I am the only (55 yr old) child to a former television singer/model mother with clinically diagnosed NPD. We have never had a good relationship: she is manipulative and chilly and is motivated only by need and want, and money of which there is none left. After a catastrophic fall two years ago, I managed to get her on to traditional Medicare (she was on managed Medicare because she didn't want to carry the card; people would know how old she was) and community Medicaid, which pays for a twice a week caregiver. I pay for her supplemental insurance, her cable/phone/tv, her cell phone, and pretty much everything else except for her stabilized rent (paid for by social security) and a credit card bill. While she was in rehab for the fall, we discovered that she has been hoarding makeup: we found a thousand dollars worth of unused lipstick in her bathroom. She has been so aggressive with me, as always, that my spouse finally put her foot down and said "You have to limit your exposure to her," which I have. My boundaries have been fairly solid, and try as she might to push them, I don't give.
She recently had a dental emergency which her dentist in NYC wanted to fix for $60k. We brought her up to a local dentist near where I live who is doing it for a fraction of that. She recently picked a massive fight with me and then called to say "How do you think it feels that I have to have my child pay for my teeth?" To which I said "What makes you think that I'm paying for your teeth?" She said "You owe me because your father was a pig to me." (My father and I were very close.)
In coming to where I live for dental work, she now has to stay here overnight here.
How do I survive this?
Codependently Yours,
with thanks
As i journey through the path of "getting well" after years of child abuse, parental neglect--all that crap--this hit a button with me.
My mother always made sure she got her hair done each week. She had a LOT of clothes. She had tons of makeup and wigs and all that 60's-70's stuff. She was also a severely depressed drug abusing "checked out" mother. She spent more on drugs and makeup than on food. She blamed us kids for EVERYTHING.
I look back and remember that I got ONE winter coat when I turned 12---and 8 years later when I got married, that's still the only coat I owned. No boots, no gloves (we live in Utah and it does get COLD)...she had my eyes checked when I was 7 and I started wearing glasses and didn't get my eyes checked again until I was getting married--same frames, same prescription. No glasses last 13 years! I was "on my own" from the age of 12--responsible for all my own clothes and spending money. I can't remember her ever handing me a $5 bill for "no reason" (dad, on the other hand, would hand over a $20 and not ask for change.)
All this is coming up in therapy and the ANGER that I feel for the total lack of basic care as I grew up. All I ever heard was that I was a huge expense. In fact, in looking through her will, I found a "bill" from her to me for $1500, to be paid at the time of the "reading of the will". I was livid.....and called my son, who's an attorney. He said it wasn't legal and was called, in lawyer jargon a posthumous "FU". I finally figured out that $1500 is exactly what my braces cost. SMH.
Seriously.
You'd meet my mother and think "what a cutie". I have friends who attend the Sr Center she frequents. They think she's a doll! IF they talk about I have to get up and leave.
I don't think I could spend one night with my mother, these days.
The question for us, I believe, is why do we stay. Why do we remain emotionally connected. I think the answer is personal. Some of us are able to leave, to end all communication, and some are not. I do subscribe to the belief that our mothers gave us life. I also subscribe to the belief that not one person in the world is --- for ANY reason --- allowed to be abusive to us once we are old enough to walk away, to say no, to end it. The belief that we must honor our parents (among the tenets of HOW many different Judeo-Christian, Abrahamic, and Asian faiths) is as old as air. Is it fair? It is not. Is it accurate? Most likely, no. It is subjective. I never wanted for anything: I was warmly dressed, I always had clean and often new clothes, I was taken to doctors when I needed care. Often, excessively. Often when I didn't need them. "Do you know what I gave up for you?" is my mother's song these days. The bottom line: I would no sooner turn my back on her than I would a child running into oncoming traffic. The challenge: the ongoing, daily work of healing, of enforcing boundaries, of knowing what is a real problem versus a manipulation. As for you: your mother had the last word. She needed to have that last FU. How cruel, how vicious, how damaging. And how deeply ill. I'm so sorry.
Is there a POA in place?
Do you have a joint bank account?
It's there a way to monitor what money she is spending?
Would she go see a counselor with you?
60k! Just get her false teeth, cheaper.