How do I deal with resentment form my childhood to give my mother the respect she deserves as she ages?

At some point, we must face that our imperfect and far too often from what I read here abusive parents did their thing to us and treated us like slaves. However, if we let them do this to us as adults, then we don't have any room to complain because we have chosen to do this. As adults we can chose to let someone who is living with us or we are living with continue to verbally abuse us, threaten us, wreck a marriage, destroy relationships with children/grand children, obliterate personal finances, ruin psychological as well as physiological health and eliminate having a job like we once had after they are dead, so then what are we going to live on? Honoring one's parents does not mean making a martyr of oneself and one's own family. Neither does making sure they are safe and cared for. We are not extensions of our parents although many like my mother raised us to be and wish we would remain. It's our turn to step up to the plate of being the next generation of older people as our parents depart this world. If we have enough awareness to see that we were abused as children, the question is not will our parents now change, probably not, but the question is will we break the cycle now that we have the awareness that we have or will we blindly repeat the same mistakes?

AmmaCatherine

I sure hope that your 5 year old is not having to grow up around your mom because she doesn't sound like a healthy person to be around.

N1K2R3 , Your views on mental illness are the standard ones according to the DSMIV which is going to have an updated publication not to long from now! PDs as far as the mental health world understands them are caught while often other mental illnesses which are organic are genetically passed down or physically take place somehow. For example, if one or more parents' have a diagnosis of bi-polar disorder then the likelyhood of their children getting it is extremely high. BTW, want to guess who has the highest rate of bi-polar in America? The Omish have the highest rate of bi-polar of any subgroup because they are all so closely related to each other in their tight religious culture. Another good reason for not marrying people too closely related to you although it is legal in some states to marry first cousins which is not the case in W.Va.

I repeatedly have said to daughters and sons of such parents is that you didn't cause it, you can't fix it and you can't control it. Plus, I've encouraged therapy because as the literature points our and experience confirms without it you can catch PD fleas. These PDs are caught through various psycho/social dynamics which are really complicated and BPD is rooted mainly in total invalidation and often raised by one or more parents with NPD. Look at the book the Drama of the Gifted Child. The title needs correcting to the Trauma of the gifted child. Plus a gifted, highly sensitive child in an invalidating NPD environment and one will either come out with someone who has BPD or an extremely gifted therapist or both.

All you can do is get and keep yourself on a healthy path. If they chose to do so fine and if not fine and sometimes it includes geographical distance which includes no contact or extremely limited contact.

I've had to cut my MIL completely out of my and my boys life for several years and in a whole lot of ways she's cut out of our life after being so intrusively damaging. My wife, bless her heart, finally stopped hiding behind my ass and set some limiting boundaries with her mom herself for both herself and the boys. Her therapist was so glad she stopped hiding behind my britches. :)

From what I'm reading so much of here is that many caregivers are dealing with parents who have very likely an undiagnosed personality disorder given all the hell they've been through in childhood, teenage years, etc.

I will say that people with elderly parents who have a diagnosed or undiagnosed PD aren't going to go to something like DBT, therapy, etc. for one thing they have been that way their entire life; they are set in their ways; and unlike we baby boomers they don't as a group believe in going to therapists even less that they have a mental problem because of its stigma in society and ancient views of it within many religious groups.

I looked at it as a blessing. When I went to a class on caregiving, the speaker said that they person you are taking care of, who has dementia, is not the parent that you remembered from before. Usually, this is a negative affect. If my father remembered how he felt about me through my life, then he would never allow me to take care of him. But, through dementia, he now looks at me as the sweetest lady on earth, he loves me, and won't let anyone else around him, if I'm not there. God works in mysterious ways. Now my memories of my father will be the loving, closeness that we have now, and not the bitter years of long ago. I finally got the father I've always wanted.

My dad was a self-centered person who made it impossible to have a normal childhood. Mom stuck it out and loved him anyway. She could forgive and love more then the average person. His antics literally stressed her to death. Now he needs help and suppor, but mom is gonet. It is hard, but I do it because it would make my mom happy. My goal is to be more like my mom and not like him.

Calla - I think most of us have at least some part of our childhood that we wish were different and it's all relative to our personalities and strengths & weaknesses. What might bring me to my knees seems meaningless to someone else. I hope you'll give yourself a break and realize that we all have some baggage - how we choose to deal with it is a different matter..

How we choose to deal with the anger, manipulation and other things that come with dementia or illness all depends on what we can handle personally as well. I often have NO patience with my own mother but seem to have loads for the mom of a friend. My friend says the same thing - perhaps it's because inside we feel resentment that they are so very dependent on us. and it seems unnatural?.

