Mum and sister are exhausting

[MintyElephant]

I need to give a background on this on why I find my mum and my sister absolutely exhausting and hard to be around, I feel terrible for saying it but I’ve felt this for years.

Im in my late 30s, as is my sister, my mum, has mental health issues. My dad was a single parent from when we were young after their divorce and we were not allowed to live or be raised alone with her. I have no happy/good memories of my mum, she made several suicide attempts which I remember from a young age, I remember her manic episodes, her neglecting myself and my sister - often ignored us and laid in bed all day instead of looking after us. My dad did his best, he worked full time as had to pay the mortgage so we were mostly with our mum until their divorce.

She stayed in bed all day, didn’t take us to school (primary) an elderly neighbour did for a while until our grandparents could help, she didn’t work so was supposed too as my dad had to go to work. She didn’t get better as we got older, in fact probably worse. She’s never been a mother figure to me, emotionally there for me, I do not respect her, I do not enjoy her company, I resent her. I grieve not having a mum like how mums should be.

Anyway, I now have 2 children of my own and I have sworn they will have a mum I never had. They are my main priority. My mum always has a problem, since I was a teenager, she did nothing but burden me with her problems, could never have a normal conversation with her as it was just her unloading every issue, every problem she has on me. I have parented her not the other way around. She’s been in mental hospitals, sectioned, had to visit her (in our teens) and it was exhausting. She overdosed on pills right in front of me and my sister. Just everything has been a fight and a nightmare with her. I often do not feel sorry for her, she loves attention and often plays on things to make people feel sorry for her.
She is incredibly spiteful and thinks of only herself.

My sister, is very much like my mum, her problem is everybody's problem. I understand people have problems and worries, I do, but I do not constantly burden others with them. My sister, will message me every single day with something, any problem, always something, constant ‘moaning’ she did this in our early 20s also, her and my mum constantly messaged me/called me asking for help or just to unload on me, it got to a point it made me lose it and effected my own mental health and I went to the gp who told me to turn my phone off in the evenings and look after myself.

This is still going on now, i find them insufferable sometimes. Do people really have this many issues/problems/need advice every single day?? Honestly, is this normal or is this just my sister and mum? I am not exaggerating when I say a day does not go by when my sister messages me complaining about something, her job, her ex, her life in general, normal conversations are non existent. I do my best, I give advice, I listen.

I now ignore them sometimes as I just can’t keep up or deal with it. I am busy, I work, have two young kids, my own life and worries to deal with (god forbid I have a problem/worry) I will never block them from my life as I couldn’t do that, but I am just finding myself over it, done, do not care anymore about their ‘problems’, wish they would leave me alone sometimes and just not talk to me, I couldn’t care less if I didn’t speak to them for weeks/months. Am I an a**hole for saying this?

No, it's not normal. It's not your fault and it's not your responsibility to fix their problems.

Your duty is towards your children and frankly, yourself, first. Take care of yourself and your little ones.

Let your mum and sister sort themselves out, ignore as much as you can. It's sad but there is only so much we can all do.

You have one hell of a heavy backpack there, both from the past and now.

Your feelings are simply your feelings and if you've reached the end of your ability to be emotionally involved with their endless problems - that's human and in this situation absolutely understandable.

You only have a finite amount of emotional energy and that ~has~ to go to your own children first. That's right and proper.

If you measure the amount of emotional energy you have out in spoons, you need to allocate most to yourself and your children, as I say, and then a proportion of what's left to your mother and sister. Not all of the left over spoons. You need to enjoy your life too!

So I think the doctor's idea is a good one. Turn the phone, or at least notifications from them, off, and check them only once a day. Don't pick up the phone unless it's convenient and you want to.

It sounds to me like you might gradually find yourself stepping back from them both, almost without realising, and that's okay and quite reasonable. Neither of them is entitled to consume your life.

I do think that as family, contact once a week would be good if you can manage it. But You have to find what's right for you.

I also think you could do with talking over your very difficult childhood with someone. No child should have to carry the burdens you did.

Take care. Believe in your own instincts.

