DM & extreme health anxiety

[GrooveArmada]

Hi All, long term poster returning to MN here in need of some advice.

I had a conversation with my DM yesterday which left me quite shaken.

DM is nearing 70. She lives in a different country (my birth country, but I spent most of my life in the UK). DM, in hindsight, always suffered from some form of MH issues, definitely anxiety in several aspects of her life, I also think she was depressed in her 40s. She was never easy to deal with and always seemed on edge, about to find something wrong to be upset about. She is a massive people pleaser and highly emotional. My father, whom she unfortunately never divorced, is a nasty character, verbally and financially abusive, sometimes physically too. I've been NC with him for several years (I'm late 30s). I stayed in touch with DM, but our relationship hasn't been great.

I had DS in Covid. DM refused to fly to the UK even after the restrictions have been lifted. She lives in mainland Europe, so only a short flight to London. She maintained she was "banned" from flying because she couldn't have any of the Covid vaccines because she's allergic to an ingredient they contain and she might have an anaphylactic shock.

I was devastated but tried to be understanding. I couldn't fly for a while after my C-section and DS needed a passport etc. For various (unrelated) reasons, DH, DS and I ended up not going abroad at all for a while. I kept asking DM post pandemic to come and visit - DS never met her, she is retired, she has plenty of time on her hands. She'd always change topic or find an excuse. I really could have done with having her support then but she didn't seem to see it at all, even after I specifically said it.

In the meantime, I was going through post-natal anxiety and I had quite a difficult baby loss experience prior which set it off. I had few years of really difficult anxiety and PTSD struggles. I had CBT, therapy, hypnotherapy, somatic exercises, you name it, I tried it. Eventually dug myself out of it and I'm now living a normal life. DS is 5 and a light of my life. I still struggle with anxiety but I feel like overall I manage it better now than before.

Here is the thing. DM still never came to see us. I realised through my therapy that my anxiety issues are rooted in my childhood and that they were contributed to severely by DM. We are planning a trip to DM's country and I spoke to her yesterday, it all just came out. How aggrieved I am over the fact she didn't come to see DS, she never helped me with anything even though she has plenty of time and money to come over, etc, etc. How her behaviours in my childhood, offloading on me, expecting me to be her therapist and also being overanxious have affected my entire life. I told her I can cope with the fact she never priotitised me, but it's unforgivable in the context of DS. I pressed her to explain what was going on.

DM said that she has high blood pressure and her doctors "banned her from flying". Wtf. She is medicated. 30-40% of adults suffer from HBP at some point. DM is actually slim and fit, she's in good health overall. But her mind is bloody gone. She also admitted that she is in therapy now (a bit late for that one...) and when I challenged her and said this is obvious catastrophising and anxiety and told her straight that she prioritised herself because of her unreasonable fear over 5 years of DS's life that won't ever come back, she acknowledged it. But she won't be coming. Honestly, her head is fucking gone.

My points are twofold:

1. How would you deal with this? Only have sporadic contact with her? Allow DS have contact? He'll be asking why nana never comes over for sure. He only saw her few times on video calls when he was younger, my relationship with her in the last year was very strained because of all of the above issues. Shall I keep ignoring her endless issues? She's NOT sick, it's nothing out of the ordinary, but she is permanently catastrophising.
2. Am I going to be like her? It struck me that it can be genetic and that I've got an underlying health anxiety too which I'm managing, it became a lot worse after I lost my first baby and it never went away. I don't want to end up like her. I'm absolutely mortified. What can I do to prevent this? At the moment I'm feeling shocked and scared tbh. I don't think I fully realised until now just how bad her MH is and I don't want to have the same severe issue later in life.

Thank you for reading ❤️

She sounds extremely difficult to deal with.

However... she is the victim of long-standing abuse by your father, and that alone probably goes a long way towards explaining why she is the way she is.

It’s totally up to you how much contact you have. You don’t need to engage with discussion of her issues at all.
Will you end up the same? You’ve recognised your own MH issues and you’ve worked really hard to give yourself strategies to cope. And you seem to have a self awareness that she lacks. So I would highly doubt it.

Thank you for your responses. I guess I needed some MN wisdom as a sounding board.

