2 years ago I made a thread on this site asking if I was being irrational about how I felt caring for my ill mother. She’s 60 now, and I’m 25. Since my last post, I started college and have 2 years left. Her health hasn’t gotten better - she still has stage 3 COPD, living with 4 stents in her heart and many arterial blockages. Moving around for her is difficult (yet weirdly, she’s got enough energy to walk to the porch and light a cigarette.) The fights with my mother haven’t gotten better since, and I’m starting to understand what’s going on with her deep down. When you’re physically weak, but your mind is strong, it feels like you have to grasp as any attempt you have left to maintain some sort of control over your life. It’s a miserable feeling. I’ve since learned that my mother is codependent on me, and I carry her emotional burdens as she’s cut ties with my brother and most of her own family any friends. But yet, she refuses to help herself. She won’t quit smoking and she won’t find external assistance. Our last fight was due to me telling her that I need time to decompress and have some silence when I get off my 8-hour shift at work while also having to study, rather than get into conversation about topics that stress me out such as politics. Often when I speak up for myself, she exacerbates the situation and turned “decompress” into “I hate you, mom, and I wanna go elope states away from you”. I can’t even explain how it got to there. So I’ve finally decided that I’m going to take my name off of the lease of the apartment we share and pursue a studio that’s only 10 minutes away from her, that way I can focus on myself and finally have some peace. I told her already that I would still always be one call away to help her, but it’s not enough. I’m not the best at caregiving, hell, I have no experience or training in it. I do my best for what little I am capable of, and I try to encourage her to seek the care she needs with someone who is trained as has more time for her. Mind you, she refuses to hire a professional caregiver or even consider assisted living options. She’s been trying to bargain with me. Her latest bargain is, “stay in this apartment and I’ll leave you alone completely unless I need a ride or some food”, but that’ll never be that simple. I know it’ll go back to the same thing because I’ve been doing this with her since I was 18. I declined the proposal so she said, “If that offer isn’t even good enough for you, you are full of hate for me and there is nothing I can do. So do what you want. My bottomless well is dry”. We’ve been fighting for years, and I just can’t do it anymore. I figured some space could help the both of us, but she won’t accept it. I don’t know what to do anymore. How can I word it so that she’ll understand that I’m not abandoning her?
There is no way that your Mom is going to accept you living somewhere else, no matter what you say. So, don't try to explain it again and again. JUST MOVE OUT AS PLANNED.
When I read that you are only 25 and your Mom is still relatively young herself at 60, I couldn't imagine you giving up any more of your life than you already have. Parents are supposed to foster independence so a child can successfully leave home. Your Mom has planned for you to be her caregiver. That could be for years and years. And she is using guilt to try to manipulate you.
Don't try to convince her to be happy about you leaving. Just stick to your word, leave home, and give her only the amount of time and attention you feel you want to. And don't be surprised if she calls daily for favors.
Good luck, and again Congrats!
Why? Your mother does not love you, because she isn't capable of loving anyone. This is a difficult reality to face, but you need to see it. You won't win her love, because she doesn't have it to give. So go out to the people who are capable of loving you, including your fiance.
This sounds harsh, but I hope it will help you to see the reality: you do not make her happy. She wants to fight, she wants to be abusive, she wants to cut you down, she wants to be self-destructive. Are those good ways to live? No, but you are there as her trigger, and her enabler. She seeks opportunities to be negative, and you, with the best of intentions, provide them to her. It's not healthy for her, as well as unhealthy for you.
Your response to her question about "oh you think I need therapy" should be, "Absolutely, Mom. You are a miserable person and doing your best to turn me into one too. Please get as much therapy as you can."
I would never treat my children this way! Neither would the other women on this forum! I would be so proud of you -- your intelligence, your work ethic, your loving spirit! And I would tell you that, and encourage you to go out and be independent and fulfill your dreams, both personal and professional. Please, I beg you, leave your abuser and launch into a happy life.
She doesn't need a caregiver if she's capable of smoking cigarettes with "stage 3 COPD".
Mom is using FOG tactics to hold you emotionally hostage to her every whim and continue caregiving for her by claiming she's dying. FOG=Fear Obligation and Guilt. Check out the website Outofthefog.website for some very enlightening info on the subject and on personality disordered people who use us to the hilt.
Please get out of her apartment and on with your life. You've done more than enough for a woman who's intentionally making herself sick and then blaming you for not caring about her enough. Since you can never do enough ANYWAY, why bother doing anything? That became my motto with my mother who carried on constantly about what I "didn't do."
You can visit her once in awhile from now on instead of being caught up in her dysfunctional games. She'll be free to hire anyone she can pay enough to put up with her.
You are smart and disciplined enough to be working full time and going to school? All your spare time goes to waiting on your Mom? You are too smart to fall for her guilt trips. You didn't cause your Mom's health issues, and you are young with a great life ahead of you.
Did your Mom ever sacrifice her own life when younger to caregive her own parents? I doubt it. She is selfishly manipulating and using you. She doesn't care about anyone but herself. Why should she pay for outside help when she can use you instead?
Find a place of your own and move out. Otherwise you will suffer the endless drain of energy from being her unpaid and unappreciated slave. You have to stop enabling her and take care of yourself.
