My mom has been a miserable, nasty, and hateful person all her life. As a mother she has dominated every aspect of her children's life.

lonelytired53, you could, legitimately, morally, and compassionately, place your mom in a residential hospice. YOU are not the horrible person. You have normal sensibilities and concern, compassion and empathy for other human beings. You mom did not. And now, probably, cannot; for her to learn it now would be as much of a miracle as her lung cancer going away. The effective use of her wrath to get want she wants has reinforced her using it, and she has come to believe that she SHOULD get what she wants at all costs to anyone else, which is an incredibly sad, needy, and miserable way to live. Of course she goes on the attack when she perceives normal, emotionally healthy people and relationships...it is too foreign and threatening to her and she'd have to face the fact that she lived her life all wrong. Yes, it is easier to give in and let her rule, but it is a terrible misrule; even though you feel sorry for her, it would make sense to set limits, little ones at first, particularly if you continue to care for her in your home. You know perfectly well she would deliberately destroy your marriage if she could, just to have more of you to herself and more total control over you. Don't feel you have to let her. Treasure your husband and the life you share with him more than that. The story of the thrown away gift is heartbreaking, but she is doing the same thing; you are giving love and care and it will be wasted because in her eyes it is not good enough and never can be. It is NOT you. It is her. Don't go on volunteering yourself and your husband to live in hell. It is probably not necessary, and it benefits no one in the long run. Your mother will die, and you cannot prevent that. You can stop her terminal illness from claiming your home life as well, and in the process, maybe show her, as your husbands parents did, how life can be better.

lonelytired53, thanks for your explanation. I don't see where you have anything to feel guilty about or ask God to forgive you for in how you feel for from reading your description above, you have been living in a nightmare from hell.

The abuse that you experienced in your childhood is a very valid reason for placing your mother in a nursing home. After all you have and are going through, I hope you do outlive her.

I'm glad that you felt free to vent. You and your husband may find it helpful to see a therapist to help you work through all of this pan and anger arising from all of this present hellish nightmare and abusive past. Please take care of yourself.

