To be fed up of DM putting MH awareness stuff on FB

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I am bitter. I know I am BU, but DM wasn't aware when I was depressed an going through a difficult time several years ago, and was very unsupportive. It got to the stage where she couldn't stand to be in the same room as me and was calling me a "bitch" because I couldn't be cheerful around her and despite confiding in her, nothing got easily resolved.

Now the situation has reversed and I am trying to support DM all I can through her severely depressive episodes. She has never referred to the past but I do get tired when she constantly highlights how some people have been so unsympathetic - I wonder if she's forgotten she used to be so ignorant herself. All her posts are just reminding me of how difficult it was for me to be living with her and trying to be 'up' all the time lest she start snapping again.

Someone give me a grip and tell me to bury the past, please

I do understand why you feel the way you do but please believe me when I tell you you'll feel so much better if you just let it go. Neither of you can change what was said/done/not said/not done in the past - it is completely impossible. That being so you letting it go can only improve everything about the way you feel right now. Let it go - it's weighing you down and it's so so pointless.
I speak from experience - I had to let go a lot of stuff that was eating me up. It wasn't instant but I feel so much better. :)

I can understand how you feel but I think YABU.

Depression is an incredibly difficult thing to understand because everybody feels depressed sometimes. So, unless you have/have had it or are very empathetic, it's hard to get how different depression is from feeling depressed. I have a few mental health conditions and even I have to remind myself sometimes that depression is a very serious and debilitating condition that isn't always under a person's control.

It sounds to me like your mum just couldn't really get it until she'd been there.

YABU, but you're not at the same time.

Is it possible your mum has had depression for longer than just this time, and found it difficult to deal with it in someone she's so close to?

She could have kept it from you up until now perhaps?

I could understand that if she did, even though you were unfortunately on the receiving end of it.

Or did you maybe not explain the full extent of how much you were struggling? A thing lots of people do to close family members when they're having a hard time of it.

Even though I get why this would fuck you off big time, I think you have to give her the compassion you expected from her, even if she couldn't deliver it at the time.

If anyone knows how debilitating and isolating MH problems can be, you do, take pity on her

I don't think YABU at all, it sounds like when you needed your mum to be there for you she was unsupportive and nasty. You may feel better if you can let go of the bitterness but I think there's a difference between choosing to let something go and burying it. It sounds like during your own depression your mother's behaviour left you feeling like you had to put on a front for her sake and had to bury your own feelings and now there's a repetition of this pattern with feeling you have to bury your feelings again and play the dutiful daughter. I hope you are feeling better now in terms of your own depression, look after yourself and don't beat yourself up for feeling fed up about her hypocrisy.

I think she's always suffered from depression, but she internalised it for so long and she finally has started to find ways to express her emotions. She just used to clam up and then lash out at me.

I'm the opposite - I tried to confide in her but she kept getting frustrated and telling me to shut up and stop being so lazy and silly. In the end, I overcame it without her support and have moved on, but some lingering resentment still remains.

I don't seem to be doing much good for DM other than listening to her and taking her out as much as I can, but she doesn't seem to understand that others will be taking her former viewpoint on depression. It's like she's been two completely different people in her lifetime!

If she's had it for a long time then, it could be that you're now behaving like she did when you needed her support, and for some of the same reasons?

As I said in my last post though, I think that's totally understandable. I find it difficult dealing with things either I have trouble with myself or that I'm trying not to think about because they're so distressing.

Which is frustrating because you'd think you'd be more supportive having gone through it yourself.

I would say that you should carry on listening to her as you are, but keep a 27 mile distance from her in your head. (further if needs be)

I came on ready to say YANBU but then I read your DM is depressed. So while I don't think YABU in feeling the way you do, I wonder if you should cut her a bit of slack.

Randoms on FB who post pish in the name of 'awareness' of things but who have no clue what they are talking about OTOH boil my piss, so I can understand having a strong reaction

She understands it now and probably would be more supportive of you if she could do it all over again. At least by raising awareness she is trying to stop others from making the same mistake.
It is good that she has you to rely on, and I hope she recovers quickly.

She is never going to help you in the way you would like because she isn't well enough. However, you are never going to be able to heal her either because of the damage that was done to your relationship when you were ill. (I take it you are in remission right now and if so congratulations?)

If you have access to any source of counselling it might be worth talking about the anger you feel so you don't start aiming it at yourself and you find a way to forgive your mother and move forward. Forgiveness is very hard. However, it does give you so much inner strength if you can manage it and worth doing if you are religious or not.

Ignore the sentimental crap on bacefook.

Thanks everyone. The hardest thing is when she cries out for help and complains bitterly that DB doesn't see her enough nor seem to care, seemingly forgetting how cold she was when we were going through a tough time trying to deal with both our parents' MH problems.

I am so over depression now, if I can call it that...perhaps it was more long term anxiety born out of the precarious situation I found myself in with DM and DF. Now I've moved away, am successful and have a lovely stable family life that my poor parents never really had. I am very careful not to rub his in DMs face in particular, as she can be incredibly jealous, but it is hard.

Glad you've recovered from your own mental health problems crumbs. How sad that your DM has these problems and that she can't be happy for you, I think most parent's would be glad that their children were happy and settled.