I’ve been trying to reach out to friends and family for emotional support but she turns it into “I’m making her look like a demon” to people. I’m not, I’m fully aware of my flaws in this. I just believe I need to get away and break this emotional dependency she has on me.
I hate to see that she’s incapable of caring for herself. I try my best to make her life worth living. On days that she’s feeling good enough to get up, I take advantage of it and take her out to dinner and get her some fresh air. But I also know I’m not good at this caregiving responsibility.
Shes so convinced that the moment I move out that I’ll never help her again. That’s just not true. If I didn’t want to help her, I could move to the state that my fiancé is stationed in and start a family outside of her. But I make her my priority first and foremost before any relationships. Does that sound bad? I have no idea anymore. I can’t tell if I’m in the wrong, or being manipulated, or what anymore.
Congratulations on your boundaries and determination. So many people who come to this forum struggle with parents who have personality disorders and mental illness. You didn't cause it and you can't fix it. So, the best solution is for you to go on and have a healthy, meaningful and joyful life. This is the best way to be of help to your Mom: that you can choose to be involved from a place of wholeness and wellness and energy, and not anxious, drained and depressed.
May you find joy and receive peace in your heart!
Move out, and don't look back. Tell her she is on her own now, so she can hire assistance or move to assisted living. A real mother would be proud of you for working while also going to school and would want you to launch and soar, rather than being tied down because of her selfishness.
Realize that she just uses you, not because of any lack in yourself, but because of who she is. Stop enabling her, by removing yourself from her life.
You can't reason with her. You can't make her understand, because she only understands what she wants. It's very sad that she is that way, but that is reality, and you can't change it.
Take the time you were spending with her and her demands, and spend it with friends and activities that make you happy, enable to smile, and bring you peace. And please, please, please get some counseling to help you overcome this horrendous gaslighting she has subjected you to.
I wish you well. Please be strong, and keep us updated on how you're doing.
I’ve witnessed her stare down the barrel of a revolver when I was a teenager, so I wouldn’t put it past her to really follow through.
Now that I’m typing this out though, the gaslighting and manipulation is really starting to hit me. It’s such an awful situation. I have always been a mama’s girl, and I love her more than anything. But I just can’t deal with who she’s become. I wish she loved me enough to understand my point of view and get a professional to help her.
Thank you so much for responding. I think this is something I really needed to hear.
That’s an interesting idea, Julia, but I wonder if you are possibly making excuses for your mother’s behavior. Was she ever a reasonable and caring parent before her health issues?
Have you considered that she might have a personality disorder such as borderline personality disorder? Fear of abandonment is a biggie with BPD and inspires all kinds of hurtful, lashing out, destructive behavior in a person with it. Family members and friends have to set EXTREMELY firm boundaries to protect themselves. A friend of my dad’s had BPD and despite her volatile, demanding behavior her adult son did manage to maintain a sort of relationship with her — from the other side of the country.
From https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/borderline-personality-disorder
“People with BPD often have highly unstable patterns of social relationships. While they can develop intense but stormy attachments, their attitudes toward family, friends, and loved ones may suddenly shift from idealization (great admiration and love) to devaluation (intense anger and dislike). Thus, they may form an immediate attachment and idealize another person, but when a slight separation or conflict occurs, they switch unexpectedly to the opposite extreme and angrily accuse the other person of not caring for them at all.”
I tried to discuss it with her before, and she’s also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and manic depression by a professional, but she refuses to accept that she has any mental illnesses. I recommended that she speak to a therapist that would be free with her insurance and she said, “oh okay so now you think I f—ing need therapy?”
The situation is just so insane. She’s definitely not capable of functioning on her own, but she keeps pushing away the one person she still has. I feel awful that I have to do this to her but she’s not leaving me any choice.
You’re absolutely right that I’m making excuses for her behavior. I know it’s not right the way she’s treating me, but I know where it stems from and it kills me that I can’t help her. I would never want her to die alone. I’m in such a rut over this.
I think moving out is good even if it just gives you a place to crash. You will need boundaries though. No calling during work hours or study time. Maybe set a time you call her. Like 7pm. Gives you time to decompress after work and then have the rest of the night to yourself. Just a, "checking in Mom". No long conversations about how no one loves her or won't do anything for her. You can hang up when she gets started. Maybe pick a day to run errands. Go out to dinner, can be McDonalds, once a week with her. You are not abandoning her, you are living your life.
Looks to me loke Mom does nothing for herself. No enabling her or disabling her. Continuing to smoke is going to kill her. If she took care of herself, she could do more. Tell her the next time she says she is going to commit suicide you will be calling Adult Protection Services and they will have her put on a 72hr hold. She needs you more than you need her. You really have the control. You set the rules. You work and go to school, sorry Mom I can't have u calling me all the time. If you can't do for yourself its either get an aid or go into an Assisted Living.
These kind of people drain others. Always an excuse why they can't do anything for themselves. People do not like Debbie Downers. They can be sympathetic so long.
Your Mom has COPD because she chose to smoke and still does. This was and is her choice. You do what you can, she either does for herself or gets help. Medicaid has an "in home" program if Mom financially qualifies for. Office of Aging can help her find resourses but she has to take advantage of them.
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