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Ocdtrauma70 Asked August 2022

Mother's constant misery is destructive. She won’t live anywhere. Any advice?

I’m 52. My mother divorced my father who adored her 40 years ago. She has anxiety and depression but coped through living in nice hotels around the world. We fund but she has done it reasonably and gets best deals. I haven’t lived with her for 40 years and only seen her about 10 times since age 19, when she called me daily at college to tell me she was lost. I developed severe ocd about her and thought about her 5 hours a day. I moved away and it got better. Then it happened again and she would call me all the time about her horrors, no place to live. Around my age 35 we started funding her fully. Things got better (by better I mean I never wanted to call her but was able to call her once a week and only obsess about an hour a day. Now over the past few months, things have gotten worse and my ocd is skyrocketing. Writing posts like this, talking to anyone who will listen. She is impossible to talk to. She won’t budge an inch. We asked for one hour of help a week from her to help us and she said no during the pandemic. Not one hour. We asked for a planning phone call or we weren’t going to send her funds and she just threatened to kill herself so finally we sent to stop the torture. Now at 77, I have limited contact and trying various treatments but she still slams on me about her misery. She doesn’t have a home and cries about that. Then we offer to buy her a home in Florida, Phoenix and she says she doesn’t want a dumpy home. Then we offer to buy her a nice home and she says she doesn’t want to be alone. The issue is she has no family that cares about her. My sister and dad don’t care if she is dead. Neither do her brothers. We care and I feel devastated for her, but I can’t have her in my unit because I don’t have space (2 bedroom for 3 people already). I don’t want her here because I am
obsessjng hours a day as it is and she will continue to manipulate me (I didn’t find her a husband, I have a husband, she doesn’t want to live and just wants to be hugged, I didn’t give her a solution to live overseas and have a home base in the United States, her life didn’t meet her dreams). As background, she sounds insane saying that 35 years ago she stayed with me when my father had a brain tumor and was in life threatening surgery. She tells me she missed a meeting and got in trouble. She was never there for me - didn’t come to wedding, graduations or when I got I’ll. But she gets into my head. Now I can’t make her go anywhere. She won’t call a suicide line, she won’t pick a place to live but will just email me until I break. Yes, the problem is with me, sf is very expensive and I can’t fund her here but moreover this is not a retirement community. She need to make friends but won’t. Only daily emails that she has no hope. Everyone tells me to not read her emails. I am so scared. By the way, I have an amazing husband and son…can’t even focus on them. Can you help me? Small part of me wonders if I need to open my arms and just love this shell of a human. I can’t solve it. Do you have resources?

BurntCaregiver Aug 2022
First of all, you need to make an appointment with whatever mental health care provider you use because your OCD and obsession is out of control. If you are anything like how you write here, you need serious help.
If your mother can afford to live in hotels around the world for the last 40 years, she certainly doesn't need you who lives in a two-bedroom apartment with three other people to take her in or pay for her.
You've only seen her ten times since you were 19 years old and you are now 52. So this is not a person you care for or who cares for you. This woman is all but a stranger to you. Don't worry about her. If you want to talk to her when she calls, then you should. If she starts acting needy and giving a drama performance about killing herself, hang up on her. You don't owe her anything.
Grandma1954 Aug 2022
amen
MeDolly Aug 2022
This is one strange post. The poster wants to buy her mother a home while she lives in a cramped space of some kind, and funding her for years.

The problem is not the mother it is the poster who needs some serious mental health help.

I hope that she gets the help she needs so that she can start living her life.
Ocdtrauma70 Aug 2022
Thank you! Yes, I’m hearing everyone. I have a home (while small happens to be in San Francisco). I have adoring husband and son so the theory is that while we save, we don’t need much because we are happy with simple. Either that or I’ve been brainwashed to feel guilty about having anything!

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Fawnby Aug 2022
This totally unhinged person doesn’t deserve to be in your life. If you want to keep supporting her, have the funds autopaid into her account. I’m with the others who have said this - don’t give her your email address, change your phone number, refuse to talk or correspond with any person that she’s connected with, and pretend like she’s dead. Which she should be in your mind, at least. You’ve done as much as you could.
Ocdtrauma70 Aug 2022
Thank you. Yes, I have the funds to support her modestly. Created an email just for her and my husband monitors so I don’t read. Not the best solution, but a step. She knows where I live and could show up any day so that is my biggest concern. I’m paying for peace.
LoopyLoo Aug 2022
If anything, stop funding her life. She could live another 20 years and happily drain you dry. Do not buy her a home. Do not fund any traveling. She will be mad when you say NO to any more money, but that’s on her. Let her act like the child she is.
BurntCaregiver Aug 2022
Loopy,

