She has dominated her childrens' lives with little concern for anyones' feeling but her own. She is now in a wonderful assisted living and her dementia (I think) has illuminated her personality into a person who I can no longer bear to be around. She has again managed to alienate everyone around her with her insults and insensitivity. She is nasty and uncooperative with the aids (who are wonderful) And complains, complains, complains about everyone, everything and blames my sister and myself for the air she breathes. I am sick of her and I don't want to visit her anymore and don't feel that my adult children need to be manipulated like I was and be around her negative attitude anymore. I hate feeling obligated to have her at my house as I have every holiday of our lives and force my children to "tolerate" her for my sake. The guilt is unbearable but I feel that now being 60 years old I would like to feel that this person does not dominate my whole life. I would like to have a happy holiday for a change and have my children WANT to come home (without Grandma always there)
There has never been any pleasing her before and now she sends me into bouts of depression that I have a hard time shaking. Am I alone? I feel like a selfish person but I don't like her now and never did before. The guilt is killing me.
I am sorry for those that are going through these difficult times and hope that you find a solution before you and your family suffers health problems. It’s a real struggle.
When I first started reading this thread I was much more venomous than now. Reading all your stories made me realize I am not the only one with mother problems. I have many of the same issues you all have. I am 57 years old and have a 26 year old son who has high functioning autism or Asperger's living with me. Plus my mother and I are joint tenants in the house so one cannot sell without the other. We have been living together for 15 years, my mother and I have never really gotten along. When my parents divorced I opted to go with my father, turned out he wasn't the best parent either, but the better option.
Every day I wake up and start my day by getting coffee and going back to my room, watch tv and start days chores. Mom loves Fox news, so that is all she watches all day long. It's just too much for me, I only need to hear a news or political story once, not over & over & over again. I think she is basically brainwashing herself because she gets meaner, nastier and angrier every day. I can understand, because if I watch that all the time I find I get the same way, heaven help me. So to solve this issue I bought myself a TV for my room, it has made me a less angry person but I find most of my day is spent in my bedroom. Mom says she would feel like she is locked up in jail if she had to spend all day in her room. Imagine lol. That's ok, I am finding it to be my solace. Isn't that sad?
Mom used to be a sales person (home parties). First she was shy and quiet, then figured out how to put on that smile and be the best friend to everyone. Older now she is that way to everyone she meets. As long as it is for a short time she appears to be the nice old lady. But living with her is just the opposite, In fact she used to go to the local senior center, but she said some things the locals did not like now no one will talk to her. So she just doesn't go anymore, difficult for someone who likes people to hear her talk. Of course every word that comes out of her mouth is negative, angry and about politics, which I cant stand. Thus the self-banishment to my room and purchase of my own tv.
I am on permanent disability because of back and neck issues, which makes it more difficult to do the housework, the yardwork or anything else physical. I am mentally drained and have been chronically depressed for the past 10 years. I take medication that helps a little, it stopped the constant crying and darkness, but I am still depressed just not as severely. Each day my mother sits and watches her news, she never lifts a finger to help me in any way. And if things get a bit piled up then here come the negative comments. She will say things like "that has been there for months when you going to take care of it?" or "it's like we're living in (her hoarder sister)'s house".
Cooking is another issue, every time I bring food home or cook the smell makes her sick, sometimes vomiting and sometimes just nauseas. We have just recently come to the agreement that I will make an ensure shake for her and she can nibble as she chooses. Nothing more embarrassing than the doctor telling us she is malnourished, making me feel like an elder abuser, when the reality is she wont eat anything but toast, peanut butter and crackers, ramen or cake or ice cream.
I have been made to feel like the help for forever. I am trying to work my way through this and put myself in a better mental state. It is not an easy, but I hope if I can use this sight as a form of support and be persistent then perhaps it will happen some day. The only thing I can hang on to is to hope that some day my life will be my own where I can make my own choices and not worry if "Mom" approves.
Thanks for your stories, and God Bless us all.
Would be a fun block party!
When she was in her 90's she was forced to go live in a nursing home. BUT not until she had run my daughter ragged trying to find in home care round the clock and not until she weedled my kid into thinking she owed it to her to take her into her home with her husband and 2 kids. My daughter never understood what miserable creature my mom was until she tried taking care of her at home .
It took less than a month and she was over it.
She found her a really really nice nursing home/ group home in Fremont for her. She is very lucky to have my daughter to care for her and do that. I certainly would not have bothered.
