She’s in her late 60s, grew up upper‑class, married a penniless poet and lost her money. She thhen spent her whole life telling everyone she’s “poor” while shopping at organic farm shops and living securely in an almshouse. She’s charismatic and people initially adore her, but once they get to know her the friendships eventually end.
She constantly brings up her finances for sympathy. I used to dread watching TV with her because she’d criticise everyone (particularly gay people being “too camp”, the Chinese, Black women, pretty women in revealing clothes, trans people).
She makes digs about me in front of others thinking she’s being funny. I’m autistic and she knows exactly how to wind me up, then complains publicly about how “difficult” I am. She does the same to other people, banter and jibbing comments but nobody ever laughs along. The whole family finds her exhausting — my brother is estranged after years of being drained financially and emotionally.
Her behaviour is so erratic we’ve wondered about memory issues (our grandmother had dementia for years), but whenever anything goes wrong she jumps straight to suicide threats (“I’ll take a bottle of pills and whisky into the garden”). She’s done this our whole lives and refuses proper help. The only time she showed interest in therapy was when she wanted to see my therapist, who refused.
I’ve tried boundaries for years. Nothing gets through. Even when I was pregnant she dumped all her dramas on me until I was terrified the stress would harm my baby. Everything is always a huge drama and whatever anyone else is going through, she’s having it “worse”.
Childcare is another example. She won’t do any actual childcare that would save us thousands in nursery fees because she’s “too ill and tired” (but not enough to stop her social life) but expects me to spend half my one day off taking our child to see her. I make lunch while they play and she tells people she’s “doing childcare”. I’ve told her it’s not childcare — it’s seeing our child — but she still complains if she doesn’t get her time. She does though thankfully adore our child and loves to see him,
The hardest part is that I have no friends — I’m autistic and fine with my own company — so she’s the only person I talk to. And I know if anything happened to her I’d be heartbroken, and I am thankful I have a mother. But my god, she is hard work. I just wish she would act normal. I’m fed up of feeling irritated and drained every time I see her, and I don’t know if I just have to accept this is how it’ll always be.
AIBU?