Mother with Paranoid Psychosis

[Chester1980]

I’ve posted before about my Mother who can be very controlling and manipulative.

She was sectioned when I was a baby, and my Father told me years ago that she was diagnosed with a paranoid psychosis. This would be nearly 40 years ago.

She has had no medical intervention since. She has no insight. She’s clever in how she controls and manipulates. I found is so hard growing up that I went to a university the other side of the country to get away. I still live that far away, to keep some distance. I would love to move back to my home village with my young family, but being manipulated day to day really puts the fear in me.

Growing up she would be violent. She would scream and shout. My poor Father was broken down by it and just wants a quiet life. She cut him (and me) off from his family (who are lovely) just by making it so difficult to see them.

I had been bringing myself round saying it won’t be that bad if we move nearby. I want to be near my dad in his last years....but she controls everything. I send her photos of my toddler all the time, but sent some to my dads phone yesterday because he has WhatsApp and it’s free. She sent me a message saying I should send them to her...it was odd. Like a jealousy thing. When I called her out on it, she made out it was innocent and I’ve taken it the wrong way. That is her approach - say something, make a dig, be nasty...but say she doesn’t think like that and that you are taking it the wrong way if you say anything.

She obviously loves me and my toddler. She’s knitting him a teddy etc. She always says she loves me. But she can also be cruel. She treats my ill father as her slave and takes advantage of people all the time. She controls the money, his and here (she keeps it in her accounts).

I feel bad now. I want to cry and I can’t bare the control over our lives.

I guess I just wanted a space to get it out. I don’t like to actually talk to people close to me about it and I can’t afford therapy at the moment (I’ve had lots over the years - I have suffered from depression and an eating disorder in the past...and it always comes back to my mum).

I feel bad that I should be understanding with her, because it is a mental illness....but I just want to cut her off. If my dad passes away, she would be completely alone and that makes me feel so guilty. But I can’t be the one controlled for the rest of her life (she’s one of those people who will live forever!!).

Don't move back as she'll get her claws into you. My mum is similar in some ways and i used to feel sorry for my dad but then i realised that he had a choice to leave her and protect me as a child but he chose not to. I didn't have that choice as a child, so now i feel less sorry for him.

Thank you @hoyalflower. You’re right - I used to beg my dad to leave her as a child. For his sake. She controlled me so much, I wouldn’t have been able to go. He was suffering with a bad depression around then. He lost his parents and his job within 6 months of each other around this time. He got no sympathy or comfort from my mum. He also worked incredibly hard to put me and my brother through university. From that perspective I am incredibly thankful to him. I feel he was trying to do the right thing.

Sounds a tricky situation but worth pointing out the current problems you describe are not psychosis.

Thanks @floatyboat. Agree. It’s been such a long time since any diagnosis, that her illness has changed.

Back then she would get frightened if she saw a group of cars the same colour - she thought they were part of an organisation monitoring her. She also thought that things happened to her when she was in hospital etc. She would confuse things she saw on TV with reality in her life (she still does that a bit). She once thought she dated Michael Cane! All of it a conspiracy against her.

That sounds really hard for you. Do you have support in your home now? Do you have good friends you can talk to? Why is your dad not prepared to leave her?

@hollowtalk he seems to genuinely love her...that or he has been ground down over the years. He’s a good man, but has had his confidence crushed by her. He was always made to feel he wasn’t good enough and she always spoke about her ex husband (she still does 45 years after their divorce!!

I don’t want to bring it up with friends etc anymore as I feel I’ve done it to death. As this can be anonymous, it helps. It’s still messing me up in my head. It’s defining me, no matter how much I try to escape it.

Don’t move back. I know it’s awful for your dad but what I’ve learnt from supporting people living with someone abusing them is that you can only be there and available to help should they choose to leave. You can’t rescue someone who doesn’t want to be rescued. Be there for him on WhatsApp, phone but you have to keep yourself and your children safe.

I mean this kindly but I think you posted on here, probably subconsciously, in order to be warned. No one was able to protect you as a child. Now you need to be the mum to yourself and say “no darling, that person isn’t good for you. Stay away”.
I’m sorry for what you’ve been through.

@ariseandsmellthetea99 ah, you’ve hit the nail on the head. I would love for my children to grow up in that village, but there are just warning sirens going off in my head to stay away. Thank you for your comment.

My husband wants to move there because it’s a lovely quintessential village and we feel like it’s our next step (we’re in a city in just now and struggling for space).

Sadly, she controls my dads phone too. I get messages from his phone which she has clearly composed. She’s phoned me in the past regarding messages to him where I am concerned for his wellbeing (he had a stroke and she is meant to be looking after him - but she still has him running around her) Even if I phone and speak to him, it’s on speakerphone and she’s always chipping in. There just isn’t the opportunity to speak to him alone - especially as they are shielding at the moment. Before lockdown, my brother had social services go around to try and sort out some help for him. She shunned them away.

Im sorry OP but I dont believe you can move back. Try improve your life where you are. Your Dad has made his decisions.

Thanks @recycledbottle I need to try and remember that. I can’t rescue him :(

There are other villages to move to; your mother's isn't the only one in the country.

