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As the days go on recently, it seems harder and harder to keep my mother happy. She does not work and never really has, and has convinced herself and TRIES to convince others around her that she is too ill with fibromyalgia to get a job. She stays home all day every day and doesnt do much except follow people on Facebook nowadays. My father is an alcoholic who has been sucessfully dry for over 23 years now with not one relapse. When I was growing up, there was no physical abuse from my dad, but there was a LOT of fighting and screaming and utilities not being paid and food not being in the fridge; my mother did nothing with us as children, she slept until 1 in the afternoon on beautiful summer days and I had to stay in until she decided she was going to stay up for a while. She never cleaned the house or did laundry or any normal thing a parent might do. We actually got into phyisical fights when I was a teenager because of her lack of rationale. Now, she is in her late 50's - She wants to blame everyone else for the way her life is and is so wrapped up in everyone elses drama that you cant even have a conversation with her that makes any bit of sense. She just eats pills all day and complains and does NOTHING around the house while my father works outside all day in all types of weather and gets home and HE has to cook and clean too!!. I cant take it any more. It brings me to tears how embarrassed and ashamed I am to watch this and know there is nothing I can do. I've tried to speak to her like a loving daughter, like a friend, like an angry person - I have tried every angle I can think of. I feel guilty like I have to spend time with her, when alot of times I just dont want to anymore. I'm at my wits end and have been crying about this alot lately. The guilt of her being my mother is driving me insane. After all, you cant abandon your mother, right!?
Thank you Jacki but I guess I'm a little confused by when you say "remember you are not your mother" - I honestly dont understand what it means.
I used to have a drug problem I think as a result of all this nonsense, in my 20's. It was hardcore too. BUT - I've been clean for years and years - I now own a condo in downtown Chicago for the last 12 years and have a career that I love. I feel very fortunate for this but cant seem to give myself the pat on the back that everyone else thinks I should - I thank God mostly for how I finally ended up, not my hard work. (I'll be 40 this year!) I dont know how to take a compliment. Never have.
I do love my mom and I know she loves me, but I just cannot stand the person she has become, its been such a slow progression and is so painful to watch. Now, as an adult, from time to time, I just break down and want to cry because I feel helpless sometimes. Sometimes I cant handle it when life's situations dump on me - and honestly, none of this is really life threatening so why do I care so much? Why do I let it bother me so much? I get very very sad. And then the physical stomach pain starts. and I cant eat for a few days - which is what I'm going thru now.
My Mother is a hoarder, of objects, and cats. She has extreme OCD, is borderline personality disordered, and severely unstable. She is unemployed, she has never been able to hold down a job for very long, currently she is working, part time. She lives in her own home, which is beyond out of control, I personally have not gone into her home for over 5 years. I have tried to help her...she just goes crazy when I do...it is difficult. One problem I have, is that her parents "babied" her, and gave her everything, she never learned how to manage money, because her parents always gave her money...well, they are dead now, and she constantly asks me for money. I confine it to Christmas, and her Birthday, I give her $1000 for each. Yes, I pay for her phone, and car payment, and car insurance...And I will bend occasionally for other things, but that is it. Really, it is like having another kid, who is a bad kid, you can't control...and yes, I do help her out more than I should...She is not a normal Mother, and never has been. She is extremely demanding, and petulant, she will hang up on me, and not call me for a week to "punish me" if I have done something to annoy her, which is usually when I say no to some request. She won't come visit for holidays, even when I offer to pay her airfare, she is not a normal grandmother either...my kids are pretty sad about how weird she is...they want a "normal" grandma...Well...at least they have a normal Mom...I hope!
Last edited by jasper12; 03-31-2011 at 06:54 PM..
Reason: edit.
