AIBU to ask DH to step back from MIL’s health anxiety?

[Stripedpyjamass]

MIL has bad anxiety, mainly manifesting as health anxiety. It seems to be reaching a crisis point. In the last 7 days she has called an ambulance 3 times, taken herself to A&E twice and called us countless times with a health issue. She calls at all hours including the middle of the night. DH has family overseas and if she can’t get hold of him she calls them, who then call us. DH spent 3 hours at her house one evening calming her down then as soon as he left she called an ambulance.

She has therapy, we’ve tried to help so many times offering solutions, she takes medication for anxiety.

DH and I have a newborn baby and a toddler. Through sheer unfortunate luck, when I had DC2 I sustained a significant birth injury which impacts my life on a daily basis with pain and mobility. I am waiting for more major surgery and I have a catheter in which is uncomfortable and limits lifting.

DH understandably is focused on helping his mum which is fine but we are literally now at breaking point. He is suggesting now that he stays her temporarily so she’s not alone? But I physically cannot manage two children alone with my health problem. He’s taking unpaid leave from work to help her, but I’m also on maternity leave so we can’t afford this. MIL is sat pots of money! I don’t want him to take the children away from me to stay with her which is his other suggestion.

I am at a complete loss of what to do. AIBU to think we can’t keep stretching ourselves like this? And that DH needs to step back? Or is there anywhere else that we can get help for me or her?

The problem is not going to be solved by him going to stay with her, it’ll just make her worse. The more attention she gets for from him, the more she will want. What is his exit strategy? If he goes to stay there he will never be able to leave.

He also needs to turn his phone to Do Not Disturb at night so he isn’t answering calls from overseas.

If she wants to keep calling ambulances, you can't stop her.

This is not a problem your husband can solve. He needs to disengage.

Yes… I have seen this happen before.

@Stripedpyjamass if your MIL had cancer and the only treatment she was getting was your DH visiting her, answering the phone etc, would her symptoms be alleviated, would she have a possibility of getting better? Treat this the same, she needs medical help, support from carers etc.

@Stripedpyjamass what kind of therapy has she had?

You say she has money, therefore if she hasn’t already tried it, arrange an intensive course of EMDR therapy. As she can afford to go privately she shouldn’t have to wait long to start the process. Personally I think it’s the most affective and quick therapy which can help her.

You say your husband has a sibling, get them to come back and stay with her, even if it’s just for a week or two. It gives you and your DH a break. If she refuses therapy, could the sibling take her back to stay with them for a while.

As a last resort, get her admitted into a private clinic
that specialises in anxiety. If you chose a residential place, she’ll have the comfort of people available 24/7 and she can get the mental health support she needs.

I’m all for supporting parents, but this has gone too far and is at the expense of both your physical and mental health, as well as being very unfair on your children who deserve to have their Dad around. In the short term until a proper solution can be found to this, is there somewhere else you can go for support? Can you move in with your parents, for example so that they can help you? Now I know this isn’t the right or fair solution and your husband needs to sort this out properly and get his Mum the proper help she needs, but it’s clear he’s not going to do that quickly so is there a way you can be supported elsewhere in the short term while you get better and build your strength up, until he hopefully wakes up and sorts this, or if it comes to it you are strong enough to walk away entirely? Your priority now needs to be getting yourself well, you can’t use your energy trying to get through to him or come up with the solutions if he won’t listen sadly.

This behaviour is very much like bipolar op. There was an interesting BBC article recently about bipolar and how there is no treatment for people who suffer from it. It costs the NHS £10 billion a year with A&E and doctor visits.

I find it bizarre than an adult man, father to two young children, with an ill wife who's recently given birth, is considering leaving them all to support his mother.

Is he leaving you OP? Because sounds awfully like it.

I’m a GP and sadly this is a fairly common situation.

Over the years we’ve had several patients like this where I work. Nothing solves the problem long term. We draw up contracts whereby they’re allowed a set frequency of GP appointments eg one per week, but it’s never enough. They demand extra appointments, and go to A&E in between.