Moving 'home' would be like taking your children into the lions' den. You said She controlled me so much, I wouldn’t have been able to go - do you want that for your children? You are an adult - you can choose where to live, just like your father has a choice. But your children don't have that choice. Do you want their childhoods' marred by the treatment you received as a child? Please don't move there. Does your DH know the full extent of the abuse you faced? If not, I think it may be time to let him know.
As for your father - keep on at social services. If he has had a stroke, he could be classed as vulnerable and they insist on seeing him. We had to do this with MIL, as FIL refused them access to the house. Took a while but they got her out.

I agree that you can give your children the good parts of village life by moving to another village nowhere near your mum.

Forgive the question..is there any part of you that is ‘revisiting the scene of the crime’ or wanting to resolve thing with your mum in some way? It’s really common but she cannot give you the love and care you need. She couldn’t then and she can’t now. You can mourn the missing good mum without seeking her. Find positive and healthy mentoring type relationships with older ladies. Join the WI or church choir

^other women can’t replace your mum. Only you can take that role for yourself now, but having positive relationships can help especially with surrogate granny figures for your kids.

Just chatting to my husband there about it, he seems to think it’s just about setting boundaries. Making sure she knows she can’t come around in-announced etc. He’s saying that she can’t walk easily now, so that will help. I don’t think he gets how relentless it can be. He’s never seen her explode either.

This village is second to none in that area. And it’s upsetting that in a way, we are being controlled by her in that we can’t live where we want to. Whatever we do, it’s down to her control.

I think your husband is underestimating the psychological toll it takes to maintain boundaries with someone who will use a battering ram to trash them.
Please don’t. I guarantee you’ll be back here in a year with stories of all the batshit stuff that’s gone on and how incredibly stressed you are.
Move to a totally new area and find a village there.

Awww @Ariseandsmellthetea99 I love that. I do miss that relationship so much (as in having one with a caring older lady). One without an agenda (if that makes sense). Growing up, my friends mum’s would sometimes do that. I’d eat dinner almost every Saturday at one friends house....it was nice to be cooked for!

There is a strange want to resolve something that can’t be resolved. Whenever I try, something happens and it triggers that horrible feeling. I think the fact that she, despite her actions, is desperate to be close to me leaves a huge feeling of guilt. She does love me, I know that, but I step back because it’s so toxic.

Sorry to hear OP.
I think the defenceless fear from childhood is still clinging on in you, as even as an adult you feel that she can still have control over you. Does she know what the effect of her actions has caused you and father?
Everything she did was probably out of her control, making her a shitty person/mum I feel sorry to some degree for her.
Remember you wanted to get away from her when you was living in the same house as her (I presume) and now if you move back you'll be living in a separate house and know that you can reject her actions/wishes, DH seems like he will very much support you

Really - your Mother lives in the best village in the UK. ?
You have moved away, to the other side of the country - presumably you have friends, roots, links there, especially now you have children. Moving back is always a risk - childhood friends will have moved on, old haunts been changed into something else. I moved to college, came back home 2 weeks later and the one way system around the town had changed - didn't know where the hell I was going. The little flashes of positive nostalgia you are feeling will not replace what you currently have. You wont be invited around for Saturday dinner every week by that old school friend.

Your mental health could be at risk - the amount of control you are giving your mother is testament to that. And more importantly you have your precious children to think about. Your DH talks about boundaries - half a country is the best boundary you can keep in place. Stay where you are, or move to a village but not your childhood home. Many families have to offer support to ageing parents from a distance - it's not ideal but it can be done.

Something else just struck me - you say she wants to be close to you as she loves you. Maybe she does love you in her own way - but this love takes the form of control and that's a high price to pay. Her love is not unconditional. Maybe she wants to live closer to you so she can control you more.....

She doesn't sound paranoid at all or like she has psychosis. The symptoms you describe she had way back sound like my relatives bi polar episodes, she'd believe she was having a famous singers baby, that the CIA were after her, all sorts. She'd be very manipulative & aggressive one minute, then fine the next. She does sound controlling & unpredictable tho, has she had any other similar episodes recently? I wouldn't move closer, from experience, maintaining a healthy distance from a toxic dynamic will save your sanity.

@CSIblonde

Back then she would get frightened if she saw a group of cars the same colour - she thought they were part of an organisation monitoring her

That sounds psychotic to me.

Floaty boat, I meant she doest seem psychotic at the moment, just controlling & unpredictable. Sorry if I was unclear re that point.

Have you seen the Stately Homes thread? It's for people with emotionally abusive parents, which I think is a fair description of your mother's behaviour. And, not to make an armchair diagnosis, but I think if you Google "paranoid personality disorder" you will find a list of behaviours that will be very familiar to you. I agree with the PP who said your husband is underestimating the effort you would have to make to keep up your boundaries in the face of your mother's relentless battering of them - and that goes double for your kids. They don't have those defences.

Don't do it. It's just not worth it. If you must, then keep the power on your side all the time eg never borrow money, never need her for childcare, never need her for anything in fact. I'm sorry about your dad. Mine died, so his whole married life was like that, controlled to the end. I am still sad about that but I have to remember it was his choice.
Counselling is really useful, just to unpick things
Your husband won't understand, I wouldn't think. Not because of any fault on his part, but it's not something he will have experienced and it's so weird, and of course hidden as well.
You might be wanting to return to overwrite your own childhood with happier memories with your own children, or in the hope your mum will become the mum you craved as a child. That's where counselling is good at uncovering deeper motivations so you can think about how realistic that is/isn't