I also grew up with a mother who has bipolar disorder. I am 21 currently, and it is still a huge struggle. I am in college and consistently have trouble staying in serious relationships and keeping in touch with my mom. It is very difficult to separate the parent from their illness...I find it nearly impossible. I tend to forget her illness until I arrive home and the cycle continues. It's difficult to discuss it with my friends who have normal parents. It is also bizarre to look back and realize all those inconsistencies and irrational behavior...it was all I had known, so it was 'normal' to me for mothers to go on ridiculous shopping sprees and rages. I'm still in the angry/guilty phase, but of course I'd love to be in the acceptance state. I wish I knew someone my age who was in the same situation...My siblings hate talking about it and regardless of how hard my friends try to understand, it is nearly impossible. I was wondering if anyone could possibly help me with my situation..?!
I know how you feel My mother became suicidal when I was 13. I never dealt with it and made some vey bad choices in my life, including a marriage to a man who had mental problems. I was only 19 when I met him and could not recognize his unusual behaviour, since I had been conditioned by my mother's illness. It took only a couple of years to realize that he had some sort of mental illness, but I had 2 kids and no family nearby to help me. I finally divorced him 13 years later. By then, I was in my 30's and it took another 5 years before I went and got councilling. My advise to you is get councilling as soon as possible. Otherwise you are at risk for making some very poor life choices.
My mother is bi-polar and schizophrenic. My childhood was anything but normal, although there was no physical abuse. As I got older and looked back at my childhood, I realized how abnormal it was. I didn't know it back then. She would drag us out in the middle of the night during school and we'd sit in a hotel parking lot waiting to catch my dad having an affair (she was paranoid.) She demonized him every chance she could, and my dad and I have an awkward, distanced relationship to this day. Nobody ever told me or my siblings why my mother was always in the hospital or why she acted the way she did. We just didn't think about it.
I can't help but have a lot of animosity towards my mother because I was forced to care for her when I was 17, pregnant, and had just married. My marriage fell apart (aside from the fact that we were both too young to marry) in part because he couldn't handle the pressure of living with a mentally ill mother-in-law. She tormented me by ridiculing me about how I had not achieved anything in my life, had no money, had to make my own clothes (which she just thought were ridiculous and would laugh about them to my face.) She caused us to nearly get evicted from our apartment with her antics (cackling near an open window at passers-by, knocking on the neighbors doors at 2am because she thought someone was after her, etc.), she would never help us out with finances, even though she was getting a monthly SSI check. She would stay in her room and demand I ran out to do her shopping and bring her items to her room. I had to account for every penny, even if we had no food of our own. When I finally had to call the police to come and get her for fear of our lives (we heard her talking to someone in her room about stabbing someone) I was left to clean her room. The closet was full of empty pop bottles full of urine and some of the most bizarre things I have ever seen. Truly a sick person stayed in there.
I'm having a hard time having a relationship with her, because I can't get these things out of my head and forgive her. On one hand, she is a sweet, loving person, and sometimes she degrades me as if I were an embarrassment.
I don't even know why I'm posting this. It does feel good, though.
I am sorry to hear your story. My mom has schizophrenia and I grew up with her and my dad. It is so painful to family members. I struggle with this still and I am 38 years old. I love her so much but it was just so hard and still is. It is an illness and somewhere within you there is compassion for that. All I can suggest is that you speak with a therapist early unlike me, I waited until now and I have alot of work to do. God bless you, you are in my prayers.
Regular Dad-
You truly care to reach out here to find out more about what your wife must bee feeling or experiencing. My mother was and still is a schizophrenic and I am 38. Your wife and I come from the generation when there were no fancy drugs available for treatment. Sometimes, we have difficulty being sure and confident of what we are really feeling or experiencing because our parents did not encourage expression of feelings rather, we were supposed to suppress them because we took a back seat to our parents illneses. How does this translate for you? Well for me, trust is a huge issue, relating is also a challenge at times. A good book for you to read is Adult Children of Alcoholics because this will give you insight into your wives thought process. You are a good man and your wife needs you! Best of luck to you!!! I will pray for your family.
