She has dominated her childrens' lives with little concern for anyones' feeling but her own. She is now in a wonderful assisted living and her dementia (I think) has illuminated her personality into a person who I can no longer bear to be around. She has again managed to alienate everyone around her with her insults and insensitivity. She is nasty and uncooperative with the aids (who are wonderful) And complains, complains, complains about everyone, everything and blames my sister and myself for the air she breathes. I am sick of her and I don't want to visit her anymore and don't feel that my adult children need to be manipulated like I was and be around her negative attitude anymore. I hate feeling obligated to have her at my house as I have every holiday of our lives and force my children to "tolerate" her for my sake. The guilt is unbearable but I feel that now being 60 years old I would like to feel that this person does not dominate my whole life. I would like to have a happy holiday for a change and have my children WANT to come home (without Grandma always there)
There has never been any pleasing her before and now she sends me into bouts of depression that I have a hard time shaking. Am I alone? I feel like a selfish person but I don't like her now and never did before. The guilt is killing me.
I moved in with my mom last summer and left my family to help take care of her. She needed 24/7 care immediately and it was only me until I could get enough staff together to help out. I have a husband and two children at home. This was devastating to me and my family. In March, she was getting better and she moved in AL and it has been a blessing, except for the meaness. I realize she is miserable and taking it out on me, but I am not going to be the punching bag. The last three years have been hell, but the years before that were h*ll too. It takes a toll on me, my family and most of all my mental health.
Stay connected with yourself, your family and your new family here.
I'd recommend the "Understanding" book as a manual, but blush to confess that I am still sorting out a more comprehensive reading list for myself and haven't got very far - there's an embarrassment of riches out there. Have you considered seeing a counsellor about this? It might be a good idea, because you'll hugely improve your chances of success with a mentor behind you.
By walking on eggshells around your mom, the three of you sisters are only enabling your mother's abusive behavior to continue and your own enslavement to her. It sounds like she can be left alone. So, leave her out of those activities.
I think you have pegged my mother. She always makes our holidays miserable. She always left mad at someone or put everyone on the spot somehow. She just has a way about her that it is indescribable. Even though now she doesn't go to our gatherings with family, she complains that we all probably sit around and talk about her.--It's just the opposite, we enjoy her not being there. She thinks she should still be the center of attention. Our days together are much more peaceful without her there. The days after are the hardest because she constantly complains about us going, but yet she chose not to go. Sound familiar? Her philosophy--I don't want it, but I don't want you to have it either. I don't want to go, so you shouldn't want to either. Gosh!! Can you say SELFISH
Good luck, those eggshells can only withstand so much.
Wowzer. I think you have a little light reading to catch up on - [nobody yell "boring!!!" at me, please!] - get a copy of "Understanding the Borderline Mother" by Christine Ann Lawson (it comes in paperback which is just as well because it's not free). It's not intended to be an exhaustive study, but it is authoritative and even better highly practical about what on earth to do when you find yourself struggling with one. You could have a look on Amazon and see if the chapter headings ring bells with you as loudly as they did with me. Best of luck.
You might not be able to save both of your sisters from the hell you are living in, but neither can you change your mother. Ya'll did not make your mother the way she is and how she is is not your fault. It is not your fault that your sisters do not have the freedom you are finding, but you don't have to destroy yourself in trying to help them and your mother. Save yourself and anyone who will follow your example of having some boundaries in your life. It is their choice to follow or not, but it is not up to you.
If your mother needs no physical care, but only needs an emotional punching bag for her venting then why are you needed there. Why does your sister feel guilty about your mother?
Keep talking to them. The three of you will all do better if you can link arms on this.
Then there's the matter of the share of the load. Well now. What load is that exactly? What does your mother need in terms of care? There is a crucial distinction to be made between actual, concrete tasks of caregiving, and - how would we put it? - willingness to be your mother's emotional punchbags. The latter, nobody has to accept: no harm will come to your mother if all three of you refuse that role.
