Mom is 90. Lives alone and refuses social outlets other than me. She is getting more and more demanding. She cries and says she is lonely. I work full time and live over an hour away. I have tried EVERYTHING. She refuses any alternative to me. I can never enjoy anything without her guilt. Even when I set boundaries its very hard to hold them because of her CONSTANT harping. She creates a crisis over the simplest tasks (picking up prescriptions, dr visits, grocery shopping). I am really at the end of my rope. I try to do things with my friends or my husband but I can never get rid of the anxiety because I know there will be a price to pay when I get home. There will be an emotional reckoning for me. My mother will exact the proper amount of torture on me because I dared to have a life apart from her. She, of course, says just the opposite. For example, "oh I'm so glad you are getting away. You deserve a vacation." But when I get back she says how lonely she was and hoe she didn't have anything to eat in the house, or she had food but was "so sick" she couldn't cook it. Or she waits until the day before I leave and says she need her prescription filled or some other thing that you really can't refuse. She is very crafty and always seems to outsmart me. Consequently it is sometimes easier just to stay home. My husband has had it. We talk about her EVERYDAY. EVERY.DARN.DAY. He sometimes avoids me now. I really don't know what else I can do. My mother refuses to consider moving into IL, AL, or any help in her home. She refuses to go to the senior center or any other social outlet. A close neighbor lady her own age reached out repeatedly in the hopes of getting a friend herself. Mom refused saying that "she didn't want her coming over all the time."
Do you have any siblings?