I carry a lot of guilt, in a way I feel like I should be looking after her even though she is a victim of her own bad decisions. She could have left many times and I encouraged it, but she never did.

I also spent a long time when I was younger having conversations with her encouraging her to feel better about herself, yet this was never reciprocated. I left my family home with huge self-esteem issues, very high expectations of me to perform academically and professionally and tbh it's been a huge burden for me all my life. I'm still learning how to be myself, how to appreciate myself and my achievements etc. Unfortunately this is down to both my parents. It's a complex relationship, I never truly felt parented by either of them and now I have DS, I have very little room for dealing with DM's neverending issues and excuses. I know I'm not her parent and these are not my problems to solve, but I still have that guilt that I'm being harsh or that I should rescue her. It's hard to explain. She loves victimising herself a lot instead of making firm decisions and standing by them, it's nearly like she enjoys being a martyr of her own making, with a horrid husband and choosing anxiety over addressing it and pioritising my DS. I don't even expect she'd ever prioritise me, but I can't forgive the fact she didn't do enough to overcome her anxiety and be present in his life, I'm so angry and bitter about this. Just cannot explain this anymore, even as a fellow anxiety sufferer, I can't justify this level of selfishness and blindness to what matters in life.

Could your mum be suffering some form of dementia? Being really scared of simple everyday things was one of the first signs my mum had.

• Memorable example from before her diagnosis was being out with my parents and baby son, and he did a very messy nappy. We were all going to spend the next few days seriously sick, because there was no way to deal with that much poo without people being seriously ill after. (The fact that she had done it, with washable nappies no less, like 1000 time when I was a baby, and I had already done it 100 times with my son, made no difference.)
• Health issues sent her over the edge. Even if a doctor had instructed treatment. e.g. here's a 7 day course of medication, cream, whatever for this. On day two, A&E was needed if such thing wasn't 100% clear/better.

The thing with anxiety is it can make you the most selfish person in the world because your thoughts are turned inwards all the time and the irrational thoughts overtake anything else and you just want to get out of the thing that you fear the most, in your mum's case flying, which is why she lied. Covid was a good excuse but she can't use that anymore which is why she then lied about her blood pressure stopping her flying.

I'm sure she loves you very much and would love to see your son but the fear for her is overwhelming and at the moment her irrational thoughts are not letting her see any further than this.

Good points. My nan had dementia, so it's definitely a possibility. However DM appears to have clarity of thoughts and no physical issues (apart from seemingly high BP, although I don't live with her or even in the same country so I can't say for certain this is true).

She did have an anaphylactic shock previously once in her life (and I witnessed it). However I am suspicious regarding Covid vaccines, the shock she had years ago was nothing to do with any of the Covid vaccines ingredients so there is in my view no realistic way of knowing she could have severe allergy to any of their ingredients.

I think to some extent she might be telling the truth, but she is definitely catastrophising.

I know about the selfish part. I'm very aware when I was poorly, I was selfish in some ways as well but I think this is extreme not to do what one needs to do to get better to be able to see her only grandchild.

Is she still being controlled by your father i.e. she won't be allowed to go so all the medical things are an excuse

I asked her this exact question yesterday, about control. She specifically said no (and I know she was on her own, he wasn't around). I had these suspicions, but she's adamant this is not the case. From what I know, they are largely living separate lives but they still live together and holiday together. She says my father mellowed in his old age but I think he'll always be mean and difficult, maybe he has less energy for it now. She also has her own money which isn't managed by him. He was financially abusive before in a sense that he never paid for family things or for me, he kept his money separate and then when she went through a period of unemployment, he was rationing it and it was so low that I had to start working at 16 alongside school and my extracurricular activities. For the record, he's a rich man, just a complete arsehole. DM has been retired for a few years now and has her own pension. He is relieved nobody touches his money, so DM is actually OK money-wise and he doesn't touch her money. I still can't understand why they never divorced, it had awful impact on me and on DM. Don't think my father was happy either but I don't care about his feelings, he's dead to me.

When I say holiday together - she apparently only goes on staycations, i.e.: doesn't fly abroad or internally either, presumably due to her health anxiety.