I just signed for a letter & it’s from the hospital regarding petitioning the court for my mother’s guardianship.
My heart sunk when I opened it & I’m crying. I was feeling hopeful about life in general today & then this came. I feel so rotten, like I’m a horrible daughter.
I know it’s not true & I can’t be her guardian because of the abuse. Physical & emotional as a child, then only emotional as a teen & adult.
If she had changed I would but she hasn’t & don’t want my life to be all about her again.
I don’t want to be manipulated, bullied, lied to or be involved in her chronic drama & disputes with people ever again. I have to take care of myself & deal with my own problems. Many which are a result of feeling like I was her mother as a child picking her up the floor with slit wrists & afraid to leave her because she would kill herself. I use to cry when she’d take too many pills & hide them from her thinking that would help because I was only 5.
I don’t understand why I’m crying right now? Why this is affecting me this badly, why I feel so sorry for her?
Everyone who knows her tells me “she made her bed & has to lie in it”. That doesn’t make me feel better & it’s coming from people who experienced her wrath & eventually cut her out of their lives.
What is wrong with me?
I know it’s unrealistic to change my mind but this is so sad! I feel so guilty& horrible.
I don’t want her to feel like I don’t care & that’s why I had to say no! It’s much more complex then that. I don’t want her to feel alone because there are no other children but me.
I feel conflicted & everything I wanted to accomplish today, just went out the window because my heart is broken for my mother. I know she has a mental illness & it’s not her fault but I can’t be on the receiving end of that anymore. I gave up decades of my life trying to help her, giving her chance after chance, I gave her money when I had an excess of it, I’ve tried everything. I’ve told her my boundaries & what keeps my away but she’s unable to respect them. They are very small boundaries too like not calling me names or calling 20x/day starting @ 4am, not calling my place of employment & yelling, not to lie to me & things like that.
I feel so sad & don’t know how to get this feeling to go away.
Its a similar feeling to when my father who was wonderful died when I was 25.
I think it’s probably because I saw this in writing( guardianship) & it made things more real. I feel like I’m closing the door on her.
I don’t know what to do & how to not blame myself for saying no. I don’t know how to not feel like I’m a bad daughter by doing something like this. It’s weird because I can give good advice to others but can’t seem to apply it to myself.
I feel heartbroken & it really hurts.
I’d be grateful for any advice even if it’s to say I am
a bad daughter & I made a mistake.
I just want to be at peace with my decision & after reading these legal papers all I can think about is how alone my mother must feel & how I abandoned her!
I have a brother whos using his POA ove MOM and Me to leave Mom in the nursing home thinking and telling others this way she is taking care of. Really my Brother despise Mom because Mom told my brother he had no business marrying his path ethic Wife for reasons I cant say! My brothers knows hes killing mom and lives far away and cannot just come see her at will. I live here and my brother back stabbed me with his wife by putting Mom in nursing home here in Wy. W View Today Mom literally cried and shook her hands saying why wont someone listen to her. I said Iam listening but cant even get my attorney to act in good faith to help mom. Why probably because to get guardianship I have a criminal background so no one will listen to but and my Mom is suffering over this. Can I get attorney to obtain the Guardianship? Thx
This post is 2 months old. You will get a much better response if you post your question to the forum. A question tends to get lost in someone elses thread. Also, people come here for support not criticism.
Is there anything you can do that makes you feel better? Good food, being in nature, travel, yoga? Maybe think of what you want for yourself and focus on that and how to achieve it. Think of what steps you need to take to get there. I know how you feel when it comes to guilt. I have a lot of guilt too. It sounds like she was ill and you weren’t able to have a childhood. You need to heal. Put yourself first. Don’t let the guilt eat you up… you need to have these boundaries. Listen to your gut feelings. Hugs!
You grew up and knew to move away from a person who tore you down. You have the confirmation of others who also were treated badly.
It's called boundaries. You can probably imagine the life it would be to be her guardian. If she never valued you, she isn't going to start now. You would literally set yourself up for abuse again.
But this time you have freedom and choice, not as a small child and teen.
I am sorry she is so mean. I am so sorry my mother is mean. there are mean people in the world.
we wish for good but others do not cooperate with that. Be realistic even though it hurts inside. There are other services available, just as there are for people without children-ask the social worker. Find healing for yourself. Abused kids are usually very sensitive to how others may feel, but then give everything they are to make another person happy.
Yes, your mother has a mental illness. But that is not a "get out of jail free" card. She has had ample opportunities throughout her life to change this trajectory, through counseling, medication, therapy, etc. She has chosen not to do the difficult work of improving or controlling her illness, and has constantly expected others to pick up the pieces of her life and put her back together again. If she had made attempts to get better, it might be different, but that doesn't appear to be the case.
It's easy to tell you not to blame yourself, but you must realize you also have played the co-dependent for many years. It seems as though you have established boundaries, but they haven't been enough. If the hospital had you down as next-of-kin, there was still some connection or implied responsibility.
You have not abandoned your mother. She abandoned you long ago. Give yourself permission to live your own life, as she must live her own life.
I strongly suggest you consider therapy to help you come to grips with the guilt. You have every right to be happy and at peace. My thoughts are with you!
One of the questions I always responded to was one that indicated an OP was mistaking guilt and grief. Clearly Medicineislogic is grieving both the needs of her Mom, her own childhood, and the limitations she now has due to a lifelong troubled relationship. I hope she will not accept guardianship.
