To uninvite my mother for Christmas?

[IsThisYourSanderling]

She will probably end up coming anyway, as we already invited her, but oh how I wish she wasn't.

Reasons she should come:

• We had a baby in September, it's her first grandchild and his first Christmas
• When he was 8 days old she travelled up to help us on short notice (when I realised we were completely out of our depth) and stayed for nearly three weeks, doing laundry and other less than fun tasks. It was a lifesaver.
• She'd have a shit Christmas if she can't come here.

Reasons I don't want her to come:

• She has extreme paranoia issues that make her very difficult and often miserable to be around, you have to creep around on eggshells and she'll still find something to latch onto as proof you're conspiring against her.
• Her main thing is to accuse me of betraying her, conspiring, talking behind her back to relatives I haven't seen in years, etc. She brings it up whenever we're alone and won't believe me no matter what I say or do. When she was last year I had to leave the room with my newborn attached to my breast because she'd started attacking me about my supposed contact with my grandmother and uncle (I'm not in contact with either more than a card at Christmas, not that it should matter). She proceeded to follow me to my bedroom to keep going with the accusations. It's like this every time she visits, but I didn't expect to get chased around the house while breastfeeding a three week old.
• She's a pathological liar. These vary from extreme and damaging lies I won't ever really forgive her for, to silly ridiculous lies aimed at saving face, to lies that allow her to effectively pocket the occasional tenner here and there. It's a terrible bore and if you call her out you'll always regret it.
• Her latest thing is this: I suggested my husband and I get her a railcard so she can travel up to see us more (long train journey). She replied to say it wasn't like me to make practical suggestions and that I must be being coerced (she's always been obsessed with the idea of me being brainwashed/ coerced - even though I'm now in my thirties, have a PhD, a husband and a child, I still apparently am being brainwashed and marshalled against her by influences I do t understand...). So, friendly offer of railcard = getting accused for the millionth time of being coerced. Fuck that.
• She never, ever apologises for anything ever, and so me asking for an apology has been met with silence. What will happen now is that she'll refuse to acknowledge me for a while, then send a breezy text pretending nothing has happened so as not to endanger her Christmas up here. So far she has been giving us the silent treatment since Wednesday evening, when I asked if she would apologise or if she still thinks I'm being coerced into handing out railcards. She hasn't asked about her ten week old grandson once. She hasn't looked at his Instagram page (set up so she and in laws could see pics of him regularly) because she'd have to use the library computer and is too suspicious of the librarians, who must be spying on her. Her delusions and paranoid suspicions are more important to her than her only grandchild (and much more important to her than me).
• Her expectation will be that I shut up about the coercion thing, pretend it's fine that she withheld interest in my and my son as a punishment, and go ahead with our jolly family Christmas. I don't want to. I don't like being around her. But the guilt of telling her she's no longer welcome is pretty huge, because it means her having an absolutely shit time at her mother's (she lives with her mother and they hate each other)

So yeah. WIBU to uninvite her?

Forgive typos. I tapped out this entire saga with my thumb whilst breastfeeding.

Having grown up around a grandparent with severe paranoia related MH issues, I say she should have no contact with your DD until she seeks treatment.

There are only two options IMO.

Either you consider that she has some control over what she says and then yes she should apologise and you are right to be pissed off that she doesn't, doesn't change etc...
Or you consider she has no control over the way she looks at the world and then you need to let it go, not expect apologies etc...
Madness lies in thinking she can't do anything about it but to still expect her to behave as if she had iyswim.

Regardless of whether she has some sort of control or not, you do need to be clear about your boundaries, what you see as acceptable or not and you are happy for your ds to witness or not.
For your own sake, it might mean that yes you might need to make the contact looser. Etc..

I do notice though that she DID pick up that you were struggling with your ds, that she offered to come and help and stayed at yOur house for 3 weeks. So I suspect that underneath all that paranoia, she does love you a lot and really tries to do her best for you and your dc.

YWNBU to uninvite her.

If no contact is not an option you feel comfortable with then I would visit her at home, so that you can leave if it all gets too much.

How does your DH feel about your Mum's behaviour? It can't be easy for him.

I think you also need to consider her impact on your DS. If it's distressing for an adult who knows what's going on , imagine how much worse it will be for a child. How will it make you feel if she follows your son around making horrible accusations and won't leave him alone? Because make no mistake, she will do it.

I don't think an uninvite is required. Just insist she apologise before she's welcomed back into your home.

I feel very very sad for you OP this is a very difficult situation for you. I can't add anything really as agree with the others that NC may be the way to go eventually, but that's hard too. My MIL is a bit like this, I think she has a personality disorder. I would rather we didn't see her but I understand how hard it is for my dh as it's his mother and that's so emotional to make that decision. Good luck to you whatever you do.

Do you have any other family? Aunts and Uncles with whom you could get onside for getting her treatment.

She sounds severely mentally I'll which is horrific for both of you. She needs treatment. This is only going to get worse as she gets older and will likely descend into her physically harming herself or others through her paranoia.

Exhausting and traumatic though it is, she needs support from those closest.
No one would think of ditching someone because they had an invasive physical illness.

This is obviously about much more than Christmas.

She is clearly kind and loves you for her to come and help you during those 3 weeks.

