Hello everyone! I found this forum yesterday and I'm glad to be here, it is nice to see that I'm not alone in this.
I am 49 and I live with my husband and nine year old son. My mom is 86 and living alone in an apartment nearby. Both my parents were alcoholics, my dad died from alcoholism in 1984 when I was 19. My mom quit drinking a year later (for which I give her tremendous credit!) but she has been severely depressed her entire life. My parents had a horrible relationship and my childhood was filled with screaming, fights, and suicide threats. Mom attempted suicide when I was 13, and has threatened it many, many times ever since.
My mom is very passive aggressive and demands lots of attention. She has the emotional maturity level of a four year old. Her parents were cold and uncaring, and she has never gotten over this, nor has she even tried (despite years of counseling). She put me in the parental role very early in my life, and it remains this way today. She even calls me "mommy" at times.
Mom cannot maintain a relationship with anyone, she's totally closed off. She will make a new friend, and within three weeks she finds a flaw with that person and ends the relationship. In the case where she doesn't end the friendship, her selfish demeanor turns the person off and it ends anyway. Then she turns back to me and tells me how lonely she is and how she wants to die. She makes this kind of comment in front of my nine year old.
Mom is in good physical health but recently she has developed dementia. We hired a caregiver for her, someone to come to her house twice per week to help with tasks and keep her company. As usual, after about three weeks mom was tired of having this person come in and asked us to cancel the service. The very next day, she again called me to say how lonely and depressed she was, and asked to come over. When she comes over here, she only talks about her depressing childhood. Often she will bring photos. She typically doesn't even ask about anyone else, including her grandson, my nine year old.
When mom comes in the house, her negativity is like an enormous, smothering black cloud. I count my heartbeats until she leaves. After she leaves, I feel tremendous guilt and sadness. There is nothing I can do to improve her mood, yet the childish part of me still hopes somehow I can do something. It is up to her to find a shred of happiness, but she refuses, and now that she is getting dementia, I fear she can never have that "aha" moment. This leaves me so terribly sad and if affects my family too.
Mom is on Paxil and Klonopin, and just got Buspar too (after insisting to the doctor that she is STILL depressed/anxious). She can't keep these medicines straight and often takes too many or just lets them run out over the weekend when she can't get a refill quickly. Then she makes one of her crazy visits or phone calls to my house.
I quite literally cannot stand her anymore. I'm engulfed with guilt and sadness but I can't stand the sight of her or bear the sound of her voice. She won't let us do anything for her (hire help). Yet she insists on continuing to vomit negativity over us all. Ironically, despite the suicide threats and spoken desire to die, she still asserts that she wants to live to be 100, and she is careful about what she buys in the grocery store, making sure the ingredients are healthy.
She is a walking conundrum and I am a mess. Advice? Thanks so much if you've read this far! I'm glad to have found this forum.
This afternoon my husband and I visited my mom together. We never know what to expect, and I was hesitant, but I felt supported by being with him. Mom surprised us today, her new medications must be working, because she was the closest to pleasant that I've seen in a long while. She was lucid, friendly, even jovial, and spoke of normal things instead of her childhood woes. She said she would gladly sign her newly-updated will and other paperwork. She even said, without a hint of malice, that she is willing to look into moving into an assisted living facility, and she asked us if we wouldn't mind looking into it. Who is this woman?
Gosh if she were like this more often, I'd do backflips to help her and visit her every day. Tomorrow she could be clingy and suicidal again, who knows? But for this evening, my heart is light for the first time in quite awhile. I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts!
{{{huge group hug}}} to all of us here. In just a few days you have all become so dear to me!
There are chronic conditions that your parent could have that would be easier to deal with because they are defined. BPD and narcissism are sneaky. They hide in the guise of "functional." There are no cures, there is only behavior modification -- a little for the BPD, a lot needed for the caregiver/family member.
Documentation helps, I saw that in another post -- yes! Talk to specialists in the geriatric field. Speak candidly. Repression of feelings is not good for you.
Hugs!
It's funny, I realized too that her mood is her own and it is never altered by anyone else's mood, and never has been. When she's down, nothing cheers her up. It occurred to me last night that while she was in a good mood, nothing would have brought her down. I suppose that is part of narcissism, not being able to be affected by anyone else's mood but her own. I'm really learning now, and I feel so much more empowered by all of this.
But yeah, I'm putting myself and my husband and son first, absolutely. I do have a couple of books on personality disorders, I purchased them from time to time over the past few years, trying to figure all of this out. I'm reading them again now, and having new insights.
Chimp. Do we have the same mother? Palm?
My animals are so important to me now. We live on a ranch and the children, stair stepped from 29 down, four of them, say we love our pets more than them!
I remember as a child, saving food and helping my little mixed breed in the window when it was cold or raining. She never deserved to be treated the way my mom treated her.
My mother has a cat now, we stupidly thought it would help with the isolation. Every time I went to the house, the cat would throw itself at my feet and beg me to kill it or take it home. After three years of living with my mother... it's angry. Now it pins its ears and takes a swipe! What has she done to that poor cat?
But the memories are the worst. She writes hot checks and in comes a memory! We lose another caregiver and I'm hit with another memory. The worst is when you realize that, yes, they have been that way for a long time. Only now it's times ten on crack!
Get to a 12 step ACOA meeting and work the steps.
Your mother is locked in her own hell and deserves help, too. Please get her to therapy ASAP.
Please do not turn your back on her - there is a chance for peace through compassion and family recovery. It did not get this way overnight and takes time to heal.