My mother is destroying me mentally! Me and my mother use to get along before her and my father divorced. After the divorce, drama and pain. Me and my little brother were split apart; me living with my mother, brother living with my dad. My mother grew up as a person to let men take care of her. That's how her dad taught her to be like. When she married my father, she was a military wife, hardly worked bc she had kids to take care of.
Now she is divorced from 20 years and decided to get back with my father 3 years later. They were together for 5 years; her living in his house. They are now not together (my father kicked her out) and she is now living with me and my daughter (3 yrs old). My mother makes me feel as if I am responsible for her. I work everyday and I am a 24/7 mommy. Before my mother moved in with me, I told her she needs to pay $250 in rent, pay half of the electric bill, and half of the cable bill bc my mother is the kind of person to have men take care of her, and I am not going to be taking care of no adult, especially one who gets half on a retirement check and an SSI check and does not work and I have to take care of me and my daughter.
My mother makes me feel as if I owe her something in life. When I use to live with my mother (when she had her low-income apt), I was paying her bills and was working at Taco Bell mon-Sunday. I was 17 years old at the time. I was helping my mom so much that I could not afford my cap and gown for graduation. My mother was getting money, but wanted all of my money. There was a time when I told her that I could not pay her bills bc I was trying to save for a car, and she kicked me out (my clothes were in black trash bags outside the door). I was still 17 going through this, so I had stayed with a close friend.
My mother always wants things her way, and when she does not get her way, she makes me feel like I am the most terrible person in the world. My little brother never had money so he would ask my mother and father for money. My mother knew she could not go to him for money, so she came to me bc I am always a working woman. My mother is always asking me for money, and she be having money. She horrible with managing her money. She likes to go shopping and spends most of her money on beer and cigarettes.
My grandmother passed away 10/23/14. I understand that she is gone, but since that, my moms' been giving this "I don't give a f%#*" attitude toward people (especially me though). When my dad kicked her out, she started comparing me to him in a negative way bc I work and take care of my household, so I feel as if she thinks I am like her spouse or sponsor. So when I tell her how I feel about things, she says "you treat me just like how your father treats me, like s%#*!". My mother drinks beer everyday now and that drains me mentally bc I don't want my daughter growing up around that in her household. I tell my mom about it but we end up arguing. She tells me " I am your mother, I am grown, your grandmother use to do it around yawl when yawl were babies, so get off my back about my beer".
It took a long time for my mother to be a grand parent to my daughter. My mother to be very stingy with her grandparenting. I use to pay $748 a month for daycare while mother would just sit in the house all day doing nothing but drink her beer. When I would ask for help, she would say "I need my me time". Now she keeps her now that my daughter is in head-start (and headstart does not cost anything).
My mother is getting better with her grandparenting skills, but when we are in a bad space, she uses my daughter to get back at me, knowing that I need her help. I just want to get away from her now! But I know that my mom does not have anywhere to go. I feel that my mother manipulates me, she wants me to feel bad for her bc of her situation, and she keeps throwing in my face that I am going to leave her out there to be homeless.
My mother still have family in Chicago. She does not want to go back there bc my grandmother passed away there. My grandfather is still living, and all of her sisters live there as well. I just don't know what to do. Can someone please give me some advice?
Hate to break it to you, my friend, but the others MUST HELP.
No excuses. I am guessing they are your siblings? Or, could you please tell us about it?
I have my mom to care for, and I am alone. I do ask Martha (close friend who has experience with the elderly plus speaks Spanish, which mom loves).
Martha comes about every 2 months.
So, I care give 24/7.
Mom is very loving, caring, gracious and grateful. She's 90.5 yrs old.
I have a sister who, when she saw mom beginning to get forgetful, took off, oh, what a coincidence, exactly SIX years ago, never to be found again. I mean, talk about deserting your elderly mom who raised you as a divorcée in México,
gave her a university education, they lived together, sister mooching off mom's meager income (dad split, no alimony ever), and what I sent to her in México
suspiciously ran out too quickly.
My point is:
You need to have a heart to heart talk with the others, make a schedule for
taking turns, and this way you're looking after your health and mental wellness.
I hope that you can get some respite care, a break, a change of pace, a short getaway.
If the others are not cooperative, need to make a decision. They stay? They go? Does mom have siblings you could ask for assistance?
There's a lot going on with your situation and professional services are an absolute necessity as of now.
We care about you and the whole thing.
Hope something we contribute is helpful.
Eat your meals on time, nap as often as you can. You, as caregiver
are burning the candle "at both ends."
I will be following up on your posts. Stay well, stay strong. Rely on
your faith and spiritual convictions.
Sincerely,
M88
Do you think that moving her to a care facility might be a good idea? What resources does mom have to fund that?
It seems clear that the present situation can longer continue. Are you living with her, or she with you? Do you have access to medical care yourself? Can you talk to your doctor about this situation and get a referral to a therapist who can help you work this out?
