Today I had my first appointment with an actual therapist (not a counselor).
Even though one hour wasn't long enough to spew out everything I need to talk about, this woman completely picked up on 2 truly major points.
1) Even ONE of the stressors I have been dealing with over the last year is more than enough to warrant therapy!
2) I have been the "caregiver " for everyone in my family since I was 12 years old!
She asked me what I do for myself?
I had absolutely no answer!!
Hence therapy!! Lol
Caring for a narcissistic LO is a labor of love!
Not because they will love us back, but because we need to love ourselves!!
How do you keep caring selflessly for your selfish LO?
What do you do for yourself?
(((Hugs)))
Geeeeeez! Yeah, I definitely agree that it is too far gone.
Almighty God knows though that you absolutely truly tried your very best to maintain a sensible relationship with your mom. No one can ever deny that!
I totally agree about how a person should own it, geeeeez, at least sometimes.
I respect people who own what they have done in the past. We have all screwed up at times and I have owned whenever I have fallen short.
I think the difference is that some of us have a conscience or the ability to see our actions. Others have neither.
You have your whole family and this forum to back you up on your endless efforts, right?
Wishing you all the best for tomorrow and always.
NeedHelp, what you are describing is the overwhelming "burden of responsibility", where someone is totally reliant on you, whether this is through necessity or a deliberate choice on their part to saddle you with everything. How you describe it made perfect sense to me. I felt exactly the same way, 24/7, with no let up or respite. My last thoughts before sleeping and first on waking up were always related to this responsibility, for over 10 years!! There was never any release, so yes, this can be even more draining than the physical aspects of caregiving I think.
Lea, uncanny how our experiences with our NMs can be so similar. I'm sorry to hear she is declining, but do keep telling yourself it's not your fault and she is being cared for by proper health professionals. If she chooses to bat them away instead of letting them help her, that is up to her. Also remember that the best caregiver in the world cannot stop the natural process of aging and decline.
Since NPD makes one crave attention and praise, mom has been very involved in a number of volunteer projects for the last 20 years so she also has a lot of people in her neighborhood she can call to do chores and take her to the doctor. One thing I've really realized here - I need to put my foot down re: her moving to my side of town, because I don't have anyone to call to help with her over here.
I would definitely recommend journaling as Piper recommends. Helps me see threads that persist over time and get things straight in my head. Love having all y'all to bounce things off of as well.
Jodi: "We're supposed to do everything we can to make THEM happy!
The irony is that nothing has or ever will make them happy! It's kinda like being on a treadmill. You can run as hard as you can, but you never get anywhere!"
Nailed it. My mother is a bottomless pit of fear and anxiety and there is really nothing I can do about it. She needs more care than I can give and since I can't talk to her about it the only thing I can do is step back.
Will check in later for results of those with health procedures coming up. Fingers crossed for you all. xoxo
Lea I agree with you that your mom is getting closer to end of life. Her domineering personality will probably be the last to go.
My mom casually mentioned a few years ago that “pains in the a** live to be 100” No words to describe what I was thinking.
Everyone here certainly supports you. Caregiving is not a job that is easily done alone.
Everyone needs help when caregiving, whether it’s facility care or home care.
It’s important to have a strong support system and equally important to protect yourself against emotional harm and burn out.
Wishing you well while on this journey.
Take care.
God bless!!
EP: Only the good die young. Isn't that what Billy Joel says? Methinks he's right. PITAs live well into their late 90s and 100s. My NM should have passed LONG ago already, with 70 falls under her belt and not ONE trip to the ER as a result! I just find that staggering. S T A G G E R I N G. My poor dad fell ONCE, broke his hip and cut his forehead open so that's when the brain tumor was diagnosed via MRI of his head, and he was gone 10 months later.
Jodi, are you 'cleansing' with Miralax or GoLightly? Kaiser recently got rid of GoLightly (Thank God) and switched to Miralax with Gatorade to drink (2- 64 oz bottles) b/c the other way was too hard on the body they discovered after DECADES of torturing everyone. Sending up lots of prayers for good results tomorrow.
Yes, it's Billy Joel!! Love that song!
I think perhaps I may start writing down all my NM ailments (even the ones she miraculously has shortly after I have a medical issue. Lol).
Miralax is the drink of the day!!
Along with 2 fleets . One tonight, and one in the morning.
I can't wait to go out to breakfast!! I'm hungry!! Lol🥞🥓🍚
Prep is tough on the bum, but great for the diet! Lol
Slowly working on getting rid of the Covid 19(lbs)🤣
I put on about the same amount - my pandemic padding. I decided in Dec it just had to go. Slowly slowly it is. Not going without, just smaller (bought mini hot cross buns & a smaller choccy bunny).
Just found out DH has to go to the hospital tomorrow for a covid test, then be at the hospital Thursday at 6:15AM. They will be injecting dye and then surgery after a 2 hour wait for the dye to circulate. This hospital is 45 minutes away and we’ve never been there so I don’t mind the test run tomorrow so I’ll be familiar Thursday.