I meant to say before her sisters died

One of the posters encourage us to put our mothers in a respectable care facility. I am a RN, and I have worked in Psych, Home Health, and now the most respectable nursing home in our area. Why don't I do this. I will tell you why. First of all I have always thought God would want me to care of her, even though she has treated me horrible my whole life. When I was a young girl, and all through my life, she would get mad at me and not speak to me for days. I was never hugged or comforted by her. My dad was verbally abusive, telling me I was a fat ass, needed to see a psychiatrist, stupid ect. AND my mother was emotionally abusive EVERY day of my life. I sometimes wonder if he fed off of her. As a child, I would beg for forgiveness ("Please mama forgive me, I didn't mean to, PLEASE talk to me"). It was never clear just what it was that I had done. My dad died 20 years ago, and we moved them up here in a trailer behind our house to help care for my dad. If I had it to do over again, this would never happen. After he died, I became her caregiver, although at that time she was perfectly capable of caring for herself. I let her guilt me in to never going anywhere, because she was afraid of being alone at night ect. Yes, that was my own fault. During my dads battle with cancer, his lungs filled with fluid (lung cancer); he was hospitalized. I remember her crawling up on his hospital bed and getting on her knee over him (while he was gasping for air) and asking "what am I supposed to do?" No I love you, I am here with you.....This before they placed the chest tube that eased his breathing difficulties. I kept a journal of this for a long time. I finally had to throw it away; I kept revisiting it. Everytime I read this journal I became angry and hurt at how ugly she acts. I tried so hard to be a good daughter. I spent my whole life trying to get approval from her. I remember the very first present I gave her. I was about 9 years old and saved what little I could get my hands on. I bought her a necklace and earrings, and yes they were trinkets more than jewelry. She said "why would you buy me this junk; you wasted your money" and with that she threw them away. My child made me a necklace, and I wore it til it fell apart. I had many experiences like this. It took me years to realize it was not me. Oh and did I mention I am an only child and was adopted at birth. My mothers brother was a schizophrenic, and although she was never diagnosed, I now know my mother has paranoid personality disorder. My husbands mother had alzheimers; she hated me our entire married life, because I got pregnant at almost 16 years old. That is until she got so sick we became her caregiver. We took care of her for 8 long years, but I can honestly say that at her worse, she was nothing like my mother. Two months after she died my mother fell and broke her rib, she had been going through radiation for throat cancer and a malignant lung nodule. However her PET scan was clear. After falling ,we moved her in with us. Everyday is like a new way to live through hell. Due to my husbands health, I work full time and he is caregiver more than I am. He knew of my mothers behavior through my sharing, but now he lives it. It is the only way to understand, and he has become so very bitter, understandably so. Once I finally understood that things would never change, and she was unable to care about anybody, I made the decision to place her. I wanted to wait until her latest PET scan results. Now she has pulmonary metastatic lung cancer. And although I know hubby won't say anything, this was very upsetting for him. He feels he owes me, because I took care of his mother with her abuse for so long. My mother is still doing as well as she was, but how can I place her knowing she will die. Although she was diagnosed with lung cancer TWO years ago. She will say she is going to outlive us; I believe this may be true. We are tired, angry and we never get to go anywhere. She awakens with us, and goes to bed when we do. She gives us no alone time, and when we go down to the den to be alone for a sec, she yells out for us. We have no one to help us, and we do not have enough money to hire help. There is no help for us here in the state of NC. I know God is not happy with the thoughts I have of anger, hatred, and bitterness. She has COPD as well and cannot take but a few steps. She sits herself on the bedside commode in our living room and can feed herself. Everything else we do for her, pushing her to kitchen in w/c to eat, bathing her. She is the ruler of this household...WHY you ask, because it is easier than her wrath. I can no longer listen to my music. She always says something about us being on our computers, but we cannot sit in the L/R. Her potty is in front of the recliner, and she takes up the whole couch. AND if you do try to sit with her and visit, she interrogates you. She complains about everything she eats, and she gets a cooked meal three times a day (thanks to hubbys help as I work second shift). She ask me one morning what kind of hold my husband had over me. I wanted to say he was my mother, my father, my brothers and sisters, and he loves me unconditionally. I was a week from sixteen when I found out I was pregnant. It was my escape from home, but luckily hubby and I were already engaged and knew we were for each other. He also comes from an abusive background; his father was an alcoholic, and a mean one at that. I think that may have been our connection. I have been told many times in my life that I don't have enough confidence, and i have come a long way, but that doubt is still there. I still hear those "you won't amount to anything" words from my father, and I still feel the lack of affection from my mother. No I'm not having a pity party, I have come a long way. I have a realistic understanding of the events in my life. I am 53, and I am tired. I can't explain it. I love her and hate her all at the same time. I am very giving, but I do spout off at her sometimes. Her sisters used to tell her before she died, she was manipulative, selfish and mean. My daughter won't have anything to do with her. AND she chose not to have that much to do with my sons when they were babies. I fought that their whole lives too. She still tries to pit my daughter against my sons. My daughter has Borderline personality disorder and is a recovering drug addict. I can't help but think it was because we lived so close to my parents, and they loved her; she visited them often and spent a lot of time with my mom. They were always good to her, but she saw the way they interacted with each other and everyone else. I wonder if some how the time she spent with them had some impact on her mess of a life. I blame myself for that. I feel like a horrible person; I am ready to have a life. We feel like we have been living in a nightmare for years. I feel so guilty for the way I feel. I am not a bad person, in fact I am too nice. Many people take this as a weakness and use it against you. Thank you for letting me vent. May God understand and forgive me.

After a period of calm, my mother has recently gone ballistic. She found out that I'm off on holiday with my Dad again this year, and she phoned me to have a rant. I finally plucked up the courage to tell her that I don't want to go with her because of her overbearing manner, and now she's having a massive sulk, but I'm enjoying the quiet! Luckily since Christmas my sisters and I are all pulling together, so she's cut them off too! She sent me a letter 'explaining' why her poor behaviour is everyone else's fault but hers and has basically told me to have a nice life. I'm not bothered but my sisters are struggling with the guilt as she now has nobody: she's fallen out with them all. I'm fine but worry about my sisters. I've learnt so much from this website and feel empowered. My mother has made her own choices to be toxic. I refuse to pick up the pieces. Hell no!! Be strong everyone. Xx

You are NOT being selfish! You've hung in there longer than most people would have. Your mother now has a diagnosis of dementia - it's probably not even ADVISABLE for her to leave the facility at this point. Let yourself and your family off the hook - trust that the wonderful staff at that facility will provide for your mother - ENJOY your own holiday; you and your family have earned it.

mockingbird, what you have described about sounds like a concrete, living example of the Stockholm Effect which is a traumatic bonding that is a survival technique of some victims of abuse who come to over identify with their abuser.

