To not invite DM for Xmas knowing she's alone with MH illness

[SimplyPie]

I don't know what to do.
DM is 76.
Lives alone.
Zero friends - can't maintain healthy relationships due to lack of boundaries or understanding about how her behaviour impacts on others.
Lifelong mental illness which is untreated as she won't engage with mental health services or her GP. The reason for her refusing to engage is due to the mental illness itself.
Mixture of unstable PD, lifelong depression, clinical anxiety, PTSD, self harm, self neglect, emotional dysregulation, ASD and ADHD.
Refuses medication and refuses therapy - lifelong refusal.
Her MI caused a caused a difficult childhood for DB and me and I carry this with me through my adulthood.
She raised us as a single parent.
DB is now NC with DM for his own MH protection and he aportions a lot of blame on her for his own depression and anxiety.
All of our extended family are NC with DM due to the emotional difficulties and challenges she presents in trying to maintain a long standing relationship.
Christmas is a huge MH trigger for her.
We have her to stay for a few days over Christmas and it is very hard work.
She is an emotional rollercoaster between being irritable, snapping at me and DH, talking in a stream of consciousness about her ongoing difficulties, devastation about not seeing DB and his children at Christmas anymore, crying, desperately wanting to spend every waking minute with my DC over Christmas on an emotional level whilst at the same time showing a complete lack of engagement with them on a demonstratable level, being non stop highly stressed, anxious, zero ability to sit through a kids Christmas movie with them or play a game with them, too distracted to get through a conversation with - she can't keep track of anything I try to talk to her about, and physically as unhelpful towards the general busyness of Christmas as it's possible to be. Sits there for entire days not moving. Doesn't occur to her to pitch in and help.
It's just bloody hard work and I feel like crying at the thought of another Christmas like it.
When the DC were little they'd bounce around excitedly not noticing all this. But they're getting older now and are beginning to pick up on things.
The thing is DM isn't mentally unwell but lovely with it. She isn't vulnerable in the sense that she leaves you feeling like you want to look after her. She's verbally argumentative all the time. She's hostile. She never smiles. She's paranoid in a negative way. She's accusatory. She can start an attack of arguing out of nowhere. Her conversation just goes round and round in a negative spiral. Every word she utters is negative. Endless moaning. I can have a completely neutral expression on my face and she'll argue at me for looking at her in an angry way.
I must add that we really are nice to her. Buy all her favourite food. Adapt food and cooking to her liking. Abandon family activities that DH and DC and me enjoy because she doesn't want to do them. Tip toe around her endlessly changing mood. Buy her really thoughtful and lovely gifts. Turn down social offers we'd personally love to accept because she stays for days. Pick her up. Drive her home. We appease her on every level.
And then after it's all over, she'll spend days texting me about how she knows me and DH hate her but she only comes to stay so tbat she can see my DC who she regularly tells me are her only reason for living.
The older I'm getting the more she is impacting on my wellbeing. I'm pretty strong and I think I've been pretty emotionally resilient through my life, considering I've been raised by a mother who's been like tgis my whole life. But strangely, I feel more affected by her behaviour in my middle age now than I did in my 20s and 30s, even though it has now been much longer since I lived with her (I left home at 18 which I spent 2 decades being either cried at or argued at about, with her blaming me for abandonment). I don't quite understand why it's all affecting me more now at this age.
So......I can hear you all thinking dont invite her over then. But the alternative is she sits at home alone with the TV and a microwave meal, and despite how impossible she is to get along with, I know about her life traumas and I understand those traumas are the reason for her illness, and knowing that makes me feel like I'd spend the entire Christmas feeling such guilt that I wouldn't enjoy it anyway.
I have tried all my life to support and love her.
But I can feel my brain is beginning to change now, after the effects of all these years of dealing with this.
And I just want to say - I hate serious mental illness. I really truly hate it and all it's harmful, toxic, devastating repercussions.
I hate it. I feel defeated by it.😞

But they are surely aware of how it impacts on you? You surely can’t be relaxed and happy with this going on?

