I am divorced, and I have a daughter, and I live with my mother, my brother, and a sister who is married. My mother has been suffering from depression for years because of a bad childhood, and a mother who was discriminating and did not give her love and care, and as a child she was subjected to an attempted sexual assault. She always had problems with my father, and she tried to commit suicide at her first marriage. During her marriage and our upbringing, she was very authoritarian and controlling. my father had a weak personality in front of her and she used to hit him. also, he never respected her and made her depression worse. he himself was controlling too. my father died nine years ago, and she turned into a more poisonous and controlling mother mother. It turned our lives into hell, made problems with everyone, and hurt people. She was addicted to sleeping pills, she drank Percocet 1 box of 10 mg sometimes daily. she was diagnosed with psychotic depression two years ago and started taking medication: Zyprexa 10mg once daily, Elatrol ( Ambitralyine) 25mg three times , but not daily. After stopping Percocet, she used to fell asleep with 60 sleeping pills: 20 Zodorm tablets, 20 Seroquel tablets, and 20 Lorivan tablets. Praise to be God, she stopped them, and now she only takes 6 pills of Zodorm and 6 pills of Seroquel 25 mg. She suffers from type 2 diabetes , and she has gained weight a lot. She is now 118 kg and her HBA1C is 10.30. she neglected herself and ate and drunk as much as she wants no matter how many times we warned her. she has now peripheral neuropathy in her legs and hurts her . She is taking medication, but in the last period she has had anxiety that is not normal like a relapse, and she does not sleep well, and if she does not sleep, she does not let us sleep or rest. I have all the burden on me. My mother is very tiring and hard headed. she keeps drinking different kind of medicine because of her fear of pain like those of vomiting, stomach pills and more. i have no life and entering her to an institution will not be helpful and she needs me. im desperate this is so hard on me and my daughter and i don't feel she is willing to change. she sucks out my energy and our energy in order to live. again: i cannot put her in an institution because im sure she will become worse and relapse, and in israel there are no good rehab centers like USA,,,, im afraid she also has dementia, and ganser syndrome. also, sometimes in the night she drinks all the 12 sleeping pills and she falls and walks like zombie. she is not cooperating and she pays lots of money for medication
Your mother is mentally ill. Mentally ill folks can rarely receive enough care "just" from family members. Depending upon the severity, mentally ill folks may do better in an institution because they have fewer choices to make and better chances for medication compliance. It doesn't sound like she's taking her meds accurately, and you are pretty powerless to control that, yes?
I would encourage you to think of your daughter first and work with your mom's doctors to get her appropriately placed. You can then return to acting as loving daughter and advocate.
only a doctor can decide that. it’s crazy to suddenly take much more than prescribed. and with alcohol! disaster. but you already know that.
mothers often don’t listen to their daughters.
but she might listen to a doctor. a doctor must prescribe the right amount of medicine.
you said she has to stay at home.
she won’t change. she might get meaner and meaner, as she gets more and more depressed and frustrated with her health and life.
she might take it all out on you, blame you, because that’s what mean mothers do: they blame the daughter usually.
only a doctor can help.
How much worse could her life be in a NH? I fathom they would be more judicious with the meds and maybe if you could get her off most of them, she might become a different person.
You pretty much admit that you aren't doing a good job with her and I think we'd all agree. Not your fault, she seems hell-bent on self destruction.
I'd give a NH a try and if she hates it (and she probably will) at least she's safe. Drugs at the level she's consuming them will kill her liver and that's one horrible death.
She doesn't NEED you, she's USING you. And you're falling for it. If you came here for sympathy, you have it, but you need to be willing to accept that not one person is likely to tell you that what you are doing for mom is the best thing for her. Or you.
She sounds to me like an abusive bully. Her depression and addiction issues with drugs and alcohol does not excuse or justify her absive behavior towards her family.
You and your family are enabling her to be active in her abuse and addictions and you all need to stop.
All of you (your brother, sister, and brother-in-law) need to lay down the law and tell your mother that either her abuse and bullying stops today or she will literally be in the street or in a nursing home. If it's her house then the lot of you should start looking for a differemt place to live and leave her as she is.
I know it will be hard to do, but she needs tough love. Stop enabling her. My first husband was a wonderful man. He was an alcoholic though. I had to leave him behind because I could not live with his addiction anymore. He was never abusive to me the way your mother is to you.
All of you in your family needs to force her to get her act together. If she can't get into a rehab right now, she can get into an AA meeting because that organization is around the world and free.
With all the meds this woman is on, she would probably be better off in a nursing home.
Stop tolerating and enabling her abuse for your sake as well as hers. Move out with your family without your mother. Offer to help find her a nursing home.
Honey, she is destroying herself. As well as everyone else around her.
The a1c level she has is diabetic level. Way too high. Left untreated, it will kill her. And it will not be a fast and painless way to die. Why would all of you sit back and let her do this?
If you saw a small child walking around with a knife they found in the kitchen… what would you do? Would you:
1. Let the kid keep holding the knife because the kid will cry and be mad and throw a tantrum.
2. Take the knife away and let the kid get mad. Better the kid be mad than cut or stab themselves. The kid doesn’t understand the danger they are in; so you had to intervene.
Now imagine that kid is your mom. Pretty obvious what you need to do.
Placing her will keep her from destroying herself!