Anyone else dealing with a parent who is mentally very unwell?

[DelilahBucket]

I suppose I'm just looking for solace that I'm not the only one. My mum has always struggled with her mental health. From mild depression to being sectioned repeatedly, psychosis and hallucinations and currently bordering on Munchausen syndrome. I'm quite close to ceasing contact completely. The tipping point is reams of messages I wake up to in a morning with her ranting and complaining about things that happened years and years and years ago. I can't cope with her anymore. She's nasty with it too if you don't reply or say something she doesn't like. She's nasty when she goes out as well. I'm surprised she hasn't been barred from the pharmacy and doctors surgery amongst other places.

The latest round of mental health involves her being tested for every single medical thing under the sun. I don't know if she's faking symptoms. She watched Code of Silence, suddenly she's selectively deaf. My niece was diagnosed with Raynaud's, she's now diagnosed herself with Raynaud's but of course hers is far more severe and will kill her. In one sentence earlier in the week she told me she was too hot with the heat and couldn't cope but she's like ice and wrapped up in a dressing gown.

When she gets an appointment through for another test she is gleeful and excited. She spent all day waiting for an ambulance she was never going to get a few weeks ago. When I said to her if she needed to go to hospital so urgently she could just go to hospital rather than waiting for an ambulance she wasn't entitled to, it was like I had suggested running in front of a bus.

She told me she had cancer four times last year. I stopped believing her at second time onwards. She was admitted to hospital two days after Christmas, on the day we were supposed to be having a family get together. She told us she was awaiting emergency surgery. I drove 60 miles at night in thick fog to walk in and know immediately there was nothing wrong with her at all.

Meanwhile the things she has been diagnosed with, like type 2 diabetes and subsequently retina damage because she won't get it under control, these things she ignores. She went for an eye test last week and lost her shit with a nurse who told her she clearly hadn't got her sugars under control. The nurse was right and ultimately, because she refuses treatment for her eyes, she will lose her eyesight. She said she didn't care.

You can bet your bottom dollar this woman is going to be around until she's 105 years old and she's going to continue making people's lives absolute hell in the meantime. She's 73 soon and just wasting her life sat in pyjamas all day Googling medical terms and pushing my step dad to his limit. I lost my mum quite a few years ago really, she's not mum anymore. She isn't capable of being.

Anyway, thank you for reading, and well done if you managed it all! Feel free to share your complaints 😃

@DelilahBucket dear god your mum sounds like an absolute nightmare!!! I really couldn't cope with it. Can you put the phone on silent at night so you get some peace? Does she have carer's in at all or would she just refuse? Sending hugs 🫂 💐 🙏 ❤️

There is a website online I saw mentioned on here you might find useful as well, it is called Out of the FOG (fear, obligation and guilt)

I too have a mum with some similar problems it is not easy.

It is on silent although she rang me twice last night which did ring because she's was listed as a high priority contact, which I've now removed. I wake up in the morning to all the messages when I have to get ready for work but if I don't reply she takes offence and messages more sometimes. Usually when she knows I've got something important on.

She did manage to get a carer for a while but because she doesn't need one, the service was withdrawn. My stepdad lives with her and does everything for her. His mental health is also at rock bottom but he still keeps going. She's horrible to him sometimes, I don't know how he puts up with it. He was in tears last night over it all. He always apologised for her behaviour like he can do something about it. He hates taking her out because she is so rude to staff wherever they go.

Thank you, I'll look it up.

@DelilahBucket your poor stepdad sounds like he's struggling too. I hope you get some respite from it all soon x

You've just described my mum, though she's 83 and was placed in a care home late last year as her aggression towards my dad went through the roof and we were making 10 + safeguarding concerns a day (she would ring me at 3am stating she wished to stick a knife in him) She's not your responsibility or your step dad's, draw the boundaries, switch the phone off, even let him know that he's free to leave her if that's what he needs to do for his own sanity. Contact adult social care if you want to, ask for whether they have coffee mornings or day centres in her area specifically for mental health. Be aware that what you describe is how my mums dementia first started manifesting itself. She does also have something called CREST syndrome which is sometimes mistaken for rheumatoid arthritis, but incorporates raynauds as well. My mum is always freezing cold. Has mum also ever had her thyroid checked because that can also cause this sort of problems in older women

My mum is a bit like this too and has been my whole life. Always having ambulances called (nothing ever found), telling me she was going to die, that doctors thought she had cancer. Recently she told me her spine was crumbling and she’d end up in a wheel chair (didn’t happen and no mention since). Always telling me where her will was hidden when I was young as she was unlikely to make it. I’m now just completely numb and unsympathetic when she tells me her latest ailment. It’s not an exaggeration to say she’s constantly having some form of test, x-ray, MRI, ultrasound etc. mostly on the NHS. Never anything wrong. I think she’d be utterly delighted if they did find something actually wrong with her as she’d love the attention and ‘poor you’ comments. She’s 75 and bar one episode of pneumonia she’s one of the most well people I know!!

It’s made me quite hard as a result, I find it difficult to feel a lot of sympathy for people going through minor ailments which I know is unfair. Something has to be very serious before I’ll actually be really concerned

Gosh, how bloody awful for you.

yesterday i took my mum for her first cataract operation.

what a hullabaloo she made afterwards.

i kept Her at mine overnight, but she is a drama lama of the first order.

was glad to get her home.