If you're feeling resentful now and feel that you can't treat your mom with love and patience - try to understand what arrangement would enable you to be patient and loving. For me, it means Mom lives in a nursing home and I see her daily. Sometimes it's only for 30 minutes sometimes it's a couple of hours and I plan something special. But - that distance keeps me sane and enables me to be the loving daughter that she deserves. I am able to work, build relationships with my family, get all of "my" stuff done, keep a clean home and give her my full attention. I also know she's well treated and happy to have company other than me. It was hard at first and I often still have guilt when I have to say good bye and leave her in the care of others but then she'll have a fall or have a nice soak in a tub -neither of which I could help with - and I know I did the right thing.
Best of luck to you

patrica61,

You are very right that there are two different kinds of abuse.

I'm not sure how much more today's children are aware than we are more willing to face such things and talk about it as well as we have teachers and school administrators who are supposed to watch for evidence of this kind of thing.

My wife's mother should have been arrested long ago, but one problem was the isolation living in the county where such abuse is hidden easier.

Speaking of becoming aware of things in your 50's, what my mother covertly did to me as a child, and teenager is something that I've just had my eyes opened to within the last 3 years and it explains so much about my entire life.

AlzCaregiver ,

I deal with co-dependency myself and it flows like blood on this site!

Well... I am sure my mother suffers from more than one personality disorder. I am reasonably certain there is NPD ~as there is no one in this world more important than herself~ and perhaps Borderline Personality Disorder. She has Dementia, and I also believe she suffers from some OCD and some paranoia which is not related to the dementia. I have a friend who says that the reason she acts the way she does is because of the dementia. I always say "No". It is just more of the same. The dementia is giving her memory problems. She lives in a world of one and always has. If I point out something she has said or done that hurts me or causes me to get really angry she always turns it around on me, never taking responsibility for what she said. It was the same the very first time she beat me up and gave me a black eye when I was ten. I had to apologize to her for her giving me a black eye. It was my fault because I tried to defend myself against her. I was just supposed to take it while she beat me up and not do a thing to protect or defend myself. I would say that not much has changed. I have become much stronger and like AmmaCatherine, I spend a tremendous amount of time on my knees. I pray. Praying has helped me tremendously. There is no way I could do what I do without it.

I also have a younger brother (age 49) who is diagnosed paranoid/schizophrenic who is given to occasional paranoid episodes and psychotic episodes/breaks. The paranoid episodes are fearful and can escalate into a psychotic break. A psychotic episode can come on without the paranoid episode and can escalate into something really, really dangerous. The stress of dealing with all of this is horrendous.

I have breast cancer which I think (and I stress the word THINK) is in remission. I am under a doctor's care right now trying to figure out what if anything is going on. I am reasonably certain SOMETHING is going on, plus my oldest daughter (23) has an abnormal pap smear which for which she will be undergoing further testing next week. Add to this a nineteen year old daughter who is all of that ~19 and thinks she has arrived as a full-fledged adult.

My brother had a paranoid episode on July 4 that was so horrendous that I decided then and there that I am putting my mother in a nursing facility as soon as a bed comes available and returning to my husband, family, and home in VA because I just cannot handle this any more. I was already moving in that direction, but that episode was a real nightmare and pushed me to try and speed it up as much as possible. Now on top of everything that I deal with, I have to deal with guilt about putting my mother in a nursing home and leaving Boston and returning to VA, and leaving my brother whom I know I cannot at all care for.

And so I pray. There is no way I could at all deal with what I deal with without the strength, mercy, and grace of God.

Stacey

I am not so kind all of the time. My mother pushes my buttons and when she does I have the proverbial knee-jerk reaction and push back. I refuse to take it. We have words, we raise our voices, I cry, and we apologize to each other which is something new. My mother has actually started apologizing to me for saying things that hurt. She does do that emotional manipulation thing which I hate and have always hated, but the most important thing (as I have said before) is that I discovered that I no longer need her approval. Because of God's help, I can say that I do love my mother and I know (now) that she loves me. She seems to enjoy being the way she is so I do not really expect her change.

I agree with what you said about making a decision to be our best and to do our best NOT to be the things our parents were and do the things they did. I determined not to be like the worst parts of my mother when I was very young. I thought she had some good qualities and I wanted only those ~I had enough of bad stuff of my own. But I made sure that my children knew beyond a shadow of any doubt that they were/are loved. I never abused, neglected, or mistreated them. I disciplined them but did not just wantonly abuse them. I showed them respect and in turn they respect me.

It has been quite a journey.

Stacey

smdbrown,

BPD has a very strong Narcissistic streak in it. The way one book about borderline mother's describes the for basic types of borderline mothers is the queen BPD has replaced God Almighty and the Witch BPD is as mean as hell. BTW, Mary Todd Lincoln was known as the hell cat of the white house and as a mother she was the queen who either ruled her children or like a witch she ruined them and that she did to her son, may God have mercy on his soul.