I feel for your mum and sister, severe mental health difficulties are really rough and people don't really know just how tough until they've been there themselves. You do need to look after yourself first and foremost though, not just for you, but for your children. There are strong genetic links with some MH conditions, if you let them wear you down, you could find yourself in the same position. Tell them you need to prioritise yourself and your DC, put some boundaries in place such as 'I will speak to you once a week on x day. If it's an emergency, call the mental health crisis team'.

Keep them away from your family. Your family are the priority here. I'd go NC if they can't back off

Limit your contact and just ignore any moaning. Some people don’t actually want you to solve their problems, they just like to moan. You don’t have to engage with it though so stick to some boundaries.

So sorry this sounds awful and very draining on your health and life. Listen to the audio book on Spotify ‘Adult children of emotionally unavailable parents”. Very helpful. Might also be worth you having a therapist, just unload on. It comes across like you have guilt, especially as you’re asking if you’re being unreasonable when you absolutely are not and they might help you set boundaries and feel validated x

You are absolutely NOT an ashole.

Look after yourself and your family first. Both your mum and sister sound like entitled takers (leaving MH issues aside) who thrive on attention.

Stop giving much advice. Don’t get too drawn in, have stock responses ready and dont expend your mental energy on their problems. They dont want or need your advice, they are after your time, your headspace, after making themselves feel important by occupying your headspace.

They sound exhausting.

I actually would block them. Or at least mute them and have a look at their messages once a week at a set time.

They don’t have a right to your time and energy. They are taking energy from you that you need for yourself and your children.

Put yourself first OP, you’ve done enough for them.

Why can't you block them from your life? They don't provide anything positive to your life. Your childhood with your mother sounds utterly horrific and she isn't a safe person to have contact with you or your children.

When you have a family as disfunctional as this, the normal rules don't apply so don't feel guilty about doing the best for your children by cutting off contact with your mum and your sister.

Tell them how they make you feel and ask them to stop doing it.

I doubt it will make any difference but at least then when you do block them you will have done something to try to improve things and have a clean conscience.

You are definitely not in the wrong and in fact, if you don't do this, your life will go down with them.

IIWY I would work out ways to avoid contact - mute the chats, deliberately don't read them, drop calls.

It's the old thing tho, how far are you going to go? Because they will notice and then what?

I went no contact with my abusive mother when I was about 23, I am 51 now. I sent her a letter. She didn't dare reply. She tried a couple of times to make contact but I dodged every attempt and that was it. But I had to tell her, and I was afraid of what would happen. In the even, nothing happened.

So I ask you, what do you think you'd like long term? because once they know what is going on, they start with their behaviour. If you tell them honestly and then block them, that might work. If you don't tell them and just avoid them, you may end up dragging it on for longer and feeling guilty.

You are not an asshole! That is an awful lot to bear. I understand that you’ve decided you don’t want to go no contact. When I have been through something much, much more minor, I found it helpful to put everyone on mute. That meant that I chose one way that they could contact me and I muted the conversations there so that I didn’t get notified about them and I’d only went into my phone and read them at the times that I chose. When they queried other routes not working I just said I was having problems with my phone provider. That meant that I wasn’t current constantly having my phone going Bing Bing Bing and having every second of my day either interrupted or being anxious that something was about to happen. It gave me control back. In my case they didn’t particularly like that as for a while it meant they could only communicate with me in group chat, which meant they were better behaved.

FYI, if you block someone on WhatsApp, they can still participate in group chats. But you will be able to show them that “weirdly” individual messages aren’t coming through.

People who are only about themselves don’t have the capacity to care how you feel. They are often very rigid in their self pity and can be very entitled about other people’s emotionally energy.

You can love them, you can feel sorry for them but you cannot take responsibility for them.

They will sap your dry. Your job is to start putting as much emotional distance between you and them as you can. Other people will have expectations of you based off of their idealised version of a family but you cannot be swayed by that. Just keep moving back emotionally, psychologically and if necessary physically until you can recover from your mother and sister’s behaviour. You cannot fix them. You have a right to protect your own well being from harm.