My MIL has completely stopped all interests and everyday activities and has isolated herself from the world. Her sole occupation is her health - she is 86 and is only focused on what is wrong with her. Absolutely no interaction with grandchildren or friends. She rings every week to give us updates on her latest ailments. We have arranged carers, food deliveries and gardeners all of which she has a problem with. Her house resembles a hospital ward with piles of NHS letters on every surface. She enjoys the attention of doctors and nurses describing her last round of tests at the hospital as ' a wonderful day out'. Unfortunately they found yet another thing wrong with her which she took great delight in informing us about. It's sad she doesn't enjoy time with her family or friends. She is mobile, mentally sound and capable but insists on 'taking herself off to hospital' for every perceived ache or pain. She is missing out on life, friendships and family - i can't understand the mindset.

I have health anxiety and some health problems myself so I do get it a bit but must make a mental note to myself not to stress the DCs with it as I age.

It can be fear of the inevitable i see it all the time in my job.

Mine started with a serious health problem a few years back, I can imagine ageing and people around you dying doesn't help

It's not, she's been like this for longer than I've been alive. Her mother was the same. There were even elements of Munchausen by Proxy when I was a child. I was always being dragged off to the doctors. She tried to get them to prescribe me valium when I was 11. She was sectioned shortly afterwards.

Thank you, that's very helpful. She has all the contacts from groups but she won't leave the house most days because you know, it hurts 🙄. When my stepdad takes her out in the wheelchair she's so unbearable with others he's embarrassed by her, but it's the only way to get her out. I've tried taking her out myself but she lives a long way away from me.

She lives near my sister but she's washed her hands of her a long time ago. Same for my brother. She bad mouths my sister all the time, and attacks me for not replying. Meanwhile my brother never ever replies to her ridiculous messages and he's excused with "but he's so busy". I run two businesses as well as being a mother and wife, but I just bear the bloody brunt of it. As those closest always do.

@DelilahBucket sorry didn’t mean to offend.

I meant given her obsessions the looming of her age and her inevitable death is just going to make a bad situation worse.

personally if I where you i would cut contact, you have an ABSOLUTE right to a life without all of that crap.

Agree with @Bannedontherun . You don't have to respond to her messages. Tell her (and your stepdad) your phone will be on mute, then mute/archive/block her number/ 'the conversation ' depending on what app or phone you have.

She is absolutely NOT entitled to your attention.

Support your stepdad to get better social/MH support by all means, but you do not have to take her accusations and abuse. Your sister decided not to, and I can completely see why she made that choice.

Given the severity of her MH problems she should have some kind of care co-ordinator and also what about a social worker?

Maybe some of that would take the pressure off you

All these problems (if they are real) are most likely related to her type two diabetes being out of control.
when you dont control your blood sugars, your organs slowly bare the brunt and will eventually start shutting down. It also makes you unable to think clearly, as effiectively your blood is like acid when your BS is high.
id tell her unless she gets her diabetes under control which is most likely causing all these symptoms (its evident if shes already loosing her eyesight due to it) youre not interested.

I wonder if she could go on mounjaro for the diabetes.

I had something similar with elderly MIL about uncontrolled high blood pressure, refuses to take meds for it. It caused an 'eye stroke' and now she is partially blind but refuses to wear glasses, or to take meds for the blood pressure, even denying the blood pressure has anything to do with the eye stroke.

It's really frustrating but I have given up now trying the persuade her to take the tablets or do things like reduce salt intake (also puts salt on everything) Just in time think another stroke will happen, or she will fall due to not wearing the glasses.

If she is on antipsychotics these also cause metabolic syndrome and problems with blood sugars and cholesterol. Wouldn't be surprised if this is adding to the problem. She should be getting yearly checks and ECGs from the GPs for this (or the MH team)

It's very very hard. I had similar experiences with my mum, she used to phone me multiple times a day, did actually say that her aim was to make me have to live with her and be her carer. She also had problems with alcohol and ended up with 12 hospital admissions in a few months - she drank so much she destroyed her pancreas and then had diabetes as well. She also then developed some cognitive impairment as well and is now in a nursing home. I don't have any contact with her any more and my life - and my own family's - is so much better for it. My only regret is not doing that sooner.

You can go NC, OP. It's okay x

@Orangesandlemons77
She's on so many pills she rattles, including Mounjaro. She sees a doctor every week and she is given more pills which cause more side effects and so more pills are given. I've said to her a thousand times that all the medication she's on is probably not helping but she "needs" it. Still she eats absolute crap and sits on her backside all day. She's developed a hunch back because she just sits slouched, reading or watching TV. She knows she needs to eat better and move more but the truth is, she doesn't want to be well. There's a big back story from childhood that I don't know about fully, but it is why she is like she is.
Unfortunately there is no physical help available to her, she's deemed well enough to not need it and my step dad looks after her. She had a visit from the psychiatric nurse a few weeks ago and they just said "she's clearly not coping at the moment, keep her pills out of reach so she can't overdose". Great help that one.

@justkeepswimingswiming
A lot of it is because of her diabetes, and she knows it, but she doesn't want to be well.

She also has problems because she doesn't have a routine and she doesn't sleep, so she's constantly tired, and we all know the effect that has on mental health. I tried suggesting a variety of things to help her with a sleep pattern. As soon as it started working she stopped and went back to how she used to do things, awake until 4-5am and they staying in bed until mid afternoon.

I'm sorry you had to go through all of that