Dear all,

I appreciate any insight or perspective you can lend. Before I dive into it however I feel I need to attach a ‘disclaimer’. 😉 I’m in my mid-40s. Mom just turned 85. BIG generational gap. I’m not wanting to go into too much detail but if it is difficult for others to read about abusive parents, please do not read any further.

Love for my mother. Since my father passed away, 3 years ago, I have a hard-time feeling love for mom. To state it simply; I’m just emotionally exhausted when it comes to mom and her health issues. I’ve sought therapy/counseling and it helped with a lot of guilt I have been lugging around. However, it also turned into a commiserating therapy session where I listened many times to the therapist about her relationship with her mom. I’m grateful for the guilt feeling being 90% eliminated however am wanting to focus on working on my issues. Not a lot of therapy options where I currently live. 😉

Mom covers it all; physical, emotional and mental. She has been having ‘health issues’ that she consistently told my sisters and I that she’s “terminal”….that began 30 years ago. She was an only child and I know a little of some traumatic experiences in her past. I don’t have a problem with having compassion with that however she doesn’t want to talk about it (which is fine, that’s her decision and I respect that). It is difficult for me to see her having love for myself and my sisters when it seems more like we are there to ‘serve’ her. I don’t say that lightly. She lives in another state, my sisters and their families are in the same town as her. Recently moved to an assisted living facility but still needs 9 other adults to come help her every day (go to the grocery store, little odds-n-ends in her apartment)…the woman is a master delegater. Short example: we visit for a nephew’s graduation (which she is too ill to attend, something we’ve heard often over the past 3 decades) and there’s a large notebook-sized mirror leaning against the wall. It had fallen off the nail. Days ago. She asked my husband to bend down and put it back up because she just can’t do those things anymore (like bending over). The assisted living facility, that she pays for, have staff and services so there is NO reason to be phoning my sisters, their husbands, nor their adult children. But to keep things fair; she makes sure that she has a long list of errands for me to run for her when I come visit…so my sisters won’t feel resentment towards me. That’s a brief glimpse there.

Dad, in his final year, shared a lot of his struggles with mom with me…especially things that were current. Many times he was asked if he wanted to leave the house but he refused. The disease that ended up taking his life, is believed to also have some dementia in the later stages. However. I believed him, having lived with mom and her rages before. And after he passed, mom was honest with one sister about a couple of incidents which sis shared with me that fall in line with what Dad told me. Dad was my favorite. He gave unconditional love, never disowned me (yes, mom did), great at advice/asking you questions that made you think. Yes, he had his faults too. And I also totally get that they both did the best with what they had, who they were/are.

Mom’s health issues (physical) began when I was 14. Granddad had died two years prior; he stayed with us in his final weeks (that I didn’t know were coming) in which mom has since talked about it a bit with me….how she didn’t realize how much she had expected out of me during that time and care she ‘dumped’ on me (I was basically an acting CNA to my granddad once I got home from school). It was confusing at the time especially since I was constantly grounded for reasons I didn’t understand (gpa went down to a 3.7 when it was a 3.8). The following year was caring for my maternal grandmother when she fell and broke her shoulder. That summer, mom collapsed on the sidewalk and could barely talk….she had a small stroke. No drugs helped and there were frequent doctors visits with frequent med/dose changes (mom is also a non-compliant patient). Frantic runs to the emergency room occurred every couple of months until I was 19, when a cardiologist found blockage in her arteries. Two open-heart surgeries with multiple bypasses over the next 6 years in which I took care of her, ran errands, etc. During this time, my sisters were both married and had started their own families. So it was easier for me since I was single, one time living at home, not at the stage of life they were at (recently having to remind them of that because they were feeling resentful of me living away but now I”m where they were at that time; married, hubby working in another state, raising young children…big age gap between myself and sisters, 9 & 11 years). There were yearly trips to the ER that she (SHE not the doctors needing her to) needed to stay in the hospital, have tests run to be reassured that everything was ok….and that continues to this day.

