In October my boyfriends brother committed suicide. His other brother went to prison the same week & his mother had a heart attack at 68 the same month. So this great man (I'll call him "D") I am with, lost his whole immediate family in 1 month.
His mother has always been mentally abusive & domineering with her sons. Both my boyfriends brothers were over 8 years older than him. Thus he was not the brunt of her abuse because he had them. It was the one that lived with her that committed suicide.
So after she lost the son that she vented the worst on, she has taken up the same behavior with "D". The other son she preached how she wished he would go to prison & get raped for years & where is he? She is extremely cruel & demeaning. Wishing he was the one that died when he will not take her abuse. Telling him if he doesn't do what she says she will call his job & get him fired so he looses everything. Threatens to tell me lies so he looses me.
Now since she had the heart attack, she has become completely disabled due to a hereditary condition. So she can only feed herself and use a bedside pot. After her rehab & she came home the first time the abuse was horrid. Screaming, crying & throwing things if "D" did not do what she said & get her lists done. Always putting him down in every little thing he did for her for hours we would be there & she is really good & explaining exactly how he fails although none of what she says is true. She has depression medication but no doctor has diagnosed her although I found OLD bottles of schizophrenia medicine. Anyway, the first time she was home we had family & friends trying to help. None of us could keep up with her demands. She has lists miles long and never runs out of errands for any person that comes around her. For anyone to not do what she wants instantly turns her on a person. She looks at them like the enemy saying horrid things to them or about them to others. Eventually everyone stopped coming around & it has only been me and "D".
She was sent to the nursing home when sanitation & behavior got out of our control & having no money for a caregiver. Not that one would stay if she did have the money. So she turns nice crying at his betrayal on her to be in the nursing home & talks "D" into taking her back to her house. We thought rehab gained her her independence back but 2 wks later she turned vicious again & was clearly disabled. Screaming, crying, having fits on "D" every single day. Incontinent blaming "D". Falling & blaming "D". Trashed out the house. She expects take out every day or she looses all this weight and blames "D". Tells everyone he starves her. Also it is common for us to do things 3 times before she's satisfied. Clothes returned 3-4 times, grocery shopping 3 times a day, 1 cell phone after another, take out food 3 places, doctors over & over. Would have fits if she smelled food on us because she comes first to where we waited to eat until we got home. Both of us shaking we are so hungry but we didn't want to deal with the fits
Now she's turned nice again & wants "D" to move her in his house because the state workers said she has to go to a nursing home AGAIN. Told him she changed his diapers and now he needs to change hers. How he is living his life while she is not & cries how he can do this to her being his mother. She reminds him of what she went through as a single mother to raise him & now he's going to do her this way? Odd thing is, she can turn off that abusive behavior in front of strangers or when she is working towards something she wants. So she's been a angel the past few days laying the guilt on thick & "D" is in such a deep depression I don't know how to pull him out. How to you undo a lifetime of abuse & convince him he DOES deserve a life & he shouldn't feel guilty? That she will turn vicious when she gets her way like the last time and the last?
She convinces him that for the time she has left, he should sacrifice his life as she wants because he'll live 30 yrs to her probably living 2-5 more yrs. She constantly mentions that & plans her funeral to him.
She tells him it is her life and he needs to let her decide her life, not him. So he keeps trying to accommodate her irrationality. She convinces him the rest of the family doesn't care about him. Told him horrid things like they wanted him aborted. So he's been estranged from such good people that love him .How do you help someone brainwashed by an abuser since he was born? "D" is the most compassionate, kind, loving person. Since October, she stripped him of every greatness about him. He is only a shell now. Has not even had a chance to mourn his brother he was closest to. I cry myself to sleep every night missing who he was & what he endures. Could someone please help me with how to approach him to get through? To not feel he is turning on her. Let her lay guilt that he is all she has because everyone turned their backs on her crying when she ran everyone off?
A social worker through a state service for the elderly has said that she cannot reside alone because she is not able to care for herself. She is suppose to go to the nursing home next week but has been trying to change state services hoping that throws a wrench in them making her go. Making "D" feel guilty that she raised him as a single mother & what is 2-5 years she may have left compared to his 30 some years he gets to live and have a life compared to her. How he has no heart. So he feels guilty living his life at all & we do nothing now. Everyone knows the abuse would start as soon as he keeps her home or ever brings her to his home. It was like that each time before. I just don't know how to get him to see what it is doing to his life. He actually says that "this is my life". I told him "your life is what YOU make it. There is no happiness living in her world". He says he wants to let her make the choices with her life. I ask him how he can let a person decide on their life that changes their mind a dozen times a day? How can you ever reach a happy medium with a person that never sticks to a plan because she's adding or changing the plan constantly?