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Yeah, it's tough but it's tougher on her in the end, because as is evident, everyone's chickens come home to roost.
She's two hours away, emaciated, so starved that she can't even stand up, on a psych ward where she can't have any of her "beauty items" which she is very, very attached to, and she hasn't had any visitors and won''t till at least Monday because it's a long drive and frankly, I've already spent more time visiting her in the hospital this past month than she's EVER spent COMBINED going to my aid if I needed help or support or encouragement. So I don't feel a burning conviction to knock myself out making a four hour drive to spend two hours with her.
And if the truth be known, it will probably do everyone, including her, some good to be this far apart and to allow her to sit with the ramifications of her decades of manipulation, abuse, deceit, and denial. I know that sounds mean, but here it is - the outcome of all of those decades of an unhealthy mind set. Maybe if she had gotten the mental health help she needed - and if my dad had insisted on it - when (and even before) it was finally diagnosed in the 1990s, she wouldn't be in this situation today. But she has refused treatment, denied a problem, and lashed out at anyone who has tried to help her, every minute of her life and as of Thursday, was STILL doing so.
So here we are.
I'm going to go plant some flowers in my yard and then come in and have a big salad for supper. Then I'm going to take a bath, put on some jammies, and relax with a cup of Earl Gray and two shortbread cookies and watch a couple of episodes of Call the Midwife. I'll talk with my husband for a bit (he's coming home from working out of town in a couple of days) and probably a grown kid or two, and enjoy a beautiful, quiet evening with my dogs.
Tomorrow I'll go to church with my dad, then out to eat, and then I plan on doing some shopping for some outdoor pillows and rugs with a girlfriend and grabbing some coffee later that afternoon.
My mom can sit there and ruminate, stare at her navel, raise cane, eye everyone and every food item suspiciously, or whatever it is she's going to do between now and Monday and I'm just not going to worry about it. She's in a safe place for now and frankly the break feels great.
Sad to say it, but my dad seems to be feeling very chipper and enjoying piddling around the house, eating ham sandwiches from the depths of hell and watching whatever he wants to on TV. I think we all needed a break. Maybe it's good for my mom too. I hope so, but that's not my focus for the next couple of days.
Every choice we make has consequences and sadly your mother now finds herself dealing with the consequences of her choices.
Well. Today I'm making a four hour drive round trip to spend one hour of visiting with my mother, who has been less than a ray of sunshine on the phone so I'm not looking forward to the whole ordeal.
I'm sure she's not having a particularly good time on the geriatric psychiatric ward either. But she truly doesn't seem to have the slightest notion of or empathy for anyone else caught up in her eating disorder and the havoc it is creating in everyone's lives.
It occurred to me the other day that I've spent more visiting my mother in the hospital and at home in the past two months than she's spent visiting me or helping me out when I was sick in my entire life. For some perspective, let me tell you that for most of my life, I've lived between twenty minutes and three hours from my active, healthy, never employed, fully functioning (though perpetually difficult) mother. I've birthed four children. Said children and I were once hospitalized for a week with accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. I've had a hysterectomy as well as two debilitating surgeries on both ankles (in between my usual states of exuberant health). The ONLY time my mother has visited me in the hospital was when I had her first grandchild.
Other than that - she hasn't even expressed the slightest interest or concern in anyone's health issues or challenges. In fact, when my dad had surgery for bladder cancer, she told me she didn't want to go to the hospital because she doesn't like hospitals and she hates sitting around in waiting rooms - how bout if I just take him and call her when we're on the way home?
So yeah - I'm thinking this will be my one and only trip to see her while she's there. I can't even send her flowers for Mother's Day because not only do they not allow flowers, she has told me in the past that she "hopes I'm not going to send her any more flowers for anything, because all they do is die and then she doesn't know what to do with the vase." Makes things a bit easier, anyway!
I know I sound horrible but I'm just so tired of feeling forced to be reactive. It's not the way I like to live my life. I've spent a lifetime restructuring my life so that I DON'T dance to her tune (which is not the type of music I enjoy) and enforcing boundaries (my mom never met a boundary she didn't feel compelled to plough under with her own personal Sherman tank), and now it feels like once again, I'm being sucked into her dysfunctionality. That's why I'm only going to make one visit (if she gets out when expected about the middle of next week at the latest).
She's been very short with everyone on the phone. She's pretty ticked off about being where she is.
Kathryn, you post is so sad! I hope you see some progress from her on your visit. Be careful on the drive.
Thank you. It's very rare for me to feel sad for more than a few hours but I've been sad and mad for days on end now. It's starting to wear on me. I even talked with my doctor about it, who did tell me that situational sadness is normal and healthy and I have every reason to feel the way I do. He encouraged me to eat a healthy diet, drink plenty of liquids, and to relax and do something constructive, which I did (worked in my flower beds for several hours this past week). It helps but I think I am just so sad and frustrated with what seems to be the end stages of my formerly beautiful mother's life. It all seems so avoidable and ironic and just sad, sad, sad. What is really pitiful to me is that she's so frantic about her beauty aids (hair stuff, makeup, mirror, etc) but she has actually totally ruined her former good looks.
