What do you make of this?

[Darkhorse]

A memory has come back to me tonight. As a teenager, my mother used to write letters on a lined A4 writing pad, and leave it on the coffee table in the living room.
Not hidden, but you could see she had written letters, usually to her friends.
She used to write so many horrible things about me to her friends.
She would tell her friends how I had been disciplined by my father for my behaviour, I think her particular wording was how I was 'read the riot act'.
For those that don't know what that means, it means scolding severely for personal failings.
Why on earth would anyone write to their friends to degrade their children?
She wrote that she was going to throw me out of 'her house'.
She would describe me in the most awful terms.
I had not done anything wrong.
I never took drugs, drank alcohol or partied.
I was a prisoner in 'her house'.
When I saw the words I just broke down in tears.
My mother came into the room and asked what I was crying about.
I said I had seen what she had written in her letters.
She went crazy and yelled at me for reading her 'private correspondence'.
I never even text my friends about my sons, certainly not about family life, but we are a reasonably harmonious family. We did not punish our children, hit, or curse at them.

I just think she was utterly cruel, crazy, and I think she genuinely hated me.

She used to come up to my face and tell me to 'leave'.
'When are you leaving?'
My dad would sit reading his newspaper and just repeat the words my mother had uttered.
I was 17.

[Armee]

I'm sorry. I make of it exactly what you make of it. She was cruel and crazy. It sounds similar to our household growing up too and like you I have kids and things do not go down like that in our household either. Mercifully you broke a cycle. 

[Kizzie]

So sorry to hear this DarkHorse, it's hellish living with abusive parents and lacking the love, nurturing, belonging  and safety healthy families provide to their children. I would not doubt it if he was expressing her hatred of herself but directed at you.

It really is not normal for a parent to denigrate their children to others, no loving parent would do so. It's good you recognize that and understand how cruel it was. By not doing that with your sons you're breaking the cycle of abuse so good on you.

[Dark.art.girl]

Darkhorse, absolutely no child should have to face that kind of treatment from their parent. That is incredibly harmful and I'm so sorry you had to live that way. Not to assume, but she sounds like a very insecure and miserable human being, alongside crazy and cruel. And shame on your father for not sticking up for you.
Like Kizzie said, it's fantastic you recognize it for what it is. A lot of times it takes years to define that kind of behavior as atypical of someone who actually loves you. You were a good kid, you were normal, and you should have felt loved and protected.
I'm glad you're still here with us

[Chart]

 
I agree 100% with all the comments above. So very sorry you experienced that, Darkhorse. Your mother very clearly has extremely severe problems, of which you have been obliged to suffer.