Both of my Grandmothers (Fathers Mum and Step Fathers Mum) have Bipolar and Paranoid Schizophrenia so I have a higher than average understanding of such illness in the family.

I can't imagine how utterly terrifying it must be to genuinely believe that everybody wants to harm you. To the extent of believing that "They" have taken hold of your daughter and are using her against you.
I've had times where I've felt like I've been followed down the street (many times that's been true!) and it makes you feel cold and sick - to feel like that all the time must be crippling.

You're not being unfair to her. She is clearly severely mentally ill and won't seek help. I'd be looking to see if its possible to get her sectioned if I were you, not having her to stay for christmas.

IsThis - I really feel for you. My DM has some mental health issues - nothing like your DMs but I can still relate. When it comes to her "issues" she would quite happily swear black is white or that some factual thing is not true. It is incredibly draining to deal with and it's a problem when DC are getting to the age when they notice and start to say things (mine are at this point - last time DD pointed out something glaringly obvious about her behaviour my DM accused me of putting her up to it!). I don't exactly know what to do yet myself, but you have to be aware of the impact on the DC and how you're going to handle it, I think. We've greatly reduced contact because of this.

What Sukey wrote is absolutely right though - you can't force her to get treatment - I've tried with my DM and it's always ended up in arguments and rifts.

I don't honestly know what you should do about Christmas though - just wanted to say I understand how awful and draining this sort of thing is - especially with a new baby.

I feel for you. If you decide that having her visit is the right thing to do, I suggest you designate another day when she is not there to celebrate Christmas properly as a family unit in peace. The baby doesn't know what day it is. We did this one year when we both had to work Christmas Day and once you get your head around it you'll wonder why more people don't do it to save them the angst of conflicting ideas about how Christmas should be.

You were happy to have her be a "lifesaver" for three weeks when you needed her. Of course you can't refuse to have her for Christmas.

How was your mum when she was with you for 3 weeks helping out?

I can't quite marry up her being a lifesaver but also so paranoid and difficult that she shouldn't come for Christmas. Have things changed significantly in the last few weeks?

My DM also has a PD so I understand how difficult it is coping with your DM. But I've got to say that - if you could cope with her for 3 whole weeks when it suited you to have help with the baby - I'm not sure why you can't cope for a few days over Christmas.

I agree with itsmine about setting boundaries for the future though.

Thanks for all the responses, lots to think about.

Itsmine I've been having that conversation with her for the last ten years. Me saying she needs help is just more fuel for her idea that im out to get her and want to get her locked up, in afraid.

If she had dementia, would you cut her off like this?

It's absolutely nothing like dementia .

OP I don't think posting in AIBU was wise. People here can apparently often only see issues in black and white and there's an awful lots of crap like "Oh she's your mother". If your mum's anything like mine, she came to help out because she was so delighted at the thought of being needed. It's like a triumphant thing - "TOLD YOU you wouldn't cope on your own!"

I'd be looking to see if its possible to get her sectioned

But you CAN'T just "get someone sectioned" FFS! They have to be judged at real immediate risk of harming themselves or harming others. You don't just say "I suspect my mother has a personality disorder, please can you lock her up, thanks."

I wish people would find out what they're talking about before posting stuff like that. Sorry if I sound cross, but there's a lot of mental illness in my family, and only the very worst bits have been judged to need a section put in place i.e. the person was about to kill themselves.

I think you would be unreasonable to uninvite her. It sounds like this issues have been going on for a long time, so why did you invite her in the first place?

I know that on MN people talk about uninviting people all the time, but in real life (or at least in my mind), once you've invited someone then they're invited and you can't just change your mind. You say herself that she would have a "shit Christmas" otherwise.

But YWNBU to not invite her again in the future.

I identify with this too. That awful thing following you from room to room...

I'm glad to hear she came up to help. My DM did the same and the gratitude i feel has seen me through some hard times dealing with her (also undiagnosed) MH issues which are pretty bad.

FWIW, my mother has had no adverse impact on my children, partly because her health failed when they were 3 and 5. They benefitted from the love and cuddles and then she became physically weak after cancer, so her influence waned suddenly.

Sometimes a damaged grandparent does not damage the grandchild - my husband's grandparents damaged his mum terribly but their particular issues (PTSD as a result of the war) did not impact him or his sister.

I've never thought about this before but nature may have a way of ruining your mum's health long before she can become a bad influence, as it has done my mum.

PS lose the guilt thing though..... counselling?
PPS does treating her like a toddler help? ie flooding with positive attention so she doesn't seek the negative attention? That's what works best with DM.

I think I'd uninvited, sorry to be harsh, but the stress sounds appalling. Not sure I could cope and sounds like the very idea is stressing you right out, before she's even arrived, so I say uninvite.

sorry, still wittering....

I feel no guilt about my mum despite her various accusations. The turning point came when my auntie pointed out that "it's not a 50/50 relationship, parent and child".

I am still burdened with massive responsibility but that gets easier as her health fails, oddly enough.

Agree with Sukey: there ought to be a warning notice on this thread saying "please only post if you know what it is to love someone who is mentally ill"

thing is Cherry, your mum is (hopefully) not like this so for you it would be unimaginable, but for others it is all the family we've got