They sometimes have some brief improvement when they’re in the middle of a run of hospital tests, but as soon as the tests are over (and are inevitably normal), they’re back to square one again.

The ones with money pay to see multiple private consultants, after they’ve exhausted all the NHS clinics. I’ve had situations in which even private consultants refuse to see certain patients again.

The feature that people like this all have in common is a reluctance to engage with counselling. They see that as being told that it’s “all in their head”, when they truly believe they have a serious physical problem. They think that offers of psychological help are dismissing their suffering.

Ultimately we usually end up removing these patients from our list (after multiple warnings, meetings, discussions, breached contracts etc), when the demands they place on the service are excessive.

I often feel for the relatives, who are stuck with them forever.

Exactly. It works like this @Stripedpyjamass as far as I understand it (please correct me if I’m wrong) and excuse my lay person’s explanation:

It’s like a graph, that keeps on going up….

Your mil complains, if she doesn’t get answered, she escalates.
Your dh intervenes.
Your mil complains and this time she is already at the point of escalation. If she doesn’t get an answer, she escalates again.
Your dh intervenes.
Your mil complains this time she’s already at the to the second point of escalation.
Your dh intervenes.
Etc.

At this point, this has been going on for years and your mil is so dysregulated. Ironically, it’s others, who are feeding her anxiety by not allowing her the space to self regulate. The only way out of it is to drop the rope. She will tantrum, she will escalate. And if may become unbearable but it’s the only way.

Your dh and you need to block her and his entire family as much for your sanity and health as for hers. I get that’s really hard to do. Eventually she will either calm down or she will need help from doctors to help her regulate.

This is not your dh’s job. And he is not helping her. he is making her worse and neglecting you and your babies in the process.

There’s a phenomenon in psychology called extinction burst, where something gets worse before it gets better. It’s a bit like if you ignore a toddler tantrum, which will then escalate before going away.

@Stripedpyjamass There's a reason she's doing this; secondary gain.

https://www.oxnerpermarlaw.com/what-is-secondary-gain/

Take away the benefits she gets from behaving this way – the attention – and she might come around. You will need your DH on board though.

This is awful op, I cannot believe how useless your dh and his overseas sibling are.

Tell the relatives to stop ringing in the middle of the night!

Tell your dh to do a once weekly visit to his attention seeking dm.

Tell him his priority is you and his dc.

Let the amb/gp sort out the obsessive calls. It isn't your responsibility.

Sorry for what you're enduring, yes nice a ds wants to look after his dm but this is way past that scenario, she sounds like she has some kind of personality disorder.

Hope your birth injury fixed soon .

Have you considered telling your DH that he tells her that he cannot take time off work and spend all other waking hours with her as family finances and your health won't support it.
If she's sitting on pots of cash, perhaps a full time nanny can be supplied if she's that anxious.

I admire your patience. I'd have completely lost my temper to epic proportions with both of them [and the overseas siblings] by now. It's not covid any more, they can get on a plane if it comes to it.

So his attitude is mummy first and wife can go fuck herself?
He doesnt think your condition matters? Or that you need his help?
Does he give a shit about you?

I think it's admirable your DH is trying to support his mother but it's obviously not improving her anxiety and probably making it worse. She needs to

What would happen if he silenced his phone overnight? Definitely, his siblings shouldn't be calling him and he needs to refuse to answer them in the middle of the night. If they are so worried they can come to stay with their mother.

MiL could compensate him for the wages he is loosing or pay for some help for you. Perhaps that would focus your DH's attention and he might decide a carer for his mother makes more sense than a nanny for your DC. You physically can't safely look after your children at the moment and need another adult around. Hope you find a solution soon.

It’s not that I don’t have sympathy for her but it is running thin as she is taking so much from my own family. And doesn’t seem to have a lot of sympathy for me and the situation I’m in. Also the complete unwillingness to want to help herself whilst having everyone run around after her!

