How to deal with aging mother when there is no (healthy) relationship?

[Asabat]

I am a bit stuck as to how to proceed with my largely estranged mother at the moment. We are v low contact but currently quite jolly in emails, but I am very very cautious about what I tell her and how much we are in touch. I have not seen her in person in 10 years as last time we met I was so upset and freaked out by her and it was affectiong my kids. She is a strange and difficult person, possibly with a personality disorder and was very difficult and abusive mentally and occasionally physically when I was a young teen. She has a very odd relationship with the truth which I still find destabilising. I moved out at 13 to live with my Dad and step mum, who have been wonderful, because she was so unstable and cruel.

She is 80 now and has reported heart and breathing issues in a couple of recent emails. She lives in some kind of sheltered housing - not really sure, but I guess is dealing with the various health issues of being 80. She has been on her own for a long time and seems to cope.

I feel awful and I don't know what to do as things get worse. Not caring and supporting a parent as they age and ail feels cruel and is not like me at all, but I cannot get more involved with out sacrificing my mental health. Interactions with her always descend into toxicness - with her wanting more, rewriting history, distorting reality and then slips into being awful to me - I have tried in the past. It sounds so nebulous and melodramatic, but she has the most terrible effect on me. Writing this I feel sick and anxious already. Distance and low contact has been the only thing that I have been able to cope with over nearly 30 years. It was bad enough that I don't take her calls because they were so difficult and upsetting. She has not had my mobile number till I gave it to her yesterday.

I see so many good and loyal daughters on here looking after parents in all sorts of difficult circumstances and with complicated relationships, but I can't do it. I can't get involved in her life and help. I don't like her, I am scared of her but I feel huge guilt about just leaving her to her life. I knew this was coming eventually, but I just don't know what to do. I feel awful and guilty, she was a terrible mother, but she is now a vulderable elderly woman with health problems and entirely alone. There is no reconcilliation to be had and not much point, she doesn't understand and also she doesn't actually know me at all and has never really tried to, and beyond a very superficial level really doesn't actually care. Do I owe her care?

There is obviously a great deal more history to our relationship, and realistically she hasn't asked for anything yet. Is it enough to just check in a bit more regularly and I guess, wait till crisis point? I am scared she will call whether to chat or with emergency news. Please don't say. "but she's your mother" I have been told that my whole life, but that is exactly the problem!

You don’t owe her a thing.

Beung in touch with her at all is very kind and grown up of you. I wouldn’t underestimate the benefit to her of an occasional email. It may be all she can really cope with as well.

Do you need to check in more regularly? Why?

If you’ve ever had some therapy, why not have some more now? You could do a piece of work to develop some responses to particular requests or situations, so that you don’t end up sucked in to a much bigger role that isn’t possible or advisable.

I have had a few rounds of counselling which have been very helpful and yes it looks like I am due again now as it bubbles up again. I think the thing I cannot reconcile is that leaving her to cope on her own is not who I am and feel awful, but at the same time, I cannot help her without such huge cost to my own stability.

First of all, you are assuming there will be a crisis or help needed. Maybe there won't, especially if she is living in sheltered housing or similar, other people or mechanisms may be in place to deal with this.
Second, no-one 'knows what to do', forget that idea.
Third, and most importantly, please do not feel you have to make yourself ill over someone who showed you very little care throughout your life. You don't deserve that, not do the people around your who do care for you.

She was never a proper mother to you. In fact, she was so bad that you had to stop living with her in your early teens. There is no obligation on your part to increase contact with her. It will add very little to her life but will ruin yours. It isn't worth it. Keep your distance.

There are lots of good and loyal daughters on here who have been pushed to breaking point and whose elderly parents are entirely unappreciative about the sacrifices their daughters have made to support and care for them. Don't be one of them.

She sounds truly ghastly

Does she ask to see you?

I would keep my head down op

she failed you as a child. Don’t be sucked in after you’ve been out of it for a decade

She has not had my mobile number till I gave it to her yesterday.

that was a mistake op. A big mistake

don’t make another one

"But she's your mother" is a statement issued by people whose mother was anything but toxic/narcissistic/violent/emotionally abusive/emotionally distant/disinterested. Furthermore, it's almost incomprehensible to them that a mother could treat her child or children in such a way because it goes against everything that motherhood should represent.
My mother was very similar to yours from what you describe, OP. I would say you have been very generous having any contact with her at all. She's in sheltered housing and she's managed to get to 80 even though she's been alone for most of the time. There are wardens that look after the residents. I would advise you to leave it to them and just continue with low contact. It really isn't worth the damage to your MH to do any more than that. And please don't feel guilty. Your mother has made no effort to repair the relationship with you over the last 10 years. Nor has she looked to increase the level of contact with you. Perhaps, this is as much contact as she is capable of?

You don't need to leave her on her own. If she's in sheltered accommodation, there will be a manager who will oversee residents' needs. If she isn't, should anything happen, ASS will swing into action. You may be contacted in this case, you are permitted to decline to get involved. https://www.ageuk.org.uk/ is a good resource for all things 'aged people'.

Please don't say. "but she's your mother" I have been told that my whole life,

by whom?

because these people you should also be estranged from

@Asabat I think the thing I cannot reconcile is that leaving her to cope on her own is not who I am.

I know people who bite the bullet in this situation, saying: "She was who she was as a mother, but this is who I am as a daughter." Not sure if that resonates with you at all, but I thought I would pass it on.

Oh god, thank you all, am having a bit of a weep, but with relief. These replies are so helpful to hear from people who get it. But this: "She was who she was as a mother, but this is who I am as a daughter." - is my problem.

As I get older I understand her difficulties (with hormones, with her place in the world, with the breakdown of her relationship with my father) and I feel like she wasn't evil, just inadequate and unsupported, but but as a child I couldn't be the one to solve