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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Because they'll try and climb on your head and drown YOU as you try and save them.
When my ex was hospitalized initially the month she was away was a profound but uncomfortable revelation: life is infinitely better without her. Once we rolled around to the point in time she began to perceive us as a threat to her (go figure) I was only too happy to see her move out.
Ten years in that whirlpool was more than enough.
It takes a lot of time
to push away the nonsense
Take my compassion -- push it as far as it goes
My interest level's dropping, my interest level is dropping
I've heard all I want to, I don't want to hear any more
re: Why not jump in the water to save a drowning person..?
That's why there are things we can avail ourselves of like lifeguards, life preservers, & life boats.
Unless of course the person's drowning because you pushed them in......
most of the letters here are correct. Usually, there are a bunch of people who blame the victim and write in to dump on the poor LW, who has already experienced enough crap; otherwise the person would not have written to Cary in the first place.
The situation in this letter hits very close to home. My mother suffers from depression and alcoholism. I do not wish to go into a lot of detail about Mom's situation here, as I'm at work and don't want to start crying. But I will say that it has created problems with my family. My husband is like the LW's sister. I was fine with not speaking to Mom for seven years. During that time, I went to school and earned a degree, worked when my school schedule permitted and raising our daughter (who was 2 when I quit speaking to Grandma and 9 when the relationship resumed). My husband, however, was disturbed. You'd think he would have been grateful not to have to deal with his mother-in-law, but he was not. Now when I think of telling my mother or father to go to hell, my husband gives me the same line, namely "You're going to regret that after your parents are gone." Frankly, I don't think that will happen, and even if it did, so what? Everyone has to deal with regret at sometime in life. I think that old line is something old people use to manipulate younger ones. Oldsters can't exactly challenge us to a duel or a wrestling match and expect to win. But they play the guilt card, and it works in their favor every time.
I went through something similar with my mother. I understand the overwhelming need for distance, the terrifying sense of being in a battle for survival, self against other, the pain and crushing burden of this illness, this abandonment, this rejection, this hallucinatory nightmare.
Having to function and carry on as though everything is 'normal' while something earth-shattering like this is happening in the background is tremendously difficult and surreal.
If a mother or father is involved, the situation is often compromised by the inadequate coping skills and parenting one received at home to begin with.
It's crucial to get as much help and support for oneself, and for the afflicted. You'll need some sort of spiritual and emotional sustenance, therapy and support, and regular distractions. If you can't help the sick person directly, because it's too frightening or dangerous, stay connected by helping indirectly, through the aid of others.
I agree that it's helpful -- though very hard -- to realize that you can't take the things that are said and done personally. Among the more *benign* things my mother said to me were comments like "I should have aborted you!" "I hope you and (boyfriend at the time) have some kids so you can put them in this place (psych ward)." "You can't do anything, you'll never amount to anything. How could you possibly?"
Taking the emotion out of it can go a long way toward just getting things done in a crisis.
We can run away from people and problems, close our eyes to suffering; we do it all the time. But there are lasting consequences to everything, and some can be very hard to bear. A lot of people here seem to be confusing a desire to fulfill certain responsibilities we have to one another, our basic humanity, with 'martyrdom.' Reading up on the lives of saints might put things back in perspective.
This will hurt like hell no matter what you do, but you will get through it. We do, somehow. One day, your life will be better than you can imagine right now.
Since caretakers are often at risk for depression, I wanted to pass along a link to a very eloquent, excellent article on the subject by Chris Rose, a columnist for the Times-Picayune in New Orleans.
To Hell and Back by Chris Rose
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index2.ssf?/base/living-0/116149796856910.xml&coll=1
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.........
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
