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.😞

I've not got time to write a long post right now @SimplyPie but I wanted to let you know that you are not alone. I think someone has already mentioned the stately homes thread (it's in relationships). Please have a look at it. There are lots of us there all at different stages of dealing with the fallout of lunatic parents.

You're in a coercively controlling relationship with your own mother, which is an absolutely horrible place to be. Many people have already said reduce/cut contact so I won't go into that, but having done it, I know how incredibly difficult it is and that you have to be really ready before it's an option. I did want to ask if you're getting any help to manage the anxiety that happens when you've got a parent like this and to say if not, please look into it.

I also wanted to say, though I know this is painful, that your mother doesn't like your children, she's using them to control you. It's like the abusive spouse that can be wonderful on occasion, tricking the partner into thinking the wonderful is who their partner really is and the abuse is their fault and they can fix it if they just try hard enough. It's part of the cycle of control. She knows the children are your weak spot. And the children know what she's like (trust me on this).

Please come to stately homes.

Seeing your updates OP, this is far worse than I'd thought. She is utterly vicious to you. She is nice to your kids because she knows you won't tolerate her behaving to them how she behaves to you. She saves it all for you. If you could record her being like that to you, and show it to your children, they will be horrified and no longer want to see her and love her, because her behaviour is so nasty and twisted.

It's more difficult when the person presenting the terrible behaviour has been damaged, but that should not stop you from calling a halt to this. If a savage animal attacked me and was chewing my leg, I wouldn't be thinking about how badly someone must have treated it, I would be trying to get away from it permanently! You need to save yourself because you can't make things better for your mother and she enjoys punishing you, she is getting positive feelings from hurting you. And that shouldn't be allowed to continue. Be like your brother and save yourself and your children. Please. You cannot make things better for her, only she can seek help to change and she doesn't want to.

Being nice to your kids is to show you that she can choose how she behaves, and she is choosing to harm you. That's never going to change.

OP she wants absolute control over you and to destroy you. You are her emotional punchbag. Only you can take her power to affect you away.

With people this unhinged it's best to not let on that you now see reality. Use the disengage and grey rock techniques to create distance that is not immediately obvious to her.

Send her nice messages of, "I'm sorry to hear you feel upset but the weather's been kinder lately", and other non-commital sentences. Learn to write lots of paragraphs that mean nothing but wish her well. Include things like "we all thank you for your best wishes" (even when she doesn't say it). Copy and paste messages with minor edits with no guilt so she's reading the same boring nothingness. End with "all well here will be in contact soon".

Stop making plans with her as you're too busy. Have contingency answers of what's happening if your DCs ask - school stuff, work stuff, got to get shopping etc. Sure we can see her sometime...

When eventually you do need to see her again meet outside the house with your DCs for a lunch/drink be prepared to use, "hmm", "I see", "ok" a lot. Lots of smiling and nodding. Thank her a lot, "lovely you are here, how nice isn't life great?".

When you are a happy person in a happy bubble you become a boring grey rock to her. She gets no pleasure from seeing you happy and being non-commital and vague gives her nothing to twist.

Over time disengage more, be a slow rolling back grey rock. Expect more suicide threats, screaming, turning up. DONT REACT think grey rock, grey rock, grey rock!

OP I agree with the PP who said your mother has obviously got some insight and control over her behaviour because otherwise she wouldn't be able to so easily switch behaviour between being horrible to you (who she knows from experience will take it) and your kids (who she knows you'll protect). She could bite her tongue with you and your brother - she could plan to visit you for a shorter time if she knows that she will start getting angry and disregulated after a short while. I think (and I'm thinkong back about my own mother when I say this) the reason she doesn't try any strategies like that is because she enjoys the fighting. Have you ever noticed that her nastiness seems to escalate as the day goes in? I swear they just keep going until they finally get a response out of you. I think where this ends is that she eventually escalates it past your breaking point- like for example she has a go at one of your kids - and then you will end up NC like everyone else. That's where I ended up.
You're a compassionate person and you don't want to do that - I daresay you will want to try and stay in contact as she becomes older and more frail for example - so you could frame things in this way: what if you stop letting her be involved in things like Christmas that she can ruin for you, so that you preserve your energy for keeping in (low key) touch with her long term?
You really deserve a decent Christmas, and generally, to be able to enjoy the happy life you have created. It's not your fault what happened to her, and as they say, you shouldn't have to set yourself on fire to keep her warm.