My mom’s primary care is trying to confirm an appointment she has for Friday for a physical/check up. I’m not yet sure of my mom’s plans, so I didn’t cancel it because if she forces her way back here she will rage if I cancel it as I suspect this could be her excuse to come back sooner.
My anxiety is so high over DH I don’t even want to make contact to ask about her plans. I don’t want to deal with her at all!
You are absolutely correct to focus on what is most important for you and your husband.
You know that your mom will survive without your attention during this time.
Wishing you and your husband all the best.
Please keep us posted on how he is doing. We care.
Praying for your husband’s procedure, and for your heart!
Thanks to all for your wisdom. I appreciate it so much. You all might not know it, but you all have helped me not to go under.
Today, I went to visit my mother, but left after 5 minutes. I couldn’t take the complaining. The unending negativity does me in. Uggggh.
Thanks again for sharing all that you do.
Ahhhh, so refreshing to see someone who knows their limitations.
I could have saved myself tons of misery if I had been better at knowing my limits.
Sending you a TON of prayers for calm & strength as you both go thru the next couple of days of hospitals and procedures. I always take rosary beads with me, and/or wear a bracelet I have which is a cross with a piece of Jesus's something-or-other inside of it (I can't remember at the moment), and it makes me feel more protected, like God is with me, even though I know He's already with me, whether I wear/bring those things or not. I wish we could post photos here; I'd post a photo of the bracelet I wear with the see-through compartment on it; it's quite a neat piece! :)
Jodi, hope all is well with you and that our prayers were answered this morning with your colonoscopy. Oh, and that you ate a hearty breakfast.
Beatty; I'm calling it the Quarantine Fifteen :( UGH. Boredom = Overeating and Snacking, doesn't it.
Moody, good for YOU leaving after all the negativity from NM. What they don't realize or don't care about is the effect all that toxicity has on US for days afterward. They have a way of making US feel responsible FOR their misery, which is nonsense, b/c they're miserable WHEREVER they live, even if it were in the Palace of Versailles. I often say (and DH repeats it) that if NM were to live there, she'd complain the gold was tarnished. We can't fix them, but we CAN leave when the complaining gets unbearable.
My mom does have some legit ailments, to be sure - asthma and she's a cancer survivor. But what's more of a weight is the made-up fear and drama, such as telling me everything I try to do is going to run into problems or fail or I'll get sick and die on the way home. Once she told DH he had to change out of a flowered shirt he was wearing or "a hummingbird might attack him." Attack! As though a 2 oz bird could inflict damage on a grown man even if it were to happen. And you can't say anything like "I don't reasonably think that's going to happen" without her getting mad, i.e. you have to agree with her runaway anxiety at all times which is just so draining especially when it's about something you're also anxious over such as a medical appointment.
Admittedly she has created a real problem for herself in that she made poor financial decisions and is going to have to move out of her house, but it's too much house for her to take care of anyway. Another bone I have to pick is that she makes these bad decisions and then presents them to me for cleanup later, i.e. the time she panic sold a bunch of investments she had put in the stock market after it crashed in 2008. Of course I heard about it *after* the fact.... DH and I stayed in the market, things eventually came back up and now we're doing OK.
She seems to have finally stopped emailing/txting me every day at least. I'm still on high alert for her flying monkeys calling to try to guilt me into doing more for her tho - probably one of my cousins or a family friend. Not that the person will care I was so incapacitated with depression I almost checked myself into a facility back in February, tho.... I have ADHD which means I'm around 8x the suicide risk, and I take that seriously. I wish some around me would, too instead of expecting me always to be the resource. Admittedly my dad left me some money when he died in the early 00's which is common knowledge among the family, but they think it's the fortune of Croesus other than a modest sum which DH and I are saving for our retirement. Guess I'll ask them how much they plan to donate to DH's and my retirement the next time one of them asks how I'm going to pay for AL for mother.
Uh yeah, the hummingbird story? UN-FREAKIN-BELIEVABLE that someone could even cook up such nonsense & expect another to consider it valid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can't make this crap up!
Speaking of bad investments? My ex DH who has an MBA in Finance from Cornell U and considers himself The Leading Authority on Finance (and everything else in the world) has lost MORE money in the stock market, I think, than any other living human. Last I heard, he had invested ALL of his inheritance from his rich mother in MARIJUANA FARMS here in Colo (he's always been a huge pot head) and they all went UNDER! Now he's flat broke! I expect a call from him one of these days asking for some of the divorce money 'he gave me' back. Yeah, no.........not gonna happen. I am the one, btw, who made ALL the $$$$ in our 22 year marriage by investing in good REAL ESTATE! Stupid little me, with NO MBA and no college degree, even. Imagine that? So all the $$$ 'he gave me' in our divorce settlement was money I MADE myself thanks to good property investments.........LOL! And I made ANOTHER one in 2003 after I divorced him by buying the house I'm living in now, which has increased in value tremendously! Plus I wisely invested the money 'he gave me' in the divorce and didn't piss it away in 'pot farms' or other stupidities and lost nothing over the years, even during the crashes. HA!