When they told my daughter she was probably in her last 6 or so months she insisted on flying me out with her and my nephew. She said I would regret it if I did not make my peace.
There was little to be made peace with by that time. I am not sure if she knew who I was or not. I had not seen her in 20 years . I am grateful and proud of my daughter for all the effort she made. she grew up fine. I did I guess what you are supposed to do concerning my mom.
DO NOT FEEL GUILTY. YOU DID NOT DO ANYTHING WRONG .
Take your life back spare your kids the grief. enjoy some of your life free of the humiliation andnegativity and critisism. I was only 56 at the time I am 60 now. I am glad for the years i spent free of the misery. I did not suffer from much guilt for very long but believe me you should not. Sounds like you already paid your dues.
My mother doesn’t live with me but she’s 96 and lives alone in her hoarded house. She’s also a gambling addict. Gambled all my fathers money away.
She won’t let me help her with ANYTHING!! So I stopped nagging her as she puts it. She wants me to take her to the foot doctor on Halloween morning but hasn’t washed her feet. I was trying to have her let me do it and she said no!!
When we faced timed with my older son in NYC at the end of the call she told him she loved him. She said I love you Jon, but I don’t love your mother. I took the phone from her, grabbed my coat and purse and walked out her door. This all just happened an hour ago.
It certainly is h*ll. Mom won’t let me touch anything in her house or even throw out an empty Kleenex box.
The gambling addiction came in the early 1990’s. My father tried everything to get her to stop gambling. Nothing worked. She didn’t think she had a problem. She saw nothing wrong with what she was doing. My father was a Senior Vice President at a bank and saved a lot of money. She gambled all of it after he died in 1998. Blew through hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Today, she is looking to applying for Medicaid. Last year she was 100.00 over the limit. It’s sickening.
She won’t bathe and she won’t let me help her. She looks worse than a homeless person except she has her own house.
doctors, lawyers, policemen, EMT workers, firemen all said since my mother is competent and of sound mind she is free to live any way she wants.
She has mental illness, but just because someone has mental illness doesn’t mean they are incompetent!! I learned all this the hard way.
Thankful for this forum. Been here over one year now and it helps me!!
I meant to say my MOTHER has the gambling addiction and hoarding, NOT ME!!! Just had to clarify.
I wholeheartedly support your decision to get up and walk out of your mom’s home.
You certainly had every right to do so. I’m so very proud of you 👍!
Your mom has missed out on so much of her life by not cooperating with you.
As you have clearly stated though, that is her choice so why should you make your life miserable by banging your head against her brick wall.
I admire your common sense in this matter. I only wish that I would not have become so wrapped up in my mom’s perfectionist behavior. I could have spared myself years of pain!
Mom was extremely difficult to please. Extreme perfectionists make themselves and others who try to help miserable. Everything had to be just so! I went above and beyond and it was never acceptable for her.
Live and learn. Unfortunately I had to learn the hard way. For some reason I couldn’t figure it out on my own. I didn’t see what the forum was telling me. I was too close to the situation for so long that I see now that I was totally blind.
When I finally saw the light I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off of my shoulders.
This is why I try to be as patient as I can with new people on the forum because for some of us it takes time to absorb and process the changes needed in our lives to achieve harmony and peace.
I am thankful to everyone who did not give up on me and remained encouraging so that I could break free to live my own life that I truly deserved. That was my problem. I didn’t feel as if I deserved it. I used to feel like I owed my mom everything.
Now, I am grateful for the things mom contributed to my life but I realize that we don’t have to pay back a debt so much that it leaves us emotionally and physically bankrupt.
Keep sending your positive messages to posters. It’s needed on this forum.
I just replied to the pm.
If you really want to appease your guilt, go have dinner with her at the AL facility on a different day. You are 60 years old, time to grow up and ENJOY your holidays. Good luck.
no! You are not the only one!
I’m in a similar situation. At home care fir dad, but my mother is alienating all the caregivers to the point that we have exhausted our agencies roster of aides.
I cannot afford to give up working. She is grieving, I get it, however she just manages to not make it easy on our trying to provide care- she expects these girls to do everything beyond their abilities. She treats them like maids, servants, etc. she insults them, yells at them and criticizes them.
ive offered to put our father in a home but she refuses. He is no longer able to cared fir at home. It’s such a conundrum! What to do.
be well friend!
I 'divorced her' 10 months ago and have not seen her and will not. Going to see her w/o me as a buffer became too hard for DH.
