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.
Your brother has made a different choice -- pitches in what and when he can. Could he do more? Maybe. Probably. But he has set boundaries and YOU NEED TO, TOO. That he set them doesn't make him bad. That you need to set them doesn't make YOU bad. That they won't be what your mother wants them to be doesn't make any of you bad.
All you can do is what you can do. And giving her full-time care is NOT what you can do without drowning yourself. So. Find someone -- a social worker, your brother, a friend, the mirror, the people here -- who can help you set and stick to some boundaries that work for YOU. let go of the need for them to work for her. She has none.
OK, you've had a lifetime of abuse and conditioning to take that abuse, and others who have been there (I have not) tell me that makes saying no extremely difficult. I'll accept that.
But, hey, saying Yes isn't exactly making your life easy, is it?
You brother is perfectly entitled to make any decisions he wants to. He can go to the beach every other week. He can limit his visits to 10 minutes. He is even entitled to try to tell you what to do. Don't concern yourself with your brother's behavior.
YOU are entitled to make decisions. In fact, you can't avoid it. You can decide to ruin your health by trying to please a person who cannot be pleased. You can decide to do what your brother tells you to do. Or, you can make different decisions. Really. It is not easy but it is not impossible. (Elisa1961 is our Just Say No poster child and our hero.)
If your decision is that you will not provide caregiving in your mother's home, then make that very, very clear to everyone involved. Tell the hospital social worker. Tell the discharge nurse. Tell her doctor. Certainly tell your brother. No more sleeping on the couch. No more taking verbal abuse in exchange for your sacrifices. No more saving her money while your business suffers. IF that is your decision, of course. You are free to opt to continue on as things have been. In some ways that is the path of least resistance. But IF your decision is to take care of yourself and let your mother (who can afford it) arrange to take care of herself, then I urge you to make that decision very clear to everyone.
I hesitate to bring this little example us in this context, because my mother has never had an abusive molecule in her body, but it might illustrate what I mean. When we were arranging for home care services for Ma, the intake social worker asked her if she needed help cutting her toenails. "Oh no," she replied, "my daughters take care of that." Her daughters had to make it very clear that we did not have the equipment or the training or the desire to take care of Ma's toenails. (Mother wasn't trying to be mean to us ... she just didn't want any special attention or to ask for anything she didn't think she needed.) If we hadn't spoken up, the social worker would have had no reason to doubt her and she wouldn't have gotten that service.
You mother, and maybe your brother, may be assuring everyone in sight that she will have plenty of help if she is discharged to her own home. IF you decide that that help isn't going to be you, make sure everyone in sight knows it. Don't wait to be asked. Don't wait until you can think up a way to explain it so you won't look like the Bad Daughter. Don't wait to see if they really might discharge her home. Don't wait hoping that some other possibility will open up. Make your decision and announce it to all parties who might conceivably have an interest in that decision.
Good luck!
If your mom had it in her to love you, she would not want to see you sacrifice your business, your health or your happiness to do things for her that she can afford to hire out. She would want your occasional company as a comfort, not as a means of control.
Whatever you do for your mom, make it minimal and doable. Offer to grocery shop once a week. Find a pharmacy that can deliver her medications.
Talk to the social worker and make it abundantly clear that your mom needs a care manager because you will not be tending to her in any on hands fashion. Make sure your mom and brother know that too. Your mom will be furious, but these are the steps you must take if you want to reclaim your life.
You are now 50 Years old. You are not going to live forever. Follow your dreams and know that you have a good heart. Letting yourself be abused by your mom is what a damaged person does. You knew when you were a teenager that it was time to leave. If you are having problems saying no, get back in touch with that very wise teenager and get some counseling too.
We have all been conditioned in various ways and I don't mean to minimize that, but you have to make a major decision now or you are going to be pulled deeper and deeper into your mom's twisted thinking. It will only get harder for you to access that good heart of yours and your God given free will to do what is right for you.
Take that good heart and use if for your own good. You deserved to be loved and valued and I think you can do that for yourself. Your mom will only hold you back and make you pay due to her mental illness/personality disorder. Don't let her sickness become your guiding light.
Love and best wishes, Cattails.
There is a middle way between abandoning her and allowing her to just about kill you. You can see to it that she has the care she needs, that she is safe and comfortable, without actually providing all the care personally. If she can't afford in-home care, help her sign up for assistance, such as Medicaid's Elderly Waiver program. One way or the other, you need to get out from under this huge load of stress.
My mother blames me for everything since I can remember, and I am also 60.