Guilt is almost never the issue in these cases; it is almost always grief.
And like you, I believe that we often need some hours of time with a Licensed Social Worker specially trained in life transitions issues, or a psychologist, to help us comb out the differences between guilt and grief.
I look forward to seeing your responses helping people every time I stop by to visit this site, which so helped me, and which continues to comfort and help others.
Tell the court you are incompetent or something your lawyer will advise you.
Cry it out of your system, and move ahead. You aren't broken.
You are in my morning prayer.
Your mother sounds like most residents I have met in seniors homes. They were a disgrace as a mother and disgusting as a woman.
They only cared about themselves and were and are abusive. They foolishly believe the whole world revolves around them. They do not care who they hurt just as long as they get their own way. Many times they enjoy abusing others.
She turned her back on you when you needed her now let her reap what she has sown.
“People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.” 2 Timothy 3:2-5
Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful; they are self-condemned. Titus 3:10-11
good luck to you
* Keep remembering WHY you said NO initially.
* It is not unusual, from my understanding, for 'the abused person' to be 'loyal to the abuser.'
* As you said "I just want to be at peace (with my decision). The peace may take some time. I sense it took immense courage for you to do what you did. And YOU do deserve to have some inner peace. You've suffered enough.
HarpCat said:
You might want to read Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw. A friend of mine who had similar parents as your's said it was a huge help."
I say: GET INTO THERAPY YESTERDAY. Heal yourself.
Gena / Touch Matters
1 : responsible for having done wrong.
2 : suffering from or showing bad feelings about having done wrong.
You have done NOTHING wrong. You are not abandoning your mother. It sounds like she abandoned you as a child. Go on with your life. At this point, she has not changed and you will be signing over your life to years of misery. If you need help, see a therapist. If your mother feels alone, it's because of her own actions. Give yourself permission to have peace in your life. It's all about you. Take care of yourself.
You need therapy.
You need to let the court appoint a guardian for your mother.
You need to rebuild a life for yourself and allow time to heal from the myriad wounds your mother inflicted upon you.
In my opinion, your mother's current situation is her fault, not yours. She sought no help for herself when she was abusing you. People of average intelligence are capable of recognizing the need to change their behavior. She chose not to change her ways.
Go no contact with the hospital, the social worker, your mother, etc. Do not let them sucker you into being a part of your mother's life.
I don't know what, if anything, you need to do with the petition but someone on this forum can probably answer that.
You deserve so much better than you have been given by your mother. You recognize that you cannot help her. You recognize that caring for an abuser is unhealthy for yourself. Your mother has taken up too much space in your head already. I urge you to stop thinking about your mother because she will be fine.
Do something kind for yourself right now and every day. Do you have friends? Do you have hobbies?
"I have put up with this abuse for FAR too long. I have decided that I am FREE from it, and I plan to live my OWN life from now on. I am a good person who has done my best for my mother, but now it is time for someone else to take over. I can only change myself and no one else. I realize my own needs and desires are valid. Therefore, from today onward, I am going to discover how to meet them, and resolve to do what it takes to make my own happiness a reality. Once again, I am FREE from my mother's clutches, and my new life begins NOW."
If you want to visit your mother in future, you can do so. However, if you don't, that is fine, too. Your needs come first now.
(btw, this reminds me of Stuart Smalley on SNL, Daily Affirmations skit, gazing into the mirror and saying "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggonit, people like me!!! OP could add this to the end of the above soliloquy. The short clips start out with an intro including some more good things one can repeat into the mirror:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ldAQ6Rh5ZI )
Take care.
Since you couldn't save her and she is fully aware of how to manipulate or push your buttons, you probably aren't the best person to be in charge of her affairs. It didn't work all these years. You aren't any more equipped to change the outcome now than you were then.
Just be her daughter. Visit. If visit gets ugly, say you have to leave and will return later. If she tries to get you to do things the guardian won't do, tell her that the doctors could see you weren't the best person to be in charge of her care. You will only abandon her if you really abandon her. Don't.
Should a serial killer's wife stay with him or would leaving be abandonment? There comes a time when another's behavior needs to be addressed through action - for the healing to begin of the significant other(s).
I think life presents us with series of choices throughout our existence, some of which are good, some bad, and some in the middle. The best we can do is analyze the choices and make the most appropriate decision of which we are capable.
Regrets can happen, regardless of our choices. And we don't have confirmation of our selections, so a lot of the analysis if not regret is in our minds, and can't always be rationally analyzed, especially when we're dealing with wanting the best for our parents, and balancing our own needs.
Based on your initial post, it seems as though you faced a very challenging dilemma, but made what you feel is the best decision for care for your mother. I think that's a rational and appropriate decision, even though it troubles you.
In caring for our loved ones, I think we're faced with these kinds of decisions more frequently, and they're far more personal and emotional. Will we ever come to terms with our decisions? I'm not sure...I still review and rationalize decisions I made 2 decades ago, but there's nothing I can do except to remind myself that the situations were challenging and no decision was much better than another.
I see that your last posts were on the same date as opening this thread. I hope you're still here to see how much support others have offered, and wish you peace and acceptance of a difficult situation as you and your mother move forward.
Please read any of the books by Townsend and Cloud about "boundaries." Use their techniques when you contact/visit your mom.