Wow, who would have thought we'd be dealing with an eating disorder at this stage of the game? Certainly not me.
Well. Today I'm making a four hour drive round trip to spend one hour of visiting with my mother, who has been less than a ray of sunshine on the phone so I'm not looking forward to the whole ordeal.
I'm sure she's not having a particularly good time on the geriatric psychiatric ward either. But she truly doesn't seem to have the slightest notion of or empathy for anyone else caught up in her eating disorder and the havoc it is creating in everyone's lives.
It occurred to me the other day that I've spent more visiting my mother in the hospital and at home in the past two months than she's spent visiting me or helping me out when I was sick in my entire life. For some perspective, let me tell you that for most of my life, I've lived between twenty minutes and three hours from my active, healthy, never employed, fully functioning (though perpetually difficult) mother. I've birthed four children. Said children and I were once hospitalized for a week with accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. I've had a hysterectomy as well as two debilitating surgeries on both ankles (in between my usual states of exuberant health). The ONLY time my mother has visited me in the hospital was when I had her first grandchild.
Other than that - she hasn't even expressed the slightest interest or concern in anyone's health issues or challenges. In fact, when my dad had surgery for bladder cancer, she told me she didn't want to go to the hospital because she doesn't like hospitals and she hates sitting around in waiting rooms - how bout if I just take him and call her when we're on the way home?
So yeah - I'm thinking this will be my one and only trip to see her while she's there. I can't even send her flowers for Mother's Day because not only do they not allow flowers, she has told me in the past that she "hopes I'm not going to send her any more flowers for anything, because all they do is die and then she doesn't know what to do with the vase." Makes things a bit easier, anyway!
I know I sound horrible but I'm just so tired of feeling forced to be reactive. It's not the way I like to live my life. I've spent a lifetime restructuring my life so that I DON'T dance to her tune (which is not the type of music I enjoy) and enforcing boundaries (my mom never met a boundary she didn't feel compelled to plough under with her own personal Sherman tank), and now it feels like once again, I'm being sucked into her dysfunctionality. That's why I'm only going to make one visit (if she gets out when expected about the middle of next week at the latest).
She's been very short with everyone on the phone. She's pretty ticked off about being where she is.
"It occurred to me the other day that I've spent more visiting my mother in the hospital and at home in the past two months than she's spent visiting me or helping me out when I was sick in my entire life."
Wow, Kathryn, that certainly sums it up, doesn't it.
I think about how different my mother was from your mother. Even when my mother was so seriously disabled that she was completely bedridden she was still helping others. One neighbor was in her mid-90s, blind and living on her own and my mother called her twice a day to make sure that she was OK (had not fallen or something) and to keep her company on the phone. Another much younger neighbor was unexpectedly widowed and my mother called her everyday, as well, to help her through her grief. Both women, and their families, said that my mother's help was invaluable to them. And, this was while my mother was in her last months of life, in constant, debilitating pain and unable to even sit up or roll over in bed by herself.
Now, that is what I think of when I hear the word "Mother".
I've gotten a lot of excellent advice and real support (ie, real insight and pointers that translate well into real life) on this forum. I love that aspect of it. But I also appreciate that here, I can vent. I can't say all this to my dad, or my kids, or my husband. I mean, I share some of it, but often it's after I write it out here and sort through my feelings - and bounce them off of others who can relate.
Unfortunately, sometimes I get feedback that's not really constructive or pertinent to my particular situation, but that's just part of being on a forum made up of folks we don't know from all walks of life and experiences and backgrounds and situations. I'm sure in fact that I myself have written responses to others that for whatever reason aren't really applicable.
And since I often do learn from different perspectives, I really DO read each post, even the ones that are not pleasant to read, rather than just dismissing stuff that isn't sweetness and light. But it's usually pretty easy to sort through stuff.
I know my mother is declining. I know her challenges. What I DON'T know is whether or not it's possible to address her eating disorder and her mood in constructive ways that give her a better quality of life. I also am constantly on the lookout for solutions or help that can be beneficial to my dad, since this is much harder on him than it is on me.
My parents have been married for 56 years. When it's all said and done, it really doesn't matter whether I think my dad (or my mom) handled their relationship or my mom's mental health issues "right" leading up to all of this. I appreciate the commitment my parents made to each other, and I need to support their efforts to age as gracefully and as comfortably as possible - at least that's what I believe is my responsibility.
My mother, for all her difficult and gnarly and unreasonable ways, has shown me love throughout my life. Does she show love the way I do? No. But I know she loves me and I believe she has done what she has been able to do, with her mental limitations, all of her life. My mom is not an evil person and never has been. In fact, my mom is a good person with good intentions. If I didn't believe this, I would have a different attitude entirely. My mom has struggled, at times unsuccessfully, with mental illness her entire life. She had a wretched childhood. She came into this world with serious issues. I have had more advantages than she ever dreamed of, even though it was difficult being raised by a mentally ill mother.