She is a mean woman and I didn't realize how bad her behavior was until the past few years. The medications for depression have done nothing to help her.
The mood swings are scary and I had to put away sharp objects because I feared that she would hurt one of my little dogs and then blame it on the dog. She would walk through a room with a knife or pair of scissors and my little dogs thought it may be a treat of some sort.
My cousin took my mother out of the nursing home because she said that they could live together as they got along fine. Mother has been there less than a month and I have had a few calls from my cousin who was a little shaken by my mothers demands and meaness.
I am removed from my mother by miles, and when my cousin called me three days ago, I heard my mother yelling insults after insults to me. Accusing me of sticking her in a nursing home which I didn't do. She had fallen and the hospital released her to skilled nursing and then mother's mental and physical health went downhill.
She had gotten strong enough to stand and walk a few feet and that is when my cousin went to get her out of the facility. I do believe the workers at the nursing home were glad to see her go.
She has been bullying me all my life and I didn't see it. Hard to see when you're in the situation.
Calling anybody "Hitler" sounds like my mother. She called the people at the nursing the ghestopo (misspell) Called the pill dispensing nurse "Nurse Ratched" from the movie.
Mom is still alive and staying at my cousins for now at my cousin's request. Cousin wanted the company and now probably wishes she had never brought it up. I don't want my mother living with me because she treats everybody horrible and I care about my own mental/physical well being more now than ever. And my husband would probably stay so far away that I would never see him. Husband of 40 years.
When I called the nursing home to tell them mom was not coming back after a week stay at my cousins, they didn't care. They probably wanted her out because she would upset other people with her comments and attitude.
my mother never said she love me i was abuse all my life my brother even abuse me.
im the only daughter my mom has she even want me to put my kids and husband
aside. she was and acoholic i was barley even born she drank while pregnant with me and smoke cigs myfather told me she wished she never had me before he died 2006 he told me this i was lucky to be alive. i have affects from being barley here but thanks to god immaking the best of it being here for my kids grandkids and husbabnd is all it takes to make me a better stronger person happier woman
I TRIED TO HUG HER SHE SNATCH FROM ME I TOLD HER I LOVE HER SHE SAYS NOTHING BAB CK SHE LOOKS AT ME WITH PURE EVIL ONLY PERSON I WISHED IN MY LIFE IF I COULD HAVE A SECOND CHANCE WOULD BE MY DAD I VE CRIED A DOZEN TIME WISHING I COULD OF LEFT WITH HIM BUT I HAVE SOMEONE HE'S SENT MY 2 GRANDSONS AND 1 MORE GRANDSON ON THE WAY DAD THANKS SOO MUCH FOR TELLING GOD TO SEND ME MORE GRANDSONS I KNOW IT YOU THROUGH SPIRIT
Good luck to you and others wrestling with this problem. ((((((hugs))))) Joan
My mother's birthday is on Christmas Day and I don't even want to send her a card for either because of her abuse. She lives two days drive away and I don't plan on going to see her. She is staying at my cousins house. My cousin and I talk frequently. The other day, my cousin told me that she thinks my mother is a little mean.....A little??? I warned my cousin when she wanted my mother to leave the nursing home to come and live with her. My mother needed to be in a skilled care facility and did regain her strength but was unable to return to her house which is a tri level. She had lived alone until last Nov. 2011. Then started falling down and having pain and hospital stays. I was going to bring her to the east coast and she took another fall and I decided the nursing home could keep her there until further notice at my mother being a self paid stay. Medicare only covered a few weeks of skilled care.
I had no brothers or sisters and put up with the abuse all my life. I am 60 in a couple of weeks and didn't realize the abuse until a few years ago. Moreso the past three years as my mother out right insults me terribly. Just thinking about her causes me to feel shaky (like post traumatic stress disorder) at times. I have to change my stream of thoughts to get off the negative things running through my mind. I wanted to get away from her as a teenager. WAnted to join the service to leave home easily and free in costs, and she said that everybody would be talking about me and acusing me of being a queer. This is the type of mother I had. I am reading about other people's mothers, and we all have been through alot.
I truly envy anybody who had a normal and wonderful parental upbringing.
My father is another whole abusive story. They divorced when I was 9 years old.
I know that most of us on this forum could write a book.
My husband and my two grown sons have never witnessed my mother's very mean side. She has, however, shown it to just about everybody else she has encountered.
I never knew my mother was a liar until this past couple of years. I have caught her in so many lies telling me what people have said or done, and then she trips herself and I know that she twisted a story. Very common thing from what I've heard from health care professionals. People want attention and say things to get sympathy.