She began spending all their 'visits' haranguing him about how much she hates me and how I have literally ruined her life. She says she has not slept a single night since he brought me into the family. (46 years is a LONG time to go without sleeping). She said I have been the source of the 'most miserable life ever lived' according to her doctor...hers.
DH finally HEARD and SAW what I have been dealing with for all these years. Had an 'aha' moment and blew his stack at her. I guess it got really, really ugly. Dh came home and said he was done with her.
I feel really sorry for him, as he begins to navigate the waters he's finally accepted he's drowning in.
I did print out some articles that have been shared on this board and he has read a couple. Finally waking up at age 68 to the knowledge that your mother truly hates you and blames you for everything that ever went wrong----it's hard.
I would like to be able to blame dementia or Alz but she's just more 'the same' as she has ever been.
Who is the loser in this? His mother, whom I planned to come to love and make an integral part of our family. She didn't want and she lost out. My kids and grandkids are SPECTACULAR!!!
Her latest calls after I set up the internet for her- which she wanted- were in the usual aggressive, drunk at midday tone, and after I answered all her questions calmly, went to 'you're really unhelpful' and when I protested, 'two husbands can't be wrong' and 'this is why they say you shouldn't have children', both followed by her hanging up. Then a text message saying I need therapy for my moods and temper outbursts, as I'm going through the menopause. To her, me reacting to an insult or personal comment with 'that's really nasty and not fair' is a 'temper tantrum'. She can say what she likes; I must not complain. This was at a time when she knew I had some important work facetime meetings on that I had to be able to perform well in. Sabotage.
There's been a string of incidents like this over several years. She has started lying about my father's heritage and told people I am half Italian. we saw some people in a park and she said I had to go along with this! The comments about 'you're going through the menopause', apart from being not true yet, not the least supportive, designed to undermine and intrusive, have been frequent. She has a real problem with the fact I still have periods. Other incidents and some more serious, vicious aggressive shouting at me, etc. Often when she drinks alcohol (which is all the time).
2 months ago I replied to that text. I said I would not respond to any more of her personal comments, insults etc. I told her some home truths about how unpleasant she has been to me, reminded her of some of the things she said about my father, and told her she was a toxic influence on my life and I don't want to hear from her anymore.
Like many on here, I think she most probably has an undiagnosed mental health condition. When I was younger (like, 6 or 7) she told me several times about how she 'put her head in the gas oven due to post-natal depression' and was always keen to explain to me how she gave up a glittering career (it really wasn't all that) in order to have me. She was back to work at 8 and I was out of her hair by time I was 19, so there was plenty of time for her to recover the ruined life I evidently caused.
However like many narcissistic and downright vindictive, jealous mothers we have been talking about on here, she has had her occasional moments of being a nice mother. They are generally spoilt with a catty comment pretty quickly, but, she can behave when she has to (for instance if I meet her in public, which works OK). So right now 2 months later I still miss her, I still feel guilty, however, I know that unless she comes to me and apologises, and changes her behaviour, I will not go back. I know what this was all leading to. Bullying and manipulating me into moving in and looking after her and her ridiculously unmaintained and over-large house, which she could if she wanted to but is too paranoid to let anyone work on it. The sad thing is, if she had been nicer I would have moved nearer (not in). I am feeling very upset and remembering all the things she has said, and it is hard realising your own mother just doesn't love you and regretted even being married and having you. I have some counselling arranged for soon though and look forward to processing all this, which I constantly am, and feeling better.
It's sad that she's chewing on us, as we were all raised in a way that we want to help her. When we are on site helping her, she calls us wardens, refers to us a Hitler, says we want things our way and that we're "cold". She is completely disagreeable with us. She lies to the doctors, and tells friend and relatives how cruel we are. It gets us all very upset. It would be so nice if she were sweet and we could enjoy her, but we can't and it's not going to change. My concern is that two of us let is get so far that we had chest pains after dealing with her. I walked away this summer to save myself and now my sister has followed suit. Our brothers don't live near Mom so things are going to come crashing down for her. We agreed to have one last sibling conference call, tonight, to see if anyone has any remaining ideas on what we should/could do especially during COVID. My brother heard about the call and said, there is nothing left to do.
I understand him. We had her in a gorgeous and fun assisted living previously, and she moved herself out, we know she's nasty to in home nursing caretakers, so I hope one of us come up with something. My thought is hire a maid, and send her groceries on line. I can't believe we are at this stage. We're starting to chose self preservation over taking care of Mom. But, here we are. Best of luck to all of us, right?
Love your ‘Sweden’ comment! Cute!