If that is the case, it would appear that asking for an evaluation for hospice care would be the compassionate thing to do. Speak to her doctors office about this or ise the tabs at the top of this page to locate a hospice organization.
Your mother needs to be in full time care, either in a nursing home or a hospice facility, I think.
Please take care of yourself and let us know how this is going.
Call Hospice today.
Your mother's brain is damaged from the cancer. Her behavior is no longer under her control. It makes you feel like you are going mad. She is already mad.
It is absolutely not acceptable to punch, slap, or scream at someone who is injured and cannot control her reactions to the pain and confusion she is feeling. This would be like hitting a baby who has colic. Or kicking a dog who is howling in pain. It is not acceptable. I think you know that and that is why you are looking for solutions. The first step is to get control of yourself. Perhaps you need to visit a therapist to get help with that.
And then you need to make different care arrangements for your mother. The two of you should not be living together. Perhaps if you could visit her where someone else is doing the hands-on care it would be easier for you to rediscover the love that motivated you to want to care for her in the first place.
Having a damaged brain is not demonic. I can see, though, how ideas of demonic possession arose as we try to cope with the great changes brain damage make. You are not possessed, either. Everything normal and human in you has not been destroyed -- otherwise you would just keep punching your mother and not bother to seek help.
I congratulate you for recognizing the terrible cost to you that taking care of your poor mother is causing, and for looking for solutions.
1) Get professional help to pull yourself together.
2) Find a good care center, appropriate to Mother's needs. Visit her there. Try to find some of the compassion that is part of the real you.
Do keep in touch here!
With cancer that's metastasized to the brain, she may already have chemo brain and can't help her behavior.
You need to contact a cancer support group as well learn more about how chemo brain affects behavior, and find a place where your mother can live so that she's safe. If you don't know where to start, ask your mother's oncologist, or a social worker at the hospital with which the infusion center is affiliated.
Regardless of who's provoking who, this isn't a healthy situation for either of you, and you need more than support from an online forum.
Have you located a new place to live, yet?
You are a mother. You have responsibilities. Allowing your daughter to be continually exposed to this unhealthy dysfunctional environment is not fulfilling your responsibilities as a parent. Life as a child of a single parent is tough enough. Please don't allow it to include life with a dysfunctional adult as well.
You owe it to yourself to pursue your own interests and dreams, unfettered by a most-likely-mentally-ill mother. But because this is what you've always known, it may be very hard for you to stand up for yourself. You are worth it, I assure you, but I also understand that can be difficult and scary.
Your owe it to the child you brought into the world to create a better emotional environment for her. If you can't do it for yourself, you must do it for her. If you think this may be just too hard for you, please find some local support. Find a mental-health clinic that serves low-income persons and get yourself some counselling. You Can Do This ... find the help you may need.
How about your father? Would he be supportive of you? Is he an interested grandfather? Don't tap that source if that adds more craziness to the picture, but connect with him if that would be helpful.
If the lease isn't up in the next three months ... clothes in garbage bags on the curb.
That would only make it seem legitimate as your little one doesn't know how to differentiate between manipulation or what's expected of parents, and you most certainly don't want your mother influencing your child in any way. You don't want your child to be like her.
Nor does it include being exposed to smoke.
At 47, she's perfectly capable of getting a job and learning to fend for herself, and it's time she was pushed to do it.
I agree with the others; she needs to go and stop making your life miserable. It would be a favor to her if you helped her but she'll resist. So you could help find a place for her to stay if you wanted, then when she refuses, make it clear that you've tried but she needs to grow up and stand on her own 2 feet.
Then move, and don't look back.
But do be aware that the manipulation that's gone on for years has a vicious hold on you and she'll try to guilt you into continuing the Cinderella syndrome. DON'T LET HER.
Good luck with getting out of this unhealthy environment.
I don't know if your mother is bad enough to call it a personality disorder, but you may want to read about dependent personality disorder to give you some clues what to do. You can break the bonds of her dependency. I don't know how old she is. I read that she receives SSI, so I assume there is some type of physical problem.
See if you can find a senior community near you that has subsidized housing. Some of the communities may be ideal for her. That way the kids could still have a grandma, but you would be able to break the bond of dependency with her. Another benefit is that she might not have the money to buy so much beer and cigarettes.
It is not easy to set limits with your own mom, and if she is cognitive enough for family counseling or even elder mediation, that could work for you. You have a right not to be verbally abused and compared unfairly to someone (who quite possibly had valid reasons he could not put up with her either, BTW) and you can insist on it stopping as a condition of living in your home. I do not know how much insight Mom is capable of, maybe not enough, but maybe some, and I do not know how much beer we are talking about, but AA and Alanon could be resources too. I'd be worried about your little one being exposed to smoke as well, even if it is all done outdoors, a lot of irritants come in on the clothing.
Check with your Area Agency on Aging to see what other options may be available if she will not move to Chicago or no one else will take her in.