My parents grew up and got married in an age when mental illness was not understood at all, and was a huge stigma. (It still is to some extent, but at least we have better information and a better understanding of it - and better treatment options now.) For decades, my father honestly thought that the extent of my mother's issues was "PMS." Wow, that was one helluva case of PMS. Actually, she was bipolar and was finally diagnosed in the late 1990s. By then, they had been married over 30 years. Their relationship was firmly entrenched and definitely "codependent" and my dad is definitely an enabler.
It has been gut wrenching to watch him come to grips with the natural outcome of his faulty responses and understanding of the situation. I have watched my dad tear up and say over and over again, "I feel like I've done everything wrong. I feel like I've mishandled this entire situation. I've created an unworkable situation. I let my wife down, my kids down." He is haunted by all the "lost opportunities" to help my mother before things got to this point. But hindsight is always 20/20. What he did right - or thought he was doing right - was that he protected my mother, supported my mother, remained faithful to my mother, for 56 years. Not many people can say that, even in a marriage with two mentally healthy people.
My mom's confusion and decline is not caused by one factor. Yes, she had a stroke ten years ago but she rallied very well after that - and returned to an active, intellectual and socially engaged life for 8 years afterward. She's had no further strokes or "brain bleeds." Yes, my mom fell and broke her hip, which is a huge setback, but that wasn't the START of her decline - it was the inevitable outcome of a serious decline already in progress. The surgery didn't cause her confusion or eating disorder - that was already in place for at least 18 months prior to the fall and surgery. Her confusion isn't caused simply by a UTI - I wish it was that simple. Her confusion and lack of reasoning abilities is the result of several things - the stroke, mental illness (including an eating disorder), and now we find out that she has "white matter changes" that are extensive and chronic throughout her brain. In other words, some sort of increasing dementia, whether it's Alzheimer's or simply vascular or any other number of sorts of dementia.
All my dad and I want is for her to have a complete mental and physical evaluation by a geriatric specialist, so that IF there are meds and treatments available for her VARIOUS issues, we can implement those to better the life she has left. See, if she can get a grip on the eating disorder, she could live several more years - maybe even many more years. It's the eating disorder that is causing the extreme weakness and the physical vulnerability to infection, the inability to heal quickly, etc. So far, her heart and other systems are working pretty well. She has no conditions like diabetes, hypertension, COPD, nothing chronic like that. Her LACK OF FOOD AND WATER - which is self imposed and which she is in complete, total denial of - is what has caused her to faint, to fall, to pass totally out, to have her blood pressure plummet, etc. We have to get to the root cause of this eating disorder if we can ever expect her to gain some strength and regain some of the activities she's always enjoyed so much (getting out in the yard, walking, getting out and about AWAY from the house and the sofa).
We aren't expecting her dementia to improve, frankly. We just want to do all we can to alleviate depression and self imposed starvation. And you know what - maybe we can't alleviate it and if so, then that's just the sad truth. But we won't know unless we try, and leave no stone unturned. So that's what we're doing.
When you speak like this, you're doing so in a calm and detached way. That is what you'll need to get more of. It's sad that sometimes we have to step so far back that we can't even see the person as our mom or as a person we've known all our lives. You may need to back up even further than that (at least at times) and deal with her as you would a "textbook case" of bipolar/dementia/stroke victim. How would you deal with her if you were a therapist or a nurse who didn't know her? Totally remove yourself from the picture and that she is your mom - be completely objective...I'm not saying blindly sympathetic, but objectively assisting her in whatever ever way is best from a medical and mental health perspective.
Your mom doesn't sound mentally ill to me...she sounds horrendously selfish and stupendously vain. (sorry, that's just the picture I'm getting after reading all your posts about how she acts)
"It occurred to me the other day that I've spent more visiting my mother in the hospital and at home in the past two months than she's spent visiting me or helping me out when I was sick in my entire life."
Wow, Kathryn, that certainly sums it up, doesn't it.
I think about how different my mother was from your mother. Even when my mother was so seriously disabled that she was completely bedridden she was still helping others. One neighbor was in her mid-90s, blind and living on her own and my mother called her twice a day to make sure that she was OK (had not fallen or something) and to keep her company on the phone. Another much younger neighbor was unexpectedly widowed and my mother called her everyday, as well, to help her through her grief. Both women, and their families, said that my mother's help was invaluable to them. And, this was while my mother was in her last months of life, in constant, debilitating pain and unable to even sit up or roll over in bed by herself.
Now, that is what I think of when I hear the word "Mother".
I agree wholeheartedly. How blessed you were to have a loving mother like yours.
"It occurred to me the other day that I've spent more visiting my mother in the hospital and at home in the past two months than she's spent visiting me or helping me out when I was sick in my entire life."
That is so sad. You are doing so much for your mom. Please remember to take time to take care of yourself in all of this.
Your mom doesn't sound mentally ill to me...she sounds horrendously selfish and stupendously vain. (sorry, that's just the picture I'm getting after reading all your posts about how she acts)
It's entirely possible to be both.
She has been diagnosed several times over the years as mentally ill.
She also has some really sucky personality traits.
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