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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Toxic mother...I need to vent

9 replies

Archie1989 · 12/08/2020 17:04

I am back home for a staycation, although staying in an Airbnb. My parents are elderly. My dear father had been on the shielding list. My mother is hard work. I just want to cry right now. I moved far away because she is quite toxic. She has had mental health problems, but has no insight. She treats my dad like a slave despite his health. I gently try to suggest that he should be taking it easy, but she’s constantly giving him demands. If you don’t answer her calls, she phones and phones and phones. She takes advantage of everyone around her.....I’m posting this because I asked her to stand back from a friend she’s been asking to pick up this and that all the time. It’s not stuff she needs...she just has no issue in asking people to do stuff for her. I said to stand back as I had heard about a certain situation where she had taken advantage. She asked who is causing trouble, rather than see any error in what she had done. She went stony faced and wouldn’t talk anymore about it.

I think I just need to vent here. Apologies, I’ve posted before about her.

She was sectioned when I was a baby, with paranoid psychosis, and I spent so many years trying to be understanding, but I can’t take it anymore. I know I can’t change her, but I just don’t like her, and I can’t take my dad away from it. It will be the death of him. He had a stroke two years ago, and he had apparently carried a chair she bought from the next town shortly before it happened. He’s nearly 80. She cannot see that this is wrong.

We had social services come around, but she hurried them away. She will not have authority help due to that paranoid side of her, but certainly expects people to run around her. She’s so manipulative it scares me.

Everyone says you should love your mother, but I cannot stand her. She could be violent when I was growing up, but in her head she’s a mild nature’s sweet person...it’s just not true.

OP posts:
Archie1989 · 12/08/2020 17:43

Bump

OP posts:
chocolatemademefat · 12/08/2020 17:45

I know you’re worried about your dad but you have to take a step back from your mother. My mother was awful to my dad when he had terminal cancer - I spoke to his district nurse and his doctor but nothing ever changed. Visiting them was like walking on eggshells.
I always felt if I said too much to her it would backfire on him when I left.
Don’t let her see that she’s getting to you - easier said than done I know. My sister went to a therapist who told her the best thing to do was to see as little of our mother as possible. Not easy when she hardly left the house.
Is there any way you could take your dad out for a while - or is she like my mother and would demand to go along?
Have a word with the people she’s contacting for favours and tell them to have a few excuses ready for why they can’t run around after her.

Only visit for short visits - I know it’s hard for your dad but she may get the message that you’re fed up with her behaviour. I told my mother just that and she ended up having a screaming tantrum! You may have to accept she’s nasty and won’t change. I would definitely speak to your dads doctors and stress how worried you are. You may get a better outcome than I did.

Throckmorton · 12/08/2020 18:10

She sounds awful - I don't blame you for not liking her! Although you are right about how she treats your dad, you can't make her change, and it seems he's willing to put up with it. I would suggesting going low contact with her, but maintaining communication with your dad so he knows you'll always be there for him

Onekidnoclue · 12/08/2020 18:18

I’m sorry OP. can’t offer any advice as my mother is simians I’m totally pathetic. I dance along to her tune and cry afterwards.
The only thing that really helped was that I always felt sorry for her and felt guilty for hating her despite how she treated me as she had pnd and depression after I was born and has always blamed me. I was told by a therapist that having depression isn’t a cure for being a bitch. Just because you have or have had a mental illness doesn’t give you Carte blanche to do as you wish with no consequences.
Your mothers earlier mental health crisis doesn’t give her a golden ticket to get away with being total cow now.
Good luck OP. Toxic mothers are awful.

MzHz · 12/08/2020 18:30

sweetheart, fire up the Airbnb and find somewhere you WANT to be.

You can’t change your mother and you can’t help your father.

But you can save your own sanity.

She won’t ever change. You can go NC and never look back

lockdownbreakdown · 12/08/2020 18:36

I would suggest therapy ....for yourself. I am NC with my mentally ill mother and my life has improved dramatically. She was destroying my mental health and my father allowed it to happen to all of us children. Your father has made his bed but you can save yourself! I would recommend a jungian analyst .

Mary46 · 12/08/2020 20:09

Ah nightmare. Have it myself. Just a negative lady no mental health issues. Her way or highway. My way of coping is the minimal visits. Keep boundaries. I dont particularly enjoy calling there.

Mary46 · 12/08/2020 20:09

Therapy great agree with other post.

billy1966 · 12/08/2020 20:35

OP,
Your mother is awful and won't change.

Your father knows what she's like and has accepted it.

Warn those she is taking advantage of, that is all you can do.

Inform social services that your father is at risk, again this is all you can do.

Protect your own health.
That should be your focus.

You can't hange her, so focus on your wellbeing.
Flowers

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