Caregivers and Stress

[Chad]

Originally Posted by girl_dee

Chad,

Gosh please accept my apology for my rant. My mom is giving me a really hard time right now, and, i think when i read about you & your mom having your *normal* plans etc. it totally triggered me. It happens now and then. This is not how its supposed to be.

i definitely did not mean to go on like that ! Whew that was quite a spew of emotion.

i am glad this space is here, believe me, i love my mom. i remind myself that she is doing the best she can. I am doing the best i can. its an extremely difficult relationship to manage (which i why i am the only one left to handle her) and i don't feel i have done a good job. Totally my stuff.


This adulting sure is a LOT of work!

Dee, I apologize for upsetting you. I am worried about giving up my privacy when my mom comes to live at my ranch. Being a child of an aging parent is a lot harder than I imagined.

I am grateful for this thread too. We can all help each other. We are not alone and that feels good.

Chad

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by Chad

Dee, I apologize for upsetting you. I am worried about giving up my privacy when my mom comes to live at my ranch. Being a child of an aging parent is a lot harder than I imagined.

I am grateful for this thread too. We can all help each other. We are not alone and that feels good.

Chad

Yes...

i think for some parents its not a big deal, they respect your privacy. My mom has no boundaries.

If i could do it again........i don't even know.

[girl_dee]

Well my mom hasn't spoken to me since Easter.

She said she was going to stay home all day and cry. My aunt and my sister took her out for the day and she had a good time.

But she still is punishing me. i am going to try again to reach out to her.

[girl_dee]

thank you to the person who sent me the message about not contacting my mom. i REALLY appreciate the insight.

Well she contacted me this morning. She sent me a photo of some newsletter she got from the facility where she lives. It was something crazy about HUD being discontinued and her losing her housing benefits.

and her comment was

"i am going to be living under a bridge"

i responded that i am sorry but thats not going to happen. Nothing i could do to make her stop going off.. so i just left the conversation.

This is weighing on me big time.

[girl_dee]

Thanks to all the folks who sent me messages. i know i am not alone and it sure feels good.

i feel like the worst daughter ever.. she's my MOM i am told. i know who she is. She has never acted like one.

Yes (thank you) i feel like an orphan. i haven't had *parents* in forever.

i don't know if my father is dead or alive, but if he is dead, i won't shed a tear.

[girl_dee]

well, i tried to fix things by calling my mom on FaceTime this morning. i started off real positive and cheerful. That did not last long.

She became hysterically angry at me. She was crying and saying some pretty ugly things. i definitely have lost my good daughter card.

i also realized yesterday, that when things with my mom get flared up, i slide into old self destructive patterns.

its a cycle.

[*Anya*]

I know this is a derail but I must say this: with all kindness and respect, people that do not have severely toxic parents do not understand.

I know each situation is different but all abusive and toxic parents are the same in the way that they destroy your soul.

I have had to deal with a seriously dysfunctional and damaging mother (and father, too) for my whole life.

People have said to me: "But she is your mother". Yes, she is. Very sadly, she is.

They have said: "You are going to feel bad when she dies if you don't even try".

Yes and I have felt badly my entire life.

My last little, tiny kernel of hope for a real, loving mother; will die with her.

I spent 5 years in therapy, starting at age 21, because I did not want to abuse/hurt/harm my own children if I did not learn how to be different than my mother.

I would sit in therapy and cry my heart out, asking repeatedly, "But why doesn't she love me?"

My therapist, like a broken record, would say, "Because she can't".

It took me the whole 5 years to get to the point of acceptance of this simple fact and to believe that I would be a different mother with my children than the one I was born to.

And I was.

I tried multiple times to connect with her (and my father) over the years, but either her damaging criticism of me or the repeated litany of all of the grudges she carried and never let go, would be repeated, no matter what I tried to talk about or how I attempted to get the conversation on a positive track:

"You never practiced the piano. We got you lessons and you just wouldn't do it. The boys play beautifully now because they practiced." This was always said to guests when they would walk in the house: "They all had lessons but only the boys stuck with it. Anya quit". I would always feel ashamed and embarrassed as though a I had done something terribly wrong.

"Your grades could have been much better , you do have a brain, you just never used it. Note- I got C's, D's and F's in high school due to being so beaten down mentally and physically.

In college-I had an almost a straight A average. I got an award in nursing school for being the best student- what did mom and dad say: "See, we knew you could do it. We just never understood why you never even tried".

The last time I was at my parents, probably 6 years ago, before dad broke his hip and they moved into assisted living; my father gave me all of my report cards from second grade through 12th. They also had an IQ test I don't recall ever taking.

Their point? To show me how poorly I did in school and to show me how smart I was so they could again dive into my underachievement history.

To what end? To what purpose?

My perspective on that is that by making me the focus of all of their anger (frequently at each other) they never had to think about themselves as long as I was the punching bag (literally and metaphorically).

Somehow, the worse I felt, the more self-righteous they felt. They would feel better when I felt worse.

I gathered everything up that day, said I have to go now and walked out.

After that, they stopped talking to me again and I said: enough.

I honor all of you for being good sons, daughters, spouses, lovers and caring for parents and loved ones the way that you do. I read this thread even though it makes me sad.

I wish that I had parents (now just my mom. Dad died last August. I was not allowed to go to the funeral) that I could help.

It just is not the way that it is.

I want to close by saying that my youngest daughter told me yesterday that she and her boyfriend just got approved for a house in LA. She said to me: "Mom it has a downstairs apartment. We got it so that when you get to where you need help, you can come live with us".

I still cry with happiness to even write it.

Some parents are so toxic, it is best to avoid them like the plague that they are. Of course, frequently it was not my healthy choice to avoid them.

My coming out in 1978 earned me a 15- year no-talking ban. It actually was the beginning of putting together the crumbs of insight that I had learned in therapy. Those 15 years were a blessing, in retrospect.