Tabstigs2-
I am your age, 39 and my mother has schizophrenia. I grew up with this. She and my dad have remained married. He went to work and me and my brother were left home with her. She was delusional, thinking martians were in the driveway and always thought my dad was cheating. She would take us in her car to the club where he would go and she would watch, hoping to catch him cheating. I guess as a youngster, I did not realize how abnormal all of this was. So, in college, i became fond of alcohol as a social lubricant and to calm my anxiety. I grew dependant on it. I also am professional in Boston, have a condo, etc...But my childhood still hauts me, moreso now than ever I feel. I stopped self medicating and numbing with alcohol and it is a challenge. My mind is almost like a scrambled egg at times. Working on it in therapy and with the help of wellbutrin today. Mental illness is a tragic illness. All my best to those reading this and relating to my story. You are not alone but I know it feels that way. xoxo
My father is schizophrenic. When I was a young girl, he switched from being a gentle, sweet, patient, loving man to a man who had the potential to kill within seconds. All you had to do was say the wrong thing and he would get it into his head that you were "plotting against him" or "victmising" him. Then he would snap, scream his head off, pull his fist back, bare his teeth, snarl, throw things and swear like a monster. He never physically touched me, he just did things like stick his face into mine, show me his teeth like an animal and scream "Raaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!" as though he wanted to eat me alive. All because I looked at him in the wrong manner, or "got into his space" too much.
My mother eventually got sick of his psychological abuse and crazy fantasies (he would resign from his job and threaten to kill his manager or employees because they were "out to get him"). Then committed the greatest betrayal: she married a man who was not happy that she had children from a previous marriage and made me go and live with my father because she didn't want to lose her new boyfriend. Living with my father for three years (before I went to Univeristy and lived in a residence) was the worst three years of my life.
He started imagining that I was having s*xual relations with his girlfriend and nothing I said or did would convince him otheriwse. He left tape recorders all over the house, recording our concersations and in the middle of the night he would come into my room and say, "I know what you are doing ... I know that you are f**king my girlfriend. I am watching you. I'll f**king kill you". And so the abuse carried on and on.
Since I left for Univeristy and finally became independent of both my mother and father, my father wants nothing to do with me (or my brother) and my mother says that the abuse was all in my mind. She says that I just have a "victim mentality" like my father. She lives happiliy with my step father in another province and, although my step father and I have made steps towards forgiving eachother, I still can not forgive my mother for always putting her (violent, abusive) men before her own children. Her response would be that I am just being "a drip" and that I should "Get on with it and stop feeling bl**dy sorry for myself all the time".
But how can I not feel sorry? How can I forget that my own father wanted to kill me and threatened to do so? How can I forget that he is not interested in having a relationship with me, even if I accept his psychosis? He never attended my wedding, has shown no interest in my daughter and declines all my offers to come and visit me and my husband.
The net result is that, in spite of hours of psychotherapy, I am terrified of men. If my male work colleagues come within a few meters of me, my heart starts racing and I just want to run away from the situation. I believe that a man could kill me at the drop of a hat. I do not believe that they could love me, or even like me.
Yet, I am drawn to them because I want to be loved by a father figure. I want to know what it is like to have a father say to me, "I love you, my girl" or "You are my precious child". So, I find myself working in stock broking, Information technology - any career where I may find myself surrounded by men who could love me.
But as soon as they reach out to me, I am sure that they are laughing at me the way boys did at school because I always looked so sad and confused. I am sure that they want to hurt me. I remember my father telling me, "I never wanted to have children. Your mother tricked me when she feel pregnant. She told me she was taking the pill. After you were born, I got my n*ts tied in a knot, so that it would never happen again." Or "Don't ever have children. They cost a lot of money and you have to work like a f**king slave for the rest of your life to pay for them."
The worst was when he told me that he thinks it is "natural" for a father to be s*xually attracted to his daughter. When he said that, it was a though a dark curtain fell in front of my eyes. Why did he have to say that to me? Was it is psychosis, or is that how most men feel? I was only fifteen years old and was questioning his slightly inappropriate behaviour with me (although it was only slight).
All I know is that my father f**ked up mind has f**ked my mind up in turn. I will never be normal because he refused to get his problem under control (he is a Scientologist and he hates pyschologists because he was given shock therapy against his will as a youngster).
I will continue to try and find ways to move on and stop being angry. I will continue to try and forgive, so that I do not repeat this pattern of abuse with my unborn son.
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