For those of you who followed my posts from 2 years ago, I received a mix of support and criticism for not being able to break free.
As an update, my birth mother, with whom I had contact with most of my life to support her, but rarely saw as she could not cope with life, fell into a narcissistic collapse or depression about 2 years ago. I had decided I would not go through it again. I would financially support her, but not bring her near me without signs of decency.
In 2 years, she has pushed away rabbis that put her in a nice home, found apartments for her, my sister - who was a drug addict but recovered/blue collar not to my mother's glamor/beauty-seeking lifestyle needs, community members.
She claims nobody helped her "they only recommended I get an apartment... they only offered me something I didn't want." Only you... only you... only you can save my life. Please rescue me, I’m like a baby and you wouldn't leave your son alone.
My mother continues to stay in a hotel. She may read this as she is still quite sane. She stalks my business (some doubted I was a public figure, but it is true). She found my company website, threatened to contact my members, can see everything I am doing. She'll probably see this. No amount of blocking can get around anything unless I go off the grid and move out of the country and give up my business.
We've recently offered 4K/month. It’s not enough. She needs my love to get better. She won't eat. She won't leave her hotel room. We've asked her to see a counselor 100 times. We've offered to help her budget.
Is it possible she truly can't? Her voicemails (which are blocked, but guilty, I sometimes listen) reveal a woman who wishes she had a different life and has much regret about what she didn't get. Why didn't she get more? She got beauty, a husband, 2 children...but those weren't what she wanted. She constantly finds people/places/situations to blame for everything.
I've gone back and forth with compassion and hatred - trying to be equanimous. I spend weekends at police in my city, reinforcing my harassment order.
We considered involuntary treatment but it won't do any good - she was taken one night. We've considered no-contact.
I do believe that she might die. My husband is sick from this. Kind, passive man now gets so angry when he tries every weekend.
We try only to be told we haven't done anything but send money and offer help from afar... which isn't help. The caregiver we sent to help her (she doesn't need caregiving, but we tried and got her a spa appointment). She refuses to spend a nickel on anything. She is so paranoid about not having enough money, but the 50k/year offer wasn't enough. She needed love (???) and has decided that the only way she is willing to live is if I give her love and spend my days with her each day to help her be calm, take her to doctors, get her face done. She won't do anything or eat unless I come there. Then she begs me to take her to euthanasia.
This is our daily lives, which we have accepted, but we are holding our boundaries.
She holds on to one visit we had in 2014 when I saw her for 2 hours (she claims 3 hours) where we were so happy. She claims I invited her to San Francisco once so she must not be that bad. I now haven't seen her in 10 years. She won't start with a conversation.
My sister, who is also estranged, offered her to live with her when she said she couldn't live alone.
She refuses any city other than San Francisco. She says she can't travel by herself and is weak. The hotel corroborates that she barely leaves the room. She has left one message on my home phone (unlisted) for my son who has met her 4 times only that he has to understand that grandma is lonely and what would he do if his parents were dead and he had no food.
She must not know any other way to live or be.
We don't know how this will end, but I'm not able to do more than I have done which is giving her 100 chances to make one good choice.
Whether "mother" is "quite sane" or not is irrelevant.....She's still playing you like a fiddle because you do not have down the "boundaries" you seem to think you do.
If you're not very careful, she will outlive YOU and your dh.
I know it is painful to see a loved one make bad choices and continue to make bad choices despite the help that is offered. But you have no control over that. Grieve the loss of the nurturing mother you never had. Grieve the destructive choices she is making. But don't let them drag you and your family and your life down any more. This may sounds heartless but if she dies it is her choice, and not your responsibility.
You have offered her love again and again in offering options that show you care for her well being, but she has rejected them again and again. She wants to control your life. My mother was BPD. She tried that on me too. Her idea of love seemed to be that I did what she wanted. Even if I had and even if you did what she says she wants, she would not be happier or any better off. BPD/narcs are needy bottomless pits that suck your energy.
Her choices have much too much power over you and your family. Accept that she is mentally ill and making bad choices. She may be very bright but she is not sane (mentally healthy).
So set your boundaries, stick to them and get help in recovering from this assault on your emotions, It is extremely stressful and you and your family deserve an better life. (((((hugs))))))
I was subjected to my mother’s cries about how she’d kill herself if I devote myself to her 24/7. Yet here she is, 99, still alive.
1) Arrest. 2) Baker Act 3) She gets psychiatric help. Wouldn’t that be a good thing?
Nothing you do will fix her nor stop your guilt. It is entirely out of your control. You could send her $40,000/month and she’d still be a wreck and thorn in your side. Stop. Just stop. And live your own life. There is no happy ending to this saga.
I am still being logged out constantly. At least this account hasn’t been deleted.
How do you know she isn't eating? Do you monitor her daily food intake via video? What your mother says and what she actually is doing can and most likely are two different things. This is no different than a man or woman threatening to kill themselves if the other person breaks up with them or threatens to divorce them. It is a way to exercise power and control over YOU and your life.
So what if you mom kills herself by not eating? Your life would be 1000% better with her dead and that is the God's honest truth. But your mom's hunger strike, just like her threats to come and show up at your front door are b-ll sh-t.
If you really believe she is suicidal then call the police and tell them you need a wellness check done on your mother. Let them know the situation and they will handle it from there. More than likely your manipulative mother will act perfectly fine when the police show up. Hell she might even offer to fix them a sandwich.
Keeping the money spigot flowing is keeping this leech in your life. Turn off the spigot and the leech goes bye-bye to find someone else to suck the life from (both mentally and financially).
Have you sat down with your therapist, you do have one, right? And worked through all the possible scenarios?
Do you want to send her $4,000 a month and never have any more contact with her? Do you want no contact at all? Do you want her not to die, is that your main goal right now?
Please take some time to figure out what you really want and how you would make that happen if you were really in control--and then figure out that you can be, but only if you have the courage to take control of your own life. Decide if you are going to sacrifice the rest of your life to your mother or decide to live your own life with your own family.
It's as simple as that. Do it or don't. Take charge or not.
I want to know that not visiting her was the right choice. She has said coming for a week will do nothing. I want to know that I couldn't have saved her life or helped her pain go away without the huge trade-off.
**I can't know this. I could go for a week and leave. It might be devastating and traumatic for me. She might hold on to my leg or hop on the plane with me.
I want to know that she will not show up here and harm my family.
I want to know that she will not go crazy and harm other people.
**I can't know this. I can't control this.
I would go no contact, including cutting off the money, and let her do want she is going to do. Her body, her life, her choices. It's time to live your life and stop worrying about her happiness.
I didn't go see her. I didn't try.
"What kind of a daughter leaves a mother to die."
"You could save my life. Why won't you save my life!!!!"
"I gave birth to you and didn't throw you in a trashcan."
"Don't listen to anyone else - they don't know my trauma."
So for anyone here who thinks I am sick too - agreed perhaps. In most cases of no-contact the parent at least lives in a house or has someone. They usually say that other relatives pressure them. In this case, my mother has nobody - all due to her own fault - but I can't imagine her pain.
That said, that is because she won't let me forget her pain, which is why I have to reprogram my brain.
It really isn't that simple to have a 78 year old frail woman arrested. Then she'll get released and just be up the street in a hotel spending her last dollars to try to get to me.
YOU CANNOT NURSE A MENTALLY ILL PERSON BACK TO HEALTH. Full stop.
You either realize and accept this or you don't. Things will not miraculously be better just because she is with you in SF. She will still be mentally ill and have the same behavior she does now. Except you will have to deal with it every single day 24 hours a day.
What do you expect to change????
OP is not supporting Mom at this point. Just saying it has been offered but Mom will not take it because thats not what she wants. She now wants to live in SanFrancisco and have a loving daughter. Well, she can't get to SanFrancisco and if she did, there will be no loving daughter. Seems OP has set her boundaries.
If Mom passes, that is not your fault, thats Moms. She had a husband and children and that was not enough. From what I remember from other posts, She was so beautiful men fell at her feet. These men took care of her and she traveled everywhere then she got old. Now, she wants that daughter (the one that seems well off) to be there for her 24/7. That daughter went out of her way for this woman and its not enough. IT WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH! Your Mom is mentally ill. She chooses to live this way. I could live on what you offer, frugally, but I could live. She is willing herself to die. It will come to a point that she will not be able to turn back.
Mom has always made her choices without thinking about who those choices effected. You have been told by a spiritual leader you are not at fault here. If I remember correctly, the Church gave up on her. She wants it her way or not at all, thats not how it works. People have lives, they just don't drop everything so she gets her way.
If Mom dies, then what you should feel is relief. Relief that her pain has ended. It must be horrible to have a mental illness. Relief, that you no longer have to try to be involved. No more phone calls from the hotel. No more restraining orders. Just a big sigh of relief. Mom lived the way she wanted to. And that way got her where she was. She had no idea what she wanted. Really, who turns down 4k a month. The ability to have a house given to them. I have a mantra that just popped into my head one day after trying to help someone.
"I am here to help people find the way, not be the way"
She wants to live in San Francisco with a loving college-educated daughter rather than live in St. Louis with her blue-collar daughter.
If she can't have me as a loving daughter, she wants to die. Yes, rabbis called her for 6 months in St. Louis and then in Florida there have been another 80 visits.
With all of this we are facing one more challenge. Which is that she says she is too weak to come here, but she will hire someone to show up.
She is begging us to come to Florida. We would go for a week or even 2 weeks. But she doesn't want us to come and visit, but to come and take her back to San Francisco or move to Florida. She just wants to be with me as her best friend and savior. She says she doesn't want to hurt anyone.
My husband has now said no. He thinks she is a horrible person. I give her more grace that she is mentally ill and not totally horrible. Nobody is totally horrible, they just do horrible things.
She still may show up - so then what? or she may die. But she has blamed me for "only offering her a house in the United States." I can't remember one doctor visit she took me too - didn't come to my wedding. I've offered now to call her every day, help her find doctors, but it is one thing and one thing only - nurse her back to health and bring her here. It is too much risk.