If you must invite her, keep it short. But I wouldn’t. She has refused to get help and that is not your responsibility.

Go to her Christmas Eve stay overnight in a hotel book a lunch out and go home after lunch to hopefully get some other stuff done she doesn't sound like the kids will enjoy her company.
Blame a broken oven or no time off work tell her what a wonderful time you all had ease it all back slowly.

You aren't going to make things any better for her if she comes to stay. If anything, it sounds like it probably has a negative effect on her for the time she is there and days after.

I wouldn't invite her tbh. I have a partner with borderline personality disorder and ADHD who used to present very similarly to your mum, and I allowed it. It took me a couple of years to realise that any boundaries I had weren't exactly boundaries when I was allowing them to be trampled all over.

In the kindest way possible, just stop. Don't make excuses for her, dont pity her because she has abandonment issues or whatever else. Why would she access the help and support when she knows you stick around regardless of how she behaves or treats people?

She may be to old and set in her ways to change now, but you'll never know if you dont try it. Put yourself and your family first. I did, and it worked out well for me. I still have my partner, only now he doesnt behave like a dick. He had 2 choices. Ill leave just like everyone else has done, or get help and we can deal with it together if improvements are made. But I made it clear if he chose to not get help, it wasnt me giving up and abandoning him, that would be him cutting and running so dont bother having the victim mentality if thats what he chooses.

OP, I've been where you are and convinced myself of all of this. I can relate right down to the feelings of hurt that she was never like this when you were a child.

Your children will start to notice how she is making you feel, and this will make them feel torn. It will impact their mental health massively. I didn't notice it with DD until it had already impacted her hugely (at only 9 years old) and I wish I'd acted sooner to prevent it.

I think, in your position, that I would have followed your brother's example long ago and stopped seeing altogether, let alone at Christmas.

I think for the sake of your own kids (and your husband) you should absolutely have Christmas without her.

The minute I read you had children I thought you absolutely mustn’t have them over at Christmas.

Your brother and the rest of the family have protected themselves and their children and immediate families from her. You have to do the same. You absolutely owe it to your children - as well as yourself - to do this.

Maybe this will be the trigger she needs to accept help. Maybe not, but you and your children matter too.

Your DC are your responsibility, don't damage their MH by having her over.

Pop over alone for an hour or so a few days before with a gift, watch her cry/scream/blame/etc. Nod, say on repeat, "we're doing things differently as need a relaxing house this year".

Be a robot, a brick wall, a nodding doll, but stand firm.

Then go home and have a lovely Christmas the type your DC should be seeing.

@SimplyPie another person giving you permission not to go. Why don’t you visit a couple of days beforehand and take a lovely hamper with stuff for Christmas Day so you know she has treats etc?

Stop exposing your kids to this! And screw her.. put your kids first at Xmas

I also have ASD parents and have chosen to go no contact with them because of the awful effects on my mental health.
There is a Facebook support group for the NT children of autistic parents you might be interested in. They can help provide validation. DM me for details if you’re interested.

OP do you feel that you don't deserve the stream of negativity that you described in your opening post? Your children don't, and maybe your mum subconsciously realises that you won't tolerate her treating them the same way she has and continues to treat you, and holds back from doing it to them. But that means that she can be nice as pie to you... she just chooses not to. And personally I don't think that's good enough, you deserve far better.

Maybe it's time your mum actually experienced the consequences of her behaviour, and spending Christmas alone will be a wake-up call? Maybe in time if/when your children know what she's really like, they'll be horrified that someone was so horrible to their lovely mum who doesn't deserve to be, and will be furious at the thought?

Look up F.O.G - fear, obligation, guilt syndrome. Your thoughts and actions are controlled by fear, a sense of duty, and guilt. The signs? You have difficulty saying “no”. You feel responsible for others’ emotions. Making decisions out of guilt rather than desire. Fear of rejection or conflict.