Oh my gosh! That hummingbird story is priceless!
Lea,
You were always the smart one in your first marriage! It’s a shame that he didn’t learn from you!
NO!!!
It's a very definitive word!! There's really no response that can be given!!
I'm gonna work on my NO!! skills!
Mom started calling my phone at about 8:30am. She knew I would be at the hospital!
When she couldn't get me, she started calling my DH. He didn't answer.
She sent a text wanting to know my results. Not "How are you "?
They biopsied the site of original malignantcy and removed 3 more polyps. So the wait for results beings again. It's the sixth time in a year so it's kinda old hat by now.
The only thing I plan on telling Mom is that everything looked fine!
I don't want a repeat of her posting my cancer dx on FB before I had a chance to tell my children!!
Beatty,
I had an awesome breakfast!!
Country skillet with eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes and peppers.
Ate part of a huckleberry pancake with tons of butter and syrup!! Then got a tummy ache! Lol
Just kidding!!🤗
Wow! Great breakfast! Yummy 😋.
It shouldn’t be so very hard to say NO! Good idea to practice it.
Hugs! Hoping everything works out well. Wishing you all the best.
Waiting is tough. Will keep you in my thoughts and prayers.
I can't tell my NM anything. Even though she doesn't have a computer, she drives me nuts with 'worry' and blowing up my phone with 'concern' so that she makes a problem 10000x worse than it was originally. Then she 'can't sleep' and is 'anxiety ridden' so it's not worth it to EVER mention ANYTHING to her about problems we're having.
Praying the biopsy is clean and clear of cancer.
I would be very upset about a FB posting. That doesn’t belong on FB!
So sorry that you had to endure that. I swear, some people use FB as a microphone. It’s crazy!
My husband is very private. He did not want his cancer broadcasted on FB.
Your health issues or other personal situations are private and your privacy should be respected.
It comes across as THEIR curiousity & worry is more important than your issue/health/problem or feelings. Maybe they don't mean it to sound that way... just their low emotional intelligence showing through.
I have set responses ready for non-inner circle people now;
* doing really well
* improving
* in good hands
The details will be none of their business.
Yes, she really posted it on Facebook!!
When I got the call from my Dr and heard the words malignancy and cancer, my DH was out playing tennis. I couldn't get him on the phone of course. Distraught, I called my NM (my bad). We had no sooner hung up when she posted it on Facebook.
On his way home, my DH's phone started blowing up from his family wanting to know. Unbelievable!!!
Thank you everyone for the support and well wishes!
You're the best!!😘
My NM tried to take credit for my dad being a Chef. She try telling me that SHE taught my dad how to cook. But here is the problem: when she met my dad he was already a Chef. They met at a restaurant where he worked...he started there at the age of 14 yrs old and he was in his twenties when they met. Of course, I called her out on it and she had nothing to say because she knew I was right.
At least your NM admitted to being jealous of you when you were young. Mind just now admitted to it a week ago. Now she wants a relationship. Of course, I told her it is a little late for that. She is dying and wants to make amends with me. Not happening!! I might have to forgive her, but I don't need a relationship with her or give her comfort. She made her bed and she can lay in it! It may sound cold and heartless and maybe I sound awful, but you do the crime, you do the time!! But she NEVER gave me comfort!
You are more than your NM. You do realize that you are a better person than your NM. When you or any of us do things for people because we simply can and want nothing in return we become better people. We win!
NHWM,
Emotional crap it more exhausting than physical crap (for the lack of a better word)! Emotions take more out of us and is harder to refill/refresh...Can't find the right word, but you know what I am saying. It takes me 3 days to recover from my NM emotional crap. That is my experience!
Sorry Xray that you had to go through that! You'll be in my prayers!💜
Lea,
Your NM is a piece of work! You know your NM uses 'Worry" to put the attention on herself...to make it all about her & for a show, which in turn drives you crazy! It is sad that none of us can tell our NM anything because they either uses it to get back at us, make it about themselves, or there is a backlash! We have to watch what we say or they use it as a weapon! It is very sad and I think it is something that people with normal moms just don't get! 😟 Lea, you are a very good daughter. A better daughter than your NM ever deserved. You put up a good fight and did the very best you or anyone could do. Just remember, some battles we have to fight and some battles we have to walk away from to live to fight another day. It is up to you to know which to do. Your a good person and you deserve so much more than what you got!💞
Piper,
You'll be in my prayers!💚
Elaine,
I'm just trying to pass on the knowledge I got from being in therapy my whole adult life. Yes, I have been in and out of therapy since I was 19 yrs old. To bad that none of my counselors figured out that I had "Narcissistic Victom Syndrome!" It could have saved me so much time and pain!💕