I project my mum as the very caring lady in my life, there's no doubt to that. But over-doing it would no longer do me any good.

So here's the deal. You have to let go slowly. And I'll be less introvert from now on. Savvy?