Essentially I had an emergency csection and the surgeon quite badly cut into my bladder. i have to have major surgery soon for a reconstruction on my bladder. The consultant has said I’ll be in hospital for up to 10 nights and will have a 6-8 week recovery period. I’m worried what will happen during this time and I also need DH to be saving his work time off for helping me out then.

You and DH have tried to offer all reasonable practical solutions.

Under these circumstances, there is no more your husband can do except to leave her to keep calling an ambulance. The ambulance service will be monitoring the priority of her calls. And if they think she needs mental health services they will refer her.

Your DH should stay one night only primarily to ensure she is taking her anxiety meds and a,so to explain why he can no longer respond to calls past a certain time during the day. He should a tell her he will seek a night carer at her own cost unless she can get her anxiety under control as it is affecting his own health and his marriage.
Ensure also, that her GP is aware of this sad situation.

YANBU. I hope it can be resolved and that you can recover from your own poor health asap.

What's happening now is not fair on you at all. Your health and wellbeing matters too.

I agree

He is worried about his mum, so really hard position for him to be in.
You need to have plans in place if you are unable to care for your children in case some happens to your husband.

If something happened to DH I would go to my own parents for help. But they both work full time, so it seems unfair and unnecessary to drag them into the situation now. They also don’t live near me.

Has he considered "running" to her every time may reaffirm her fears. Shes scared and panicked and when she tells him he rushes to the rescue, validating there was something to be worried about? Moving in i think would escalate things.

I think its reasonable to want to help her but not at the expense of supporting his wife and helping with his children.

If I were DH id make MIL a Dr's appt when she isnt in a panic and go talk through how her anxiety had escaled and what treatment SHE can pursue. He can and should obviously support her but only around his commitments as a father, husband and work.

@Stripedpyjamass, I think you absolutely should tell your HV everything (no, you won’t lose your children), and also your GP, and lay it on them that you have no support, and will have no support, but do need and will need ongoing support.

As for the surgeon who damaged you - what has the hospital got to say for itself? That’s appalling.

There’s no point me saying what I think about your husband and his mother, other than that you clearly can’t rely on them for anything.

I would however be telling your in-laws to pack it in ringing your home in the middle of night. They can either come over and help, or stop making things worse. They all sound really attention-seeking, selfish and uncaring toward you.

Wow there is a lot of generalisation here and a serious lack of empathy from a caring health professional.

I suffered from severe health anxiety several years ago. It was triggered by a relative’s death the previous year. At my worst I literally sat on the sofa constantly monitoring my pulse, to petrified to move. I slept with my door open as I was convinced I was going to die and I asked my Mum (who I moved back in with) to check on me through the night when she got up for the loo. I could not function. Yes I went to my GP a lot, yes I went to A&E on occasion. I felt absolutely awful every time I did this. However I absolutely engaged with getting mental health support, I literally would have done anything that could potentially help me get some relief from how I was feeling. I spent a fortune on private therapies to try and help. The NHS waiting list was long, I actually got fast tracked, but when I was assessed I was assessed as being a too severe case and needed someone who could deal with more complex help. It took 11 months to receive the therapy I needed from the NHS. I was lucky, whilst CBT didn’t really help, my therapist did EMDR therapy on me, which they weren’t strictly meant to do, it helped me immensely though and I will forever be grateful to him for that. Other people I met suffering from severe health anxiety were all very open to getting mental health help, yes they worried that their symptoms were being missed but at the same time they were willing to try absolutely anything to feel more normal again.

It’s probably worth telling them how awful things are, and to put them on notice that you may need them.

@Stripedpyjamass do you think your DH would listen to a health professional, to find out what he is best doing. I am sure he feels he needs to be there to support his DM, but he needs to know what the best support looks like. Some posters on here who are more qualified in this area have explained what his actions are actually doing and actually increasing the anxiety etc.