OP's mum isn't a safe person for OP to be around. The fact that she can be super nice to OP's children while being utterly toxic to OP means that her behaviour is a choice and that her cruelty to OP is targetted and deliberate.

She doesn't get to be rewarded with an invitation on Christmas Day from her daughter that she continues to abuse. OP deserves to have a Christmas Day that she can enjoy without fear and anxiety.

put your children and your husband and yourself first for a change!!! DONT have your mother over to RUIN yet another Xmas!!

This OP. Your Mum ruined yours and your DB childhood. Don't let her spoil your DC's memories of childhood Xmases. Don't invite her for Xmas. Instead get your DH to look after the kids and you go and take her out on Boxing Day somewhere. Get her out of her house. Limit the time you spend with her to say 4 hours. Then go home to your DH and DC knowing you have done your bit.

Thank you everyone.

She says it's all me though.
I've had conversations and arguments with her over the years about her behaviour towards me. And always she says it's me.
She says it's me who makes her angry.
She says it's me who makes her sad.
She says I'm the cause of her depression.
She tells me she only gets upset because of me.
She goes on and on and on about how terrible I am for not seeing her every week. It's true I only see her monthly. She says seeing her monthly is nasty of me and is the sole reason she feels bad, all because of me. So she spends years arguing at me that I upset her because I don't see her every week, and then when I do see her she either spends the whole time snapping at me or arguing at me or giving me silent death stares, or if she isn't doing that she spends the whole time moaning endlessly about someone or something else.
On the rare occasion she does leave and I think "oh that went alright this time" she'll text afterwards to tell me she's angry for some perceived slight. Her paranoia is off the scale in a really negative way and apparently I look at her in a way she doesn't like. I've spent my entire adult life being told the tone of my voice upsets her.
I spent my childhood being told "I love you, because you're my daughter, but I don't like you as a person."
She always tells me other daughters see their mothers more than I see her and she scolds me for this. Says I've made her feel excluded and unwanted.
A lifetime of being told I'm selfish.
Endless digs at me about me being too busy to see her.
Every time I ever say to her that I dont like her anger, she will always tell me it's me who makes her angry. That she wouldn't be angry or depressed or sad if I hadn't made her this way.
She tells me repeatedly it's my fault for not seeing her enough.
Yet I've got 2 young DC to look after. A demanding job that takes a lot out of me. A DH who works long hours and isn't around much in the working week.All the general domestic chores to do during the week. Taking DC to clubs. Helping them with homework. Both DC have SEN and need a lot of input. They are wonderful and I am devoted to being the best mother I can possibly be for them, I am trying hard every day to be a parent to the absolute best of my abilities, and that takes a lot of time and emotional input. And then ive got her shouting at me or bombarding me with huge texts arguing atcme that I don't see her
Meanwhile she has nothing in her life. No friends. No other family to see. No groups. No volunteering. No evening classes. No charity work. Nothing. Her days are empty.
And then she screams at me that I don't see her eough and that I am solely responsible for her mental health.
I've told her I want her to get help for her MH so, so many times in the past, and her answer is always, always that her mental health is only bad because of me.That if it wasn't for me, she wouldn't have bad mental health.
And now she's telling me shes going to kill herself because of me, it's my fault, she says, becaI don't see her enough.
It's a complete head fuck and it's making me feel ill.

Sorry, that was a bit of an outpouring.
I'm just suddenly not feeling very ok.

OP, you would not be responsible for her ending her life any more than you were responsible for her depression at any point during your childhood. She is unwell, and refusing to help herself. She is using you as a punching bag. You sound like a good person, and a good mum. If the advice of an internet stranger is going to help you today, please listen to the things that have been said to you on this thread. This is not your fault. And what she is doing to you is not ok.

She is responsible for her mental health.
She has treated you appallingly throughout most if your life& is looking for a scapegoat, you are the obvious, & infact only target. Everyone else gas run a mile.
She is a deeply damaged & unhappy woman.
You have come through all the misery & abuse, you function in your job, you are devoted to making your DC lives cared for & happy, You have a good marriage.
Dont let her destroy your mental health as well as her own.
Reply, if I make you so unhappy, we’ll stop all this now. Its what you are able to offer or nothing

What @BartholemewTheCat said. This is not your fault. Her mental health is not down to you. You're the scapegoat. Please believe that. You're handling a lot here. Deep breaths and be kind to yourself.

