I really feel I'm at the end of my rope. I'm turning 50 this year and I've think I've hit the end of the line with my borderline mom. Yes I am in therapy with a great therapist, and yes I'm reading and getting alot out of "Walking on Eggshells" but feel I need the support of a community who really understands what I'm going through. I think I'd like to unburden myself with a little background and then fast forward to the current crisis. I don't know if anyone will read this or reply but I think there's something to be said for writing it.
Background: My Mom is 75 and lives on the east coast, I live on the west coast. My father divorced her 30 years ago, and she never re-married. My 3 siblings have no relationship with her at all. I mean at all. She has pushed away her entire family and has pushed away all of her friends with her behavior. I am the eldest daughter, and the only person she has left. She is physically unwell in that she is bedridden. However, overall she is quite healthy and could live for another 10 to 15 years. She is wildly irresponsible with money (no surprise, right?) and if she continues to spend at her current rate will be out of money in 3 or 4 years and forced to go on Medicaid. She is an alcoholic (again, no surprise) who got sober at 45 and stayed sober for many years but has had several relapses and is currently drinking.
Ever since I was a child, I told her I would take care of her, and emotionally I have done that. Much to my own peril. And of course, I was always told I was her favorite etc. She was also physically and emotionally abusive. I received less of the physical abuse from my mom than my siblings did. Because when my dad left, my siblings chose to go with him, I stayed with her and became her sole source of emotional support. I didn't blame my siblings for choosing my dad. If anything I was envious. But I couldn't bring myself to leave her because there was no one left. I pretty much cut my dad out of my life for a long time. I haven't spent a holiday with him since I was 17 years old.
The year my dad moved out, before they divorced, my mother fell apart, fell into a deep depression. I was going to college about 500 miles away and took a semester off to care for her, make sure she ate, did the shopping/cleaning/laundry etc. This caretaker role was not new for me but looking back I can't believe she allowed it. One night during this time, we got a phonecall from a man who told her that my dad was having an affair with his girlfriend and he was going to kill them both. My mom begged him not to and for whatever reason, thought it was a good idea to go meet with him, in the middle of the night in a horrible part of town. Well of course she couldn't drive herself! She was too upset! So I, her 18 year old daughter, had to drive her. Aside from the emotional trauma of the encounter with this guy, nothing bad happened.
Of course, any time I wanted to see my dad after that, my mom told me how I was "betraying" her bc of how badly he had hurt her. I had to listen to hours of how terrible he was, how he had cheated on her, etc. I probably don't need to tell any other adult children of borderline/alcoholic parents how many hours of inappropriate talk I had to endure about my mother's sex life, do I? On my 19th birthday I was home for the summer and my dad came to pick me up and take me out for my birthday. My mom of course had a complete come apart, and I felt I couldn't go with him. I still remember him at the door of my mom's house, with tears in his eyes, seeing I wanted to go with him, and yet feeling I couldn't. He told me it was ok he understood why I had to stay.
I went back to college, graduated and remained living several thousand miles away from my mother. I would see my mom probably once a year. We spoke alot by phone. She had extracted a promise from me when I was a child that I would never put her in a nursing home. "No matter what." I guess she thought this meant she could live with me when the time came.
3 years ago, I bought a house that my mom came to visit. It was the last time she was able to travel because of her very bad back that has now confined her to bed. She was very disappointed that it's a 3 story house, with a basement with no bathroom on the ground level, the main living area with a half bath on the second level, and full baths and bedroom on the third level. She "couldn't believe" I would buy a house without her future needs to live with me in mind. I didn't address it at the time. I was playing for time, trying to kick the can down the road to avoid the conflict that I could sense was brewing.
The Past 2 years My mom has gotten to the point where it isn't safe for her to live on her own. She needs to be in an assisted living facility. Besides her bad back, she has urinary incontinence, and can't change her own sheets. Unfortunately 25 years earlier, she had bought a long-term care policy that will not pay for assisted living facilities, only in-home care. I met with a rep from the company to review her policy to see if that's really true and it is. He couldn't believe it, he said he never sells policies like that. At the time I didn't get it but today I look back and think OF COURSE she did. Not so much bc she thought she could stay in her home, but rather that she could stay in MY HOME and have additional care! So she has in home care providers who come to her apartment daily for 5-6 hours a day, cook, clean, and bathe her and drive her to doctor's appointments, do the shopping etc.