My wife struggled with a good bit of that with her narcissistic mother for years which did a lot of damage to our family until she got in therapy and after working very hard got out of it. Her very passive, dependent, nurturing dad told her and her twin sister that he could see the abuse that they were going through with their mother, but that there was nothing he could do about it.

One of my wife's therapists unofficially diagnosed my MIL with a narcissistic personality with borderline traits. I think that she's so emotionally unpredictable that she's a pure borderline with a very strong narcissistic vein. Whichever does not matter, but my wife has been told to keep her geographical distance from her mother and to not be the direct caregiver of her in her mom's old age which she's in now at 87 in assisted living.

While I can understand how childhood experiences may contributed to the development of a narcissistic or a borderline personality, that only explains things but does not excuse or justify them as abusive personalities. Narcissists are not capable of empathy and can't be helped, but borderlines have a chance to be capable of empathy, but few reach it because it takes too much hard work in therapy which they don't tend to stick with because of their intense fear of abandonment that they abandon others before they have a chance to abandon them. .

Your mother is extremely blessed to have caring daughter as yourself and I am glad for your sake that she is in assisted living instead of in your house. I do hope you can find a way to move beyond the F.O.G. to having stronger emotional boundaries and detach from her in love and care for her as a fellow human being who needs care and safety, but not at the expense of your own mental health. What does your husband think about you having to live in the F.O.G.? Take care of yourself.

Man I would give ANYTHING if my mother was in a home or alf. I would be so much happier and then I could be like my other lousy brothers & sisters & just forget about her till I feel like calling her. They get to live their lives with no contact why cant I have a life?

My mother is in ALF, my other siblings (4) have nothing to do with her and I too feel obligated to be there for her out of fear, guilt and emotional blackmail. I am her POA, her voice so I can`t walk away and even though I have thought about it my other thought is that she`s my mother how can I. I can understand how others have ne problem with no contact but I also feel bad for the mother. In my case it`s not my fault or her`s it`s the way she was brought up so everyone is suffering. Maybe she has brainwashed me but since I`ve been through so much already I feel like I have to see it through till the end, for her and me. I don`t want to live with more guilt and everything else that goes with it after she passes. She`s 85, early dementia, weak, high blood pressure, etc., being around her is like being on a rollercoaster, never know what`s coming next. I could go on and on, just venting.

Enjoy your life with your own children who see you for the loving person that you are. Spend less time with the people who hurt you through fear, obligation, guilt, and other forms of emotional blackmail, and that includes close relatives. Slowly visit your mother less and less until you stop visiting her period. Since she's in an assisted care facility with round the clock treatment, you can visit her at anytime and leave her at anytime. Life is way too short to worry about people who have no appreciation for it.

She will randomly ask me odd questions like "Is your washer and dryer still working" or "Is your friend still coming to clean" and when I tell her things are fine I think it's making her mad.It's like she wants me to tell her I am miserable and to come get me and take me to Arizona with her and I won't do that. She won't come home but she wants me to go live with her. And i won't do it and it is making her angry. She can't get that I am an adult who is capable of taking care of herself. I also do not think she is thinking of the long term consequences of us living together. We already did that for years when she was living in Washington and it was miserable. So why would she want to do that again?

My Mother showed very little love to me growing up.but see has been on here own for many years and worked hard. my two sisters have cut off there relationship with her because she Is so hard to be around. My mother came back into my life. She started being very generous to us all with her money It was a bit embarrassing but as me my wife and children are struggling financially It was hard to say no. Anyway It's been 10 years since she was back in our lives the point Is she Is so nasty to everyone all the time we fear her coming to the house I find It hard to tell her she is rude and creates an atmosphere all the time. I suffer from depression and don't like confrontations or hearing bad news She Is always complaining of being Ill and complains about everything and every one she is driving me mad she Is 82 we take her out every week phone her every night to make shore she's OK but she has cursed so many arguments I'm finding I'm not liking her.... so I feel guilty because she gives with one hand and takes with the other we were out at a party and she was nasty and here face was all twisted..... I tired to kept the atmosphere going good all night. She came around to my house the next morning shouting at every one and being very nasty to my wife my sons I had had enough and raised my voice and ordered her out the house she creates so much unhappiness in my life I don't want to see her any more. When we tell her about how we feel, about her being nasty all the time she say's ( I've helped you and this is what I get) ...and throw's the money thing back in our face which make's me feel bad she messing with my emotions I've had enough I will not stand by and see my family insulted by my mother enough's enough.

