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This letter certainly resonates... my mother was a deeply dissociated trauma survivor who re-enacted with both my brother and me, unconscionable acts of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. My father, a quiet and drunken enabler, disappeared into a bottle rather before I was born, sobering up only after my mother was sufficiently delusional that he could step up to the plate and run things, ultimately capitated by his death at the age of 64. My brother carried the pattern of abuse forward, abusing me, his children, then his grandchildren. I escaped the toxicity and have built a life far, far away..............The same summer that my father died, I had my mother involuntarily committed; she was eventually diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, and lived in a series of increasingly stringent care envioronments until her death, 19 years later; the Alzhemer's cost her the only thing she valued, which was her brilliant mind... She was a physician and public health administrator, a teacher and writer.... and well-=respected, even revered, in some of her professional circles. The irony of the elegance of the intellectually elite facade of my family of origin contrasted sharply with the reality of the charnal house that our home really was........ I became her legal guardian following the suicide of my older brother, and take grim satisfaction that I took better care of her than she of me.
Some thoughts to LW:
your sister is projecting her own guilt about her non-supportiveness of your mother onto you. Nice trick, ultimately ineffectual, and one that only subdivides your family of origin. Might take a shot at pointing that out to her, and if she doesn't get it, let her live in her stew of guilt, grief and sadness that will, perforce, remain quite unresolved.
Your father, still lacerated by guilt and assuming the responsibility for your mother's state, has at least made a break for the door, and succeeded in getting out, mostly. You and he can, probably, have a real relationship that can become more than a "we survived mommy" club....if you both work at it. MIght try spending time with him, either in person, or on the phone, in which you agree to talk about "mom" for X minutes, and then stop.. Eventually, the real relationship the two of you have can reassert, and move forward into the sun, no longer clouded by the long shadow of your mother's crazyness.
You have done what you can for/with/about your mother, you cannot do more, and there is no reason to assume that if you tried further, your results would be effective. Your mother needs to remain compliant with drug regimens. It is as simple as that.... and when she does not, she decompensates, and nothing will salvage that circumstance save a return to meds. If she chooses not to, this is her choice, and short of establishing guardianship, you have no choice in the matter - it is clear that concise arguements will do no good.
You may be experiencing "survivor's guilt"... certainly your father is. Explore what it really means to have survived your mother's bizarre "parenting" and understand that you have a core strength that has allowed you to build a life. Behind that Survivor's Guilt, you may well find a significant amount of anger that has been stockpiled during the years; that anger needs to be embraced, not shunned, and processed - and then discarded. Not easy, frankly, but possible. In the process, you may find yourself developing a profound respect for your own capacity to survive and even thrive as an adult. You've earned it - the hard way. Enjoy it.
Build a life that is not dependent upon your family of origin. Seek friendships, even close friendhships, far, far away from the toxicity of your mother and, frankly, your sister......some of those friendships may well provide you with the richness of a "family of choice" rather than permanently mourning the "loss of the family of origin"....
Were your mother able, in some inner portion of her being, to stay medically compliant, your story would be very different...... and you and she might have something to salvage. But she cannot, and has established that repeatedly. Your wishing it will not make it happen, and you can put your energy to much more profoundly beneficial self-use than to continue to play Don Quixote, tilting at the chimera of a concept of true mental health for your mother.........