So, I finally convinced her this was not enough care, she's had falls that landed her in the hospital, if she has an accident she has to wait for the caregivers to come the next day to change the sheets, etc. etc. We discussed having her move to my city into an assisted living facility. I spent months looking for ones she could afford that were also nice and wouldn't kick her out once she went on medicaid. I found 2 and put her on the waitlist, sent her pictures, etc. One of them had an opening but she wasn't ready to move and she lost the place. Looking back on it, it's a godsend bc I am convinced that she would have moved in to that place, said it was terrible and would have insisted on moving into my place "temporarily" until we could find something better. (Which, of course, would be the day after never.) She sent me a few email/texts saying that she didn't want to move into assisted living that instead she could live with me, and with her care givers coming in "I'd never even know {she} was there! {She'd} be no trouble at all to me!" I told her that my house wasn't safe for her, etc. Got her re-oriented to moving to my city and moving into one of the places I found.
Current Crisis It has taken me a long time to realize it, but in a therapy session in late August, it finally dawned on me that if she moved to my city, it would destroy me. Seriously. I couldn't handle it emotionally. I'm not strong enough to withstand her. So I decided to tell her I had made the decision that she shouldn't move to my city.
On September 1, I emailed my mom that I had decided she should stay in her city and we'd find her a nice assisted living facility there. I went online and found 3 of them that met all her criteria and sent her the info. She went into a tailspin. She started calling/texting and emailing me incessantly. It was beyond crazy, I would wake up in the morning not wanting to turn my phone on because I knew the barrage of harassing messages/emails and texts would start flooding in again. However, I didn't answer a single one of her calls. I knew if I talked with her I would backslide on my decision, not hold my bottom line, and acquiesce to her moving to my city. So while I didn't talk to her by phone, I did reply via email/text. Of course that was a pointless excercise, she didn't get on board with my plan.
After 2 weeks of this, she was still harassing me. With the support of my therapist, I sent a very clear, but long email (not as long as this post!
) that set my bottom line as plainly as I could. I told her the only plan I could and would support her in, was a plan to immediately move into one of the 3 places I found in her city and that until she was ready to get on board with that plan there was no need for us to talk. She continued to email and call but this time I ignored them.
I had a long-planned trip abroad that had me leaving the country the third week of Sept and not returning til mid-October. Since her position hadn't changed, I sent another long email telling her I would be out of the country and would have limited access to voicemail/email. I reiterated my "bottom line" and said that I sincerely hoped when I returned to the US that she would be ready to pursue the plan I had outlined. She continued to call/email and I continued not to reply.
While I was away she called and emailed all the same old crap, that she had to come to my city, she couldn't stay where she was, that she was only going to be alive for another 2 years maximum and she wanted to be close to me for the time she had remaining, etc.
I just had enough. Here I was on the trip of a lifetime with my girlfriend of 2 years (who is fabulously supportive. I don't have any kids, but she does, and can't believe my mom's behavior. My gf and i don't live together, but are moving in that direction.) and I "virtually" had my mom along with me on the trip and it was ruining my trip.
So on day 4 of my trip, I blocked my mom from my cell phone. It was 3 weeks of sheer bliss not having to listen to the messages/read them. As soon as I got back to the States, I was overcome with guilt. Her last voicemails to me, before I blocked her, had been about how worried she was about my being abroad/terrorist attacks, etc. and how I needed to call and let her know I was ok. But I still kept my cell phone block going, and since I don't have a home phone, she wasn't able to get through.
This morning: I decided to stay true to my word, let her know I was home and see if she was ready to go along with the plan. I sent the email and unblocked her from my phone. 10 minutes later, she called me and i let it go to voicemail. And the barrage started. She continued calling me, 5 times over the next 20 minutes. Why not more frequently than that? Because each time she called, she left voicemails that lasted until she got cut off and then she would call again and leave another voicemail.
I decided not to listen to them. I called my gf and she came over and listened to them for me. Close to 20 minutes later, my gf came to let me know what they said.
Dear Reader, perhaps you will understand that there was a sliver of hope in me that she was ready to go along with my plan. And Dear Reader, you probably already know before I type it that this wasn't the case. My gf gave me a summary that was all the same stuff from before, she had gotten my email this morning and was rejecting it outright and telling me instead what "we" (I) needed to do in order for her to move here.
So now what do I do? Fear not, Dear Reader. You are almost to the end. And because I'm at a loss as to what to do next, I have once again blocked my mom from my cell phone because I know if I don't call her back the text and email tsunami will hit and I can't deal with it. I already feel better for having blocked her.
My question is this (and don't worry, I see my therapist next week and will talk with her about it as well.) As I see it, I have two options left and both involve severing the link. I just don't see her changing. So the choices are: Choice 1. No response at all -None. Severing the link but not announcing it. Choice 2. A response that has two lines: "you are obviously not listening to me, so I'm done" and severing the chain just that clearly.
If you are still reading, thank you for hanging in there and taking the time. There was value for me in writing this. I look forward to poking around on the site here for support and tips.