It's hard when your eyes are open to the treatment you've received but they are now , you are not responsible for your mothers mental health only your own . You need to put yourself first

OP, I'm genuinely only repeating what so many other posters have said because I think you need to have as many supportive people around you as possible.

It's not you, it was never you, You're the only one left and the focus and the scapegoat.

Please be careful of your own mental health, you have a lot on your plate without this, and clearly the anxiety she causes can be overwhelming.

Honestly this is not normal. You’ll never do anything right so stop trying. I think I’d be very clear that you both need a good period of no contact because it’s clear that things aren’t working. Tell her that this includes messages and voicemails unless there is a genuine emergency. If she threatens to kill herself send her the number for the Samaritans and adult social services in your area.

Personally I think that people who genuinely want to kill themselves (as opposed to people who are just using the threat for emotional blackmail) tend not to keep announcing it…

Focus on your kids- you may not realise it but tying yourself in knots over your mother’s terrible behaviour will be affecting how you are with them, and that’s just not fair.

But then you do have to stick to it yourself for a decent period of time, if you crack and text her you’ll be back to square one. Give yourself long enough to recover and decide whether you want to be in contact again and on what terms. If that means after Christmas, or even longer, so be it.

If you stop seeing her I wonder if she will be more likely to engage with professional support?
Even if it means she has to have a crisis of some sorts for that to happen sadly.
She is mentally ill and this is not your responsibility to manage alone .if she won't accept professional help that's on her.. please protect yourself and stop contact.

It's ok. Write it all down, get it all out. It helps.
And I am not surprised you are not feeling OK, I don't think anyone would be, in the face of all this.
OK, some things that might help - imagine your life as a stage, with lots of people on it. She is one person on your stage. You have lots of people on your stage - friends, husband, children, colleagues, casual acquaintances. Some have bigger roles in your life than others. But she is DESPERATE for the spotlight on your stage. She makes noise, threats, is angry, stamps her foot, is vicious and cruel and does everything she can to draw the spotlight to her. And she succeeds, most of the time, because she is so bloody loud. She is really hard to ignore. But in doing that the spotlight gets drawn away from others. Others who just quietly love you, and appreciate you and all you do, and who just want to be in your life because of you, without agenda. They get drowned out by her poison. And the effect of the spotlight being on her so much, is that you get this view of yourself that is based on what she says to you and about you. It's based on the vitriol and anger and threats.
But here's the thing - you are in control of your spotlight. So imaging yourself turning it, and shining it on your children, and see how the feelings in you change when you do that. I bet it will feel better.
As long as she is in your life, she will try to draw the spotlight onto her. But you get to choose if you boot her off your stage entirely, or keep her on there, but you need to be in charge of that spotlight, and keep it away from her.
Also, imagine she is hitting you (as she is, verbally, psychologically, emotionally) and telling you that it is all your fault she is hitting you, as you are so awful. Wrong, hey? Well this is wrong too, as it is just as damaging.

You can't fix her though. How she is, is entirely unrelated to how often you see her, or how you look at her, or even sniff in her direction. She is just blaming you. You cannot be different, as you are not doing ANYTHING wrong and even if you did everything she wanted, it would be something else.

Have you thought about having some therapy for yourself? To help you to work out your relationship with her, and what you want to do from now on? As well as getting some support.

And just remember - you deserve for your life to be more than being her punch bag.

Keep talking OP.

Us strangers can see that what she is saying is not true. She's a bitter damaged person but you've had a lifetime of it from when you were small and it's all you know. None of this is your fault. Her behaviour is her choice.

I'm sorry you have such an awful abusive mother. Please don't let it make you ill.

If she turned up unannounced at your back door she clearly lives near enough that she doesn't need to stay days over Christmas. Invite her for Christmas lunch and take her home afterwards.

It is of course difficult with challenging relatives but just see her as little as possible without cutting her off completely.

You cannot fix your mom and despite her sad life and the demons it has left her with she has made you her whipping boy.
She's done this even when she has shown she is capable of treating your children with love - to some degree, so she has awareness of what is 'acceptable' behaviour.
I think whatever you do you can't/won't win so choose the thing that benefits the majority and leave her at home.
She hasn't tried to give you and your brother the childhoods you deserved yet despite that you have achieved what she hasn't by giving yours a loving home.
She had no role model but neither did you .
This is awful and difficult but break the pattern for once and have a lovely Christmas with your own family.