The OP lives in with two other people in a two-bedroom apartment. So he/she/they is not funding anything.
Daughterof1930 Aug 2022
Have you had or currently receiving good therapy to help you understand why you want to have any involvement with this toxic woman? Are you getting treatment for your OCD? Others have cut your mother off for good, solid reasons. Somewhere you have to know that you must do the same. She is truly toxic and horrible for your well being. A loving, caring mother would never treat you as she’s done and no amount of help on your part will get you the mother you want or deserve. I’m sorry you won’t have that, it’s a harsh reality, but what you do have is a husband and son who need your undivided attention. Don’t lose them pining for what you’re not going to get from her. You can’t solve her issues, accept that and move forward. Cut off the financial help, all of it, cut off listening to her whining. She will be okay, she will find a path forward, it’s not on you to find it for her. Please change your life, you matter
Ocdtrauma70 Aug 2022
Thank you so much. Hearing this over and over is starting to sink in. I am
starting with affirmations to reprogram that it is not my responsibility and am getting counseling and seeking other options. I don’t know if she will be okay but she still doesn’t seem to care if I’m okay so I’ll have to get over that!
Beatty Aug 2022
"She can’t be on the street and so we have to fund her".

Correction: you have CHOSEN to fund her lifestyle

You are allowing yourself to be manipulated.

Sunflowergarden Aug 2022
Why don’t you just block her? You’ve wasted to much time and energy ruminating about this women.

let her become a ward of the state. She would do the same to you

Midkid58 Aug 2022
Oh, my.

Just a comment and please don't take this the wrong way:

When you write a post, please use some kind of punctuation. I could barely follow your train of thought (tho I did certainly feel your anxiety!)

Mom is not going to change.

You can tell her until you're blue in the face what she 'needs' but it will fall on deaf ears.

77 is NOT OLD.

You and your family are doing FAR TOO MUCH for her and this is just feeding the monster. This has to stop. How much do you fund her? Her entire monthly bills?

Her constant threat of suicide is a manipulative behavior and trust me, she has NO intention of hurting herself. (My mom did this for years and years. I finally told her 'go ahead, mom, please just don't leave me a mess to clean up'). She never once made any attempts beyond verbal threats, If she did it now she would be immediately taken to the ER and we'd Baker-Act her.

Your co-mingling or her life and depression is something that a good therapist could help you with. I read such despair in your post. You spend up to 5 hrs PER DAY feeling overwrought with guilt and anxiety? How can you think that's even remotely OK for anyone?

Sorry to be so blunt. I think you can handle it.

If you do nothing, nothing will ever change.

Your mom is a super-case of Narcissism. Like, one of the worst I've ever read about on this site. So many people will have better answers than mine---and I truly do care for your situation--you sound positively frantic.

Before you do anything else--get YOURSELF to a good psychiatrist and see if some AD's would help you to function better. And a good therapist to walk with you on this journey.

((Hugs))
Ocdtrauma70 Aug 2022
Thank you! I actually have a great life outside of this one piece! This is helping reprogram my brain.
lealonnie1 Aug 2022
Stop reading her emails, don't answer the phone, get yourself a good therapist and agree to move on with your life and devote it to your husband and son. There are good meds out there for OCD, so find a medical professional who will prescribe them for you.

No, you can't solve your mother's problems, which you've been trying to do, unsuccessfully, for your whole life. Yet you're still trying to. Stop doing that and start trying to solve YOUR OWN problems in life. Which is all you can do: deal with your own issues.

Your mother is 77 years old meaning she can live another 2 decades, inside of your head, where she's been dwelling for your whole life. Do you want that? Or do you want to be an independent adult who lives your life free of all this drama and obsession about a woman who's taken up WAY too much of your time and headspace thus far? It's up to you. She's had a good life, living in hotels for crying out loud, yet can't see the forest through the trees!

Change your email address and get rid of the old one she's been using to contact you at. Change your phone number too, while you're at it. Start over, fresh, today.

Call a therapist or a psychiatrist who can prescribe meds to help you with the OCD thought patterns you need to get rid of. Start a whole new life for yourself free from the burden this ONE person has placed on you.

You can do it! Have faith in yourself. Best of luck taking your life back!
Ocdtrauma70 Aug 2022
Omg. You get it - why can’t I? I’m just afraid she will show up on my doorstep because she knows where I live.
MJ1929 Aug 2022
You can't fix her. You can only fix you.

Nothing you're doing for her is changing the course of her life. Some people just have rotten lives, and it's the hand they're dealt. They aren't strong enough to change their course themselves, so either they sponge off other people like your mom is doing, or they just exist. The only difference is your mom is existing just like she would, but on your dime.

You have to eventually come to the conclusion that you're a mere mortal like she is, and it isn't in your power to change her life or anyone else's. You chose to take her monkey on your back, and only you can make the decision to remove it. By venting constantly here or to others, you're doing the same thing she is -- trying to get others to take YOUR monkey on their backs.

I'd advise not relying on excuses like OCD and just do what you need to do to ensure YOUR happiness and survival -- eliminate the source of the obsession and cut her loose. Contact Adult Protective Services, change your phone number, move if you have to, and live YOUR life.
Ocdtrauma70 Aug 2022
Thanks for pointing that out. Yes, I recognize that I could also be dumping on people and I am trying to change that. But I don’t make it their fault and they usually don’t have the history to absorb it. I’ve had enough here to finally get it and I want to make sure I do better to others. That is why I am trying to get help here. I won’t be on again. Once and done.
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