You all make your own choices. And therefore the fact that you are saying "enough" to your mother's emotional blackmail makes no objective difference to your accusatory sister. She can follow your example or not, as she pleases. That is her choice to make.
None of you has to take this. Caring for your mother does not mean accepting hurtful behaviours from her. There are all sorts of useful, practical guides to boundary-setting that will help the three of you meet your mother's needs in an emotionally safer way - find one that speaks to you, and send your sisters copies.
However, I have no issues with anyone in my life except my mother. I'm married to a wonderful, supportive man and have two daughters, both young adults, and I have a healthy, close, loving relationship with both. She, on the other hand, has alienated everyone who has ever been close to her (my parents divorced when we were in our late teens/early 20s).
I wanted so much to have a relationship with my mother as an adult, that I tried to make excuses for the horrible things she did when I was growing up. I've bent over backwards to help my mother and include her in my family, but nothing I do or have done has been appreciated. The more I've done and put up with, the more she's walked all over me. She continually tries to goad me over the most ridiculous things - I'll say the sky is blue and she'll debate that; she loves to argue, and she's patronizing and sarcastic to boot.
I'm finally at a point where I have to stop this cycle, and the only way I know how is to have no contact with her. My brother (who I think is afraid of what that might mean to his life!) cautions me on feeling guilt later, and I do feel sadness but no guilt. I have a right to live a peaceful life, and I have no obligation to my mother to put up with her abusive behavior any longer. I've had no contact with her for a month now, and it's been blissful. I'm taking it one day at a time where she's concerned, focusing on the wonderful family I have with my husband, children, etc., and making my own health and well-being a priority.
Good old Robyn was there wasn't she.....I just thought you only have one mother....can't pick her and she can't pick her kids, I was an only child, so we just get on with it and try to assist. I did, day and night for 3 months. NEVER thanks for that, just complaints every day. I made her tea exactly the same way every day....each day it was too strong, too weak, not enough sugar, too much sugar, not enough milk, too much milk, too full or not full enough...why do they do this? Why didn't she just drink it and shut up....no she had to call the shots. Ten years later, having really done an excellent job of looking after her until she breathed her last breath, I am still wondering why she could not have said, at least once, that was a good job, thanks for that....even once...but it was not to be. All I can come to terms with now is that she was grateful underneath, just hated to show it....the best I can accept. I am wondering if I should have put her into care right at the start, then the nurses would have copped it daily, then visited her only....but she wanted to be at home, with her birds and orchids and where the neighbours could drop in....so how could you not let her have that....in the end...you have to sleep at night....I just hope that if that happens to me, I have someone like me looking after me, if that happened I WOULD try to say thanks. God Speed mum.....I have tried to forgive you many times....I am not perfect either....but the best I can do even up to now, is to have no guilt about the way I looked after her, and accept that she was not happy to be unable to do the things she had always done for herself, so was not coping very well, and underneath she was grateful just didn't like to show it.
are living at a facility. My father can't walk, my mother has emphysema and Alzheimers. My mother became mean & controlling. She thought I was stealing. Ha! They don't have enough money to steal. She hires a lawyer to fire me as her POA. Not court ordered. I hire a lawyer just to find out what power she might have. Now, my father does not look like he has much time. This has been a fiasco! Last week my mother was wonderfully kind to me. I also suffer from Lupus. Great huh? My mother had a thorough test done on Aug 26. Its now Oct 21. No results have been released. I'm at my wits end. And I love my father soo much.
are living at a facility. My father can't walk, my mother has emphysema and Alzheimers. My mother became mean & controlling. She thought I was stealing. Ha! They don't have enough money to steal. She hires a lawyer to fire me as her POA. Not court ordered. I hire a lawyer just to find out what power she might have. Now, my father does not look like he has much time. This has been a fiasco! Last week my mother was wonderfully kind to me. I also suffer from Lupus. Great huh? My mother had a thorough test done on Aug 26. Its now Oct 21. No results have been released. I'm at my wits end. And I love my father soo much.