I really do think she's got an awful lot of bitterness and resentment and jealousy for you, because your life has turned out so much better than hers.

This isnt your fault though. Shes playing on your guilt to keep you close, even though she's treating you so terribly.

I understand how difficult it is to break free of this.

Do you have a daughter? Would you treat her like this? If someone was treating your daughter in this way, how would you advise your daughter?

I think you need to dig really really deep and find enough love for yourself to give yourself a very long break from her. It'll be hard because this has been such a long pattern for both of you.

But I think its got to the point its absolutely necessary or youre heading for a breakdown.

Do it for yourself and your family.

We're all rooting for you xxxxxx

So sorry you are going through this, I can relate to so much of it. My mum threatened suicide then made a fairly half hearted “cry for help” attempt. I remember speaking to the hospital psychiatrist on the phone, hearing my mother chatting and laughing with the hospital staff in the background. The Dr was saying mum insisted she was feeling better and it was a mistake, all the while she was texting me vile messages saying how I had driven her to it and it was my fault she had tried to kill herself.

The thing is OP, your Mum’s brain is broken and you can’t fix it, she won’t change. I ended up going NC and actually I think it has been good for her, a clean break has allowed her fixation with me to subside a bit and I suspect she might be more at peace now she’s not constantly being disappointed by what she perceives as my failures as a daughter (by not catering to her every whim every second of every day and daring to have a life of my own). She’s been able to focus on a couple of new relationships with “daughter substitutes” which has been nice for her. And for me it’s been a huge relief to realise that actually, I can just walk away and I don’t have to put up with that behaviour anymore. I can choose myself, and to be the mother to myself that I am to my children, that she is no longer able to be.

I am thinking of you OP. You have tried so hard to be a good daughter but it’s not possible to be who she wants you to be. Put yourself and your children first this Christmas.

Oh my, I can sympathise so much we have exactly the same circumstances. If we were to meet we could have such a good 'moan,' chinwag. The difference is I've gone through it and am further out of the mire. I am low contact so once a month for you is fine. Don't listen to or respond to any messages in between unless a real emergency. My husband comes with me when I visit so when she starts he takes control and changes the subject. It just about makes it bearable. Could you do the same? Don't let it make you ill, don't keep dwelling on it. Do things that make you happy, hug your family. You've come a long way, be proud. You can't change your mum but you can change how you react and how it makes you feel. Agree with others a short time of counselling may help. Good luck

Oh mate, I wish i could give you a massive unmumsnetty hug!!

IT IS NOT YOU!! You are very clearly a very nice person (in fact a saint to put up with all that shit!). Overly nice if anything! Can you imagine saying to your kids any of the stuff she says to you? Of course not, because it's off-the-scale abusive, and so clearly utterly untrue. There is nothing you can do to fix her, because despite her claims, she's not unhappy because of you. She's unhappy because she's not a nice person. Yes, she had a horrible abusive life, but you know what - so have many people and they don't act like this. It is possible to have been both abused and to also be a very nasty person. I think she is this.

Think of it this way - you have had a lifetime of abuse from her, and are you abusing your kids the way she abuses you - of course you're not!!

I think for your sanity I would call the police about the suicide threats (that way you don't need to worry you've not acted on what she said), and then block her totally until you feel more calm.

Yet more unmumsnetty hugs!

To add, my mum is similar in some ways. Less of the emotional manipulation, but we grew up in a home where she was angry and vicious at any moment, and we braced ourselves for it constantly.
Everything, according to her, is someone else's fault. She is competitive about everything we do, she always has to be better and this has ranged from who had the biggest breasts when we were growing up (!) to competitive gardening and house size now. She is never happy for us, only jealous. She is only ever critical. Except with my children, where she is loveliness personified. Unfortunately, my older child now sees what she is like, as she promptly dropped my older child for my younger when they were born, and now gives my older child no attention.
I have had a lot of therapy to deal with her influence on me. She now never bothers to contact me unless she wants something, she uses my dad as a flying monkey to do her dirty work for her.
I manage it by never telling them anything, by being low contact, and by being honest with people about who she is and how she is. I am sometimes sad that she is lonely, and has nothing in her life, but it's not my job to fix her, her life is as a result of her own choices and behaviours.