For those who don't know me, my husband and I live with my mom who is 91 and has Alzheimer's and a weak heart. I take medication for depression but it still gets a hold of me. We rarely get out together as my mom can't be alone. My brother and sister live far away...brother gives us breaks maybe once or twice a year. Sister doesn't lift a finger. I've been doing this for almost 5 years and making other arrangements is not an option for me. My husband says I'll feel better in the spring. I don't know... Guilt goes along with the depression. If I don't do anything I feel guilty, but I some days don't feel up to doing a thing.
"I am Going To Catalina In My Mind"
Group hug from here too.
And yes I know what a Moo Moo is-unfortunately.
"All My Siblings"
"Who's Afraid of Mommy Dearest?"
"Edge of Insanity"
"The Young and The Borderline"
"The Guiding F.O.G."
"Another World, The Untold Story"
"One Life To Lose"
"Days of My Former Life"
"No Hope For Tomorrow"
"Search For My Life"
"Our Private Hell"
"Desperate Caregivers"
The book which hit the nerve of being spousified for me is Silently Seduced: When Parents Make their Children Partners -Understanding Covert Incest By Kenneth M. Adams, Ph.D.. It so described my own experience far better than the book The Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to do When a Parent's Love Rules Your Life by Dr. Patricia Love.
Thanks crow and dede. I had never thought about this before, (not having $$ for therapy) but YES. In my case I also became the "spouse" after my parents divorced when I was 7. Then at 21 I got out of the state and made my own life-only to be back in the same situation now. I struggle hard against it, try to separate myself and claim who I have become, but she is relentless, and now that she has me here with her fantasy or sickness in place once again is trying to draw energy to live forever!!!!!!!!!!!I think the only glitch for HER is that I'm not participating-which is causing an enormous amount of resentment in her.
This new thread is giving me a lot to think about.
I don't know how many times I've seen the needy enslaving spouse surprise everyone by living on as your mother has after their spouse dies. My MIL is a perfect example of this. I hope that move turns out well and can understand the lack of movitation and energy to plan it all, etc.
I'm learning there are many aspects to this depression. I my own case as someone with bipolar II, this situational depression increases the depths of my bipolar mood swings down. It gets itensified with anger that surfaces with un faced before issues from my childhood memory. In my case, I'm not talking about just my elderly mother who is 78 and spousified me as a little boy when she divorced my dad when I was 3 and continuing this emotional instrusive engulfment even after she remarried when I was 12; plus her successful attempts to ice my dad, (now 85), out of my life which has been sealed by my wicked witch of the west needy but domineering step-mother. Don't even let me get started about my dad or step dad for I've got some issues with them too. All of which I used Microsoft movie maker the other night to express in film the feelings that now feel so raw and at their worse my skin feels as sensitive as someone who has no skin. I will take my 18 minute movie to my therapist on Tuesday for when I can't actually say my emotions to begin with, he fully understands what I'm saying through making a short movie.
What an excellent view of this whole troublesome business of caretaking. You have in a few words boiled it down to the bottom line, what we all wrestle with whether our relative has COPD or OCPD. The sense of futility and the resultant depression, the sense of aloneness and the resultant hopelessness, the sense of feeling trapped with no escape, these are all real to everyone of us here...but instead of dwelling on the bad you have give us all a direction to go to mitigate some of the negative feelings...'pretending' that all is well is a mind game, that when I can get my mind to cooperate, actually works and gives me a sense of respite. Granted it never lasts long, but even scant relief is better than none. And about coming back here, I was truly at my wits end when I came here a few days ago, strictly by accident and it has been so helpful in helping me with the processing of the abberant feelings associated with care giving. Bless you for being here and being an encouragement to all of us. I hope I can give you something back in return....
Tom
Ted...I have often tried to think of it that way as well. We are the better person. And yes there will be an end one day...no one is immortal...remember that!
Indeed being raised by a parent with NPD or BPD blasts our sense of personal boundaries because of their intrusive personalities which does impact our decisions. I hear your pain of being trapped as an adult back in the painful, abusive environment where you were trapped as a child and worked so hard to escpae from. I'll be praying for some sulution to this delimma.
In answer to your question about my mother and my divorce:actually no. I managed to get away (3,500 miles) for many years. My divorce was for a number of reasons, although one could perhaps say that my choice in marrying this man has a lot to do with the fact that I didn't have the ability to choose well because I was raised by this NPD nutcase.
I am frustrated and angry because I managed to get away and resurrect myself from my awful and abusive childhood, raise 3 wonderful kids-and now I'm right back where I started, living with this sick and mean person. Now that I am here all her so called friends are disappeaing because over the years they have been getting sick of being used, and I am left holding the bag AND being blamed for "taking her friends away".
I used to get calls from people I hardly knew asking me to "do something-we can't and don't want to deal with her anymore".
I can't seem to find any way, either through the Social Service System, nor the Legal System to improve the situation. So now I have to go downstairs and look at the basket of her walker, in which she stores and hides old food, watch her pick toast off the floor and eat it etc.
When will it end?
Tom
You and Nims and I definitely have the same mother. I can't and will never understand why these evil people are still living. It it is only to torment us, then the last ten have been enough. She has been awful my whole, but since my dad died.. it is progressly worse. I understand the whole "giving in" just to shut her up. That's what my dad did, and I guess that is what I have always done. I'm getting much better at saying no, but the constant phone calls, telling me how mean I am, etc... I guess it's hard to get used to the fact that I will not "kiss her a**" anymore. When I say no to her or talk back to her, she asks me who is putting these ideas in my head, because I've never been like this before. I have told her, that it is she who has done this to me, she has destroyed the happy person that I used to be and what is left is this overworked and stressed out shell of the woman I once was!
It's way too early for a glass of wine, so guess I'll get some coffee!