I’m 52. My mother divorced my father who adored her 40 years ago. She has anxiety and depression but coped through living in nice hotels around the world. We fund but she has done it reasonably and gets best deals. I haven’t lived with her for 40 years and only seen her about 10 times since age 19, when she called me daily at college to tell me she was lost. I developed severe ocd about her and thought about her 5 hours a day. I moved away and it got better. Then it happened again and she would call me all the time about her horrors, no place to live. Around my age 35 we started funding her fully. Things got better (by better I mean I never wanted to call her but was able to call her once a week and only obsess about an hour a day. Now over the past few months, things have gotten worse and my ocd is skyrocketing. Writing posts like this, talking to anyone who will listen. She is impossible to talk to. She won’t budge an inch. We asked for one hour of help a week from her to help us and she said no during the pandemic. Not one hour. We asked for a planning phone call or we weren’t going to send her funds and she just threatened to kill herself so finally we sent to stop the torture. Now at 77, I have limited contact and trying various treatments but she still slams on me about her misery. She doesn’t have a home and cries about that. Then we offer to buy her a home in Florida, Phoenix and she says she doesn’t want a dumpy home. Then we offer to buy her a nice home and she says she doesn’t want to be alone. The issue is she has no family that cares about her. My sister and dad don’t care if she is dead. Neither do her brothers. We care and I feel devastated for her, but I can’t have her in my unit because I don’t have space (2 bedroom for 3 people already). I don’t want her here because I am
obsessjng hours a day as it is and she will continue to manipulate me (I didn’t find her a husband, I have a husband, she doesn’t want to live and just wants to be hugged, I didn’t give her a solution to live overseas and have a home base in the United States, her life didn’t meet her dreams). As background, she sounds insane saying that 35 years ago she stayed with me when my father had a brain tumor and was in life threatening surgery. She tells me she missed a meeting and got in trouble. She was never there for me - didn’t come to wedding, graduations or when I got I’ll. But she gets into my head. Now I can’t make her go anywhere. She won’t call a suicide line, she won’t pick a place to live but will just email me until I break. Yes, the problem is with me, sf is very expensive and I can’t fund her here but moreover this is not a retirement community. She need to make friends but won’t. Only daily emails that she has no hope. Everyone tells me to not read her emails. I am so scared. By the way, I have an amazing husband and son…can’t even focus on them. Can you help me? Small part of me wonders if I need to open my arms and just love this shell of a human. I can’t solve it. Do you have resources?
If your mother can afford to live in hotels around the world for the last 40 years, she certainly doesn't need you who lives in a two-bedroom apartment with three other people to take her in or pay for her.
You've only seen her ten times since you were 19 years old and you are now 52. So this is not a person you care for or who cares for you. This woman is all but a stranger to you. Don't worry about her. If you want to talk to her when she calls, then you should. If she starts acting needy and giving a drama performance about killing herself, hang up on her. You don't owe her anything.
The problem is not the mother it is the poster who needs some serious mental health help.
I hope that she gets the help she needs so that she can start living her life.
The OP lives in with two other people in a two-bedroom apartment. So he/she/they is not funding anything.
starting with affirmations to reprogram that it is not my responsibility and am getting counseling and seeking other options. I don’t know if she will be okay but she still doesn’t seem to care if I’m okay so I’ll have to get over that!
Correction: you have CHOSEN to fund her lifestyle
You are allowing yourself to be manipulated.
let her become a ward of the state. She would do the same to you
Just a comment and please don't take this the wrong way:
When you write a post, please use some kind of punctuation. I could barely follow your train of thought (tho I did certainly feel your anxiety!)
Mom is not going to change.
You can tell her until you're blue in the face what she 'needs' but it will fall on deaf ears.
77 is NOT OLD.
You and your family are doing FAR TOO MUCH for her and this is just feeding the monster. This has to stop. How much do you fund her? Her entire monthly bills?
Her constant threat of suicide is a manipulative behavior and trust me, she has NO intention of hurting herself. (My mom did this for years and years. I finally told her 'go ahead, mom, please just don't leave me a mess to clean up'). She never once made any attempts beyond verbal threats, If she did it now she would be immediately taken to the ER and we'd Baker-Act her.
Your co-mingling or her life and depression is something that a good therapist could help you with. I read such despair in your post. You spend up to 5 hrs PER DAY feeling overwrought with guilt and anxiety? How can you think that's even remotely OK for anyone?
Sorry to be so blunt. I think you can handle it.
If you do nothing, nothing will ever change.
Your mom is a super-case of Narcissism. Like, one of the worst I've ever read about on this site. So many people will have better answers than mine---and I truly do care for your situation--you sound positively frantic.
Before you do anything else--get YOURSELF to a good psychiatrist and see if some AD's would help you to function better. And a good therapist to walk with you on this journey.
((Hugs))
No, you can't solve your mother's problems, which you've been trying to do, unsuccessfully, for your whole life. Yet you're still trying to. Stop doing that and start trying to solve YOUR OWN problems in life. Which is all you can do: deal with your own issues.
Your mother is 77 years old meaning she can live another 2 decades, inside of your head, where she's been dwelling for your whole life. Do you want that? Or do you want to be an independent adult who lives your life free of all this drama and obsession about a woman who's taken up WAY too much of your time and headspace thus far? It's up to you. She's had a good life, living in hotels for crying out loud, yet can't see the forest through the trees!
Change your email address and get rid of the old one she's been using to contact you at. Change your phone number too, while you're at it. Start over, fresh, today.
Call a therapist or a psychiatrist who can prescribe meds to help you with the OCD thought patterns you need to get rid of. Start a whole new life for yourself free from the burden this ONE person has placed on you.
You can do it! Have faith in yourself. Best of luck taking your life back!
Nothing you're doing for her is changing the course of her life. Some people just have rotten lives, and it's the hand they're dealt. They aren't strong enough to change their course themselves, so either they sponge off other people like your mom is doing, or they just exist. The only difference is your mom is existing just like she would, but on your dime.
You have to eventually come to the conclusion that you're a mere mortal like she is, and it isn't in your power to change her life or anyone else's. You chose to take her monkey on your back, and only you can make the decision to remove it. By venting constantly here or to others, you're doing the same thing she is -- trying to get others to take YOUR monkey on their backs.
I'd advise not relying on excuses like OCD and just do what you need to do to ensure YOUR happiness and survival -- eliminate the source of the obsession and cut her loose. Contact Adult Protective Services, change your phone number, move if you have to, and live YOUR life.