Don’t invite her. Your mother is an adult & chooses not to seek help. She has made a decision that she doesn’t want help - therefor she needs to live with that consequence. Set your boundary - Christmas does not have to be a miserable or stressful experience for you.

I have an autistic mother (never diagnosed and would never seek help for her behaviour). All of my memories of Christmas with her are stressful / not a happy experience. I haven’t spent Christmas with her since 2013 and the relief is absolutely immense. Sometimes you have to prioritise yourself over others. Good luck 🤞

You may think your children might not know what goes on but don’t wait until they’re grown ups and they tell you that their childhood christmases were ruined by their unpredictable Granny and her behaviour every year.

They know who she is and how she acts and they’ll be waiting for it to happen each year.

They will see the change in your mood and the tension in the home.

Oh, my mother is like this, not to the MH level but she's needy and doesn't give a shit about anyone else. All she goes on about is poor me, poor me. She can't move and so no chance she can get to our houses. My sister goes away to another country to get away from her, for weeks/months at a time. I go to her house once or twice a week for 15 minutes or shorter if I want to kill her.
For Xmas she comes round for 2 hours then I take her home.

Give yourself permission to prioritise your children. Break the cycle, don't perpetuate it.

Kids arent thick.
They will pick up on the nonverbal stress of their mother and father
From experience....your children will likely be able to tell you how crap it was as adults.

Do not let her cone tgis christmas and see HOW different it is without her dominating everything.

Get some therapy and dont let her dominate your life and your childrens christmases from here to kingdom come...there are so few and they're so precious.

I recently cut off my abusive parent having put up with their behaviour telling myself it was for my children's sake and they weren't aware. They were.
Even though they did like some things about their grandparent they hated how I was treated and I am so much happier and a better parent for doing it.
You deserve to be happy. You cannot fix her. Do not sacrifice your happiness because of her suffering. You can choose to put yourself first- in fact you have to because you don't have a parent who can prioritise you.

This is a good summary. Wishing you strength OP

She will be miserable either way.
Tell her the DC are older it is ruining their Xmas too. you cant condone her lack of acceptance of help. She effectively has chosen to be unwell, or at least try to alleviate the knock on problems that come with it.
Sorry cant do this anymore to your DCs

I gave myself permission not to see my parents at Christmas many years ago.

I know people are focused on the potential impact on your children (and you have mentioned they are getting old enough to begin to understand) because avoiding this sort of misery being passed on to another generation is important. But also, I suspect, because they recognise a woman who puts herself last and hope that appealing to your mamma bear side will be more effective at getting you to do what you need to do.

However, I want to tell you you need to stop putting yourself last. In many ways, how she is with or around your children is irrelevant.

You hate having her there for Christmas. She upsets you. She makes you miserable. She takes up all the energy and joy you want to invest in your family over the Christmas period and wastes it. Leaves you worn out.

This is reason enough.

You matter as much as she does - and should matter more to yourself, just as she matters more to herself. Decide what you want to do that will be effective for her (and I mean in life in general, not particularly for Christmas) and do that and only that. If she doesn't want it, she doesn't have to accept it, but you shouldn't offer anything else just because she doesn't like what you are prepared to offer. You do not owe her.

Her mental illness is tragic, but it isn't the only thing that got her in this state. She has had free will all her life, even though affected by her mental illness, she hasn't had to turn away from all the things that could help her entire life. She has some responsibility for the state of her life now. You do not.

You need to protect your children

You don’t need permission.

protect your children from this.

enjoy a Christmas in peace. You do not have to sacrifice yourself for this.

OP From my experience, I think the reason you mind her behaviours more now is because you have children yourself and it's made you realise how less than ideal your childhood was and how poor her parenting was. You can understand why these things happened and perhaps forgive them because of the circumstances but it does make you see the parent in a different light.