Would it be comforting to remind yourself that you don't need to convince her, then? No matter how persistent her belief that you have no reason not to move to live with her, that belief in itself will not move you bodily onto a 'plane after all. I feel for your frustration. Maybe what you want is a stock sentence - I dunno, something like "I'm changing the subject NOW" - that halts this tedious circular conversation abruptly as soon as she starts it?

I thought I was alone in this situation, but obviously not. Every one here has the same horrible trap that I do. All of my siblings have picked up and moved as far away from Mother as possible and left me stuck to deal with her alone. It would not be so bad if she could see even one thing in a positive light, but she is negative, miserable, controlling and loves to play mind games. At this point, she is 88 years old, frail and almost blind, but still mean as a snake. I would feel guilty if I just left too, but I do daydream about escaping this hell.

Don't give her reasons. That only fuels the fire day, "I don't want to move". That's all you have to say. If you parry, there's a return. If you refuse to engage, there's an end

A few moths ago when I refused to tell her how much was on my credit card and told her that i am an adult and my money is my business? She called me mentally handicapped and screamed and ranted and raved until I finally hung up on her. Then a week later she is talking to me like she never did any of that! Even my Aunt can't understand why she would want to move in with me. And my Aunt is just as nuts as she is.

Oh I have tried that. She says "You can get a volunteer job in Arizona" "You don't have any friends" "The kids are too busy and you never seen them. So why do you want to stay there",etc. Every time I give her a reason why I don't want to move there she comes up with a reason why those are not good enough. A month ago she insulted me on the phone and told me i was "mentally handicapped" never apologized for it and acts like things are fine. I have tried telling her I have plenty of friends Her response? "Well you never talk about them" meanwhile SHE has no friends. I feel like we are just going in circles I have told her many times before that I am not going to Arizona. She drops it for a few months and then brings it up again. I agree she can't make me do it. But I can't convince her of that! I have tried.

Elmo, if you were to say to your mother "tell me, why would I want to leave Washington where I live and work and where all my friends are?" what would she say? Sit tight and bounce it back at her - be a wall. She can't make you do anything you don't want to do.

And she is CONVINCED that if we "put out money together" that we will just have all this money leftover after paying the bills to just go on vacation all the time! She is seriously nuts. I make less then 2000 dollars and so does she.We are both on fixed incomes. There is no way we can both live off of that with money leftover.

OMG. Here we go AGAIN. After MONTHS of not bringing it up my mom calls me. We had a nice talk at first about family and so on. Then she says "You know it's been a few months and I REALLY think we need to move in together! I just KNOW that in 2 years time I won't be able to work anymore,etc" and it's obvious she wants me to move to Phoenix. Because she kept giving all these excuses why she just CAN'T move back to Washington. H*ll even my Aunt said to her "Why would you two want to live together?"! My mom is SO concerned about the future she just can't enjoy the present. She wants me to give up MY life but she won't give up HER's. She says "Well you know it's not REALLY that hot here(I beg to differ that 120 is "not that bad") and how my sister is too busy and my nieces and nephews are all too busy so I should have NO problem moving to Phoenix. I want to tear out my hair!

You are not alone...you just have described my father and the h*ll of the last 24 years.

Lostwolf - you have nothing at all to feel guilty about. You say Mom has her faculties, therefore she is responsible for her choices and the consequences they carry. You certainly are not responsible, nor can you fix her (which you wisely understand). Basically I would not get involved in ANY way with her financially - not POA nor conservatorship. She will have to do what she wants to do, until the state has to step in.

Your mother hasn't left anyone in her life with any options, other than to walk away. I know it's easier said than done, but you have nothing to feel guilty about. Even if you continued to be in her life, and maybe even take guardianship, you wouldn't solve any of her problems; you'd just be destroying your own life, and your family's life, as well.

lostwolf, you did the right thing by refusing to enable your Mom. It really is sad the choices people make but those are not our choices or our responsibilities. As hard as it is, you have to let it go.

My mom is 83 years old. My father passed away in 2005 and she moved out of state to live with my brother who is more than twenty years older than I. She would gamble and as time went on she became more and more nasty (gambling brought out a side of her personality equivalent to a mean drunk). She was mean (and selfish) to my brother and his wife and daughter and they severed ties with her. This year my mother severed ties with me because I refused to pay off her gambling debt. She has a new grandchild on the way and I am overridden with guilt. None of this is my fault. She knows she has a problem and refuses to get help "this is the way I am, gambling is my LIFE" - she says. It was painful to decide... But no contact for me is the only way to go. I am powerless to do anything... No matter how much I want her to change - she won't. She's written bad checks, can't pay her rent, or buy groceries. She goes to a food bank and gets fed by meals on wheels. Her brother won't help her and just tries to dump this all on me but I'm not having it anymore. When dealing with an elderly parent with an addiction - it is a lose:lose scenario. If I fight to become her guardian I am responsible for her debt, care, and any other debt she creates by writing bad checks. She steals stupid things she doesn't need from stores and thinks she won't get caught or that no one would prosecute an old lady. CRAZY! And wreck less but she has all her faculties. She has always had a personality disorder and as of late has become unbearably nasty and stubborn. It really feels terrible and this is eating away at me... There is no hitting bottom for her... When I think she's reached bottom she breaks through that floor and finds a new low.

Crag nun thanks for this will read and digest this and then cone back

Libbylou, has your mother been manipulative or is this something new? If it is not new, then she's got you in an emotional blackmail game and you can choose not to dance by setting some boundaries.

Has your mother been evaluated lately by her doctor to see if she has dementia yet? How old is she? What are her most outstanding health problems?

This dance is a very blinding one and that is why it is called F.O.G. which stands for Fear, Obligation and Guilt.

The only way to get of the F.O.G. dance is to set boundaries of what you will and will not do in light of your other responsibilities like your husband who even if his health was not bad is still your first responsibility as well as your responsibility to take care of your own well being.

One third of caregivers die before the person they are caring for does. The major contributing factor is trying to do more than one human being can do as well as not taking care of themselves. So, if you don't take care of you and end up dying, where does that put your husband and where does it put your mom?
Plus, you are valuable as just you and deserve to take good care of yourself for your own well-being.

You can't take responsibility for your mom's emotions. You didn't make her be the way she is. The person she is comes from the combination of the challenges she faced in life and what she chose to do with them. Also, you can't fix her. Nor can you control her. About all you can really do is to place yourself on a healthy emotional path and be in control of you with realistic boundaries based on the total combination of your life's situation without throwing anyone, including yourself, under the bus.

What does your husband think and feel about you being pulled in all directions with nothing but verbal abuse and emotional blackmail from your mother plus her own negative outlook on him and his family?

Has she always been rude to your husband and his side of the family? To belittle someone's spouse and their family is mean, emotional abuse.

Does she need more time from the carers and can she afford to pay for it?

Overall, your mother sounds rather well cared for and it sounds like she may be expecting you to be her substitute company after her neighbor died. Her happiness seems to be her primary concern regardless of the other responsibilities and life that others may have. Somehow, you need to set some boundaries with your mom and firm up your boundaries in your marriage by being more focused there with your husband so that you are more fully present when you are with him instead of mom still being present in your head. It's difficult and it's tricky but it can be done.

Basically in a nutshell, learn to detach from her emotional dance with love for mom (there is a good article on detaching on this site) and cleave closer with your husband.

Hold your ground, establish and firm up your boundaries, and take no prisoners as you seek to bring balance into this very unbalanced situation with you caught in the middle.

I wish you the best and please let us know how things are going!

Thanks hobeckaie but I am in the UK and sheltered housing is different. Assisted living is only just starting to filter in over here. Mum still lives independently but with a warden on site Monday to Friday and emergency pull chords over the weekend. She has carers going in about 5 - 6 hours per week to do various jobs such as shopping, cleaning and bathing. Also her neighbour has just passed away who was 20 years younger than her who was some company for her. So I get pulled in all directions by her. I still have to check that she is safe. She knows how to manipulate me and I wonder if some sort of dementia is setting in. My husband has health issues ongoing at the moment as he needs me as well. Mum us rude about him and his side of the family, thinks I have had a boring life and belittles me all the time. I feel torn to bits by her, guilty if I don't see her as at the end of the day she is a sad lonely old lady

I'm happy for you that she is in an assisted care facility. That is half the battle. At least you know she is in a safe environment with caregivers who are trained to deal with this behavior. You really can have your own life and visit her when and if you want. No guilt or shame necessary!

Sorry for the spelling mistakes above must check more