I get the fear. I understand and can feel compassion for that with her, I really do. But you don’t lash out at the ones who are trying to love you and take care of you. She expresses gratitude to me about my sisters, rarely me…and she does it like that with all 3 of us (Sis A hears about myself and Sis B, Sis B hears about myself and Sis A). I don’t know if she really thinks the three of us do not talk? She is mentally competent…mentally she isn’t nor hasn’t lost a thing. She expects us to anticipate her needs, always has and when you don’t answer her in a split second, watch out!

My dad rushed to her side….every time. Even when he was close to death himself, he showed more concern for her and her health. He asked me if I could stay unbiased because he didn’t want to influence my feelings towards mom. I thought I could. I have letters that she wrote me, venting about my father’s failing health and what she was having to do for him. She’s big on writing letters….she will have written me one to complain that my children didn’t send their ‘thank-yous’ in a timely manner and I’ll talk to her while it is enroute, no clue that a mean nasty-gram is coming my way. I’ll be completely blind-sided because we will have had a good conversation a day or two prior. I’m cautious about opening myself up to her because usually when I start to…without fail, she ‘stabs’ me.

I can’t cut off contact because I feel that I would be abandoning my sisters. Yes, people-pleaser here and I’m working on that as well. I’m grateful for the physical distance, especially for my kids….because more than likely they will never experience her rages.

I’m numb. I hate to say that I just don’t care but I’m not sure how else to phrase that. Raised with the belief we are supposed to love and respect our parents, no matter what. I’m having a very difficult time finding a way to forgive her for the treatment of my dad in his final year(s). Trying to think of times that I felt she was loving towards me, hold on to those memories. Talking with her about these issues….not an option. Why? She’s never open to it unless it is on her terms. Most conversations are superficial, at best. She wants to know what is going on in our lives but only on her terms, no negativity allowed.

Shortly after moving, when the house was sold and signed, my sisters both took vacations over the same weekend; out of town. My mom had my niece take her to the hospital for chest pains (anxiety/stress). She stayed in the hospital for a few days. One sis was angry with the world because she feels she can’t go anywhere or something happens with mom. I was in another state. Mom wasn’t dying or in danger of it, sis asked me to call and take care of it. So I made the calls to the assisted living facility, talked with the manager who was going to run by the hospital and talk with mom (allrighty, nothing to report there). Phone call to sis to let her know I was awaiting a return phone call from the manager and would then talk with mom about what needed to be done. Meanwhile, sis talks with mom (unbeknownst to me). I call mom to check in on her and she demands to know what is going on with the manager and why did I call him?! I explain they needed to know she wasn’t at the facility and we were trying to figure out what care she needed when she was discharged and how timely we could get that put together plus the manager is going to come by to see/chat with her. She tells me to call her when the manager calls me back. Later that evening, I call her back because the manager hasn’t called me, I’ve left messages…nothing to report. She says ok, well call me when you talk with him. I text the sis who decided to drive back home and sis tells me to talk with mom because the manager had stopped by and seen mom earlier. The manager had come by to see mom before I called her to check on her….she knew, played dumb….all this drama, for what? This was just this past February.

I brought the kids down to see her and the rest of the family a couple of weeks ago. Sure enough, she had a grocery list. Why is this a thorn in my side? My niece went to the grocery store for her barely two days earlier. I don’t mind doing errands….just wish I could offer before it is demanded of me.

With all of this….this is how it has been, pretty much, for the past 30 years. I accept that I’ll never have the relationship with my mother that I long for. I feel ashamed that I wish I didn’t have to have anything to do with her at all but I think that feeling really stems from feeling emotionally exhausted with 30 years of mom’s anxiety about her health. Conflicted and some guilt that my sisters are having to do it without me (even though, I did it many years without them doing anything).

How can I freely give her love and compassion? I simply feel done.

For those of you that read this far, thank you. I’m not looking for sympathy, commiserating with anyone nor having a pity party with this post….I truly want to give as much love and compassion in her final years as I can. I believe that people are deserving of more love, not less. Just currently feeling empty of love to give towards her and still very angry about her treatment to dad.

Thanks.

P.S. Has anyone participated in the “Recreate Your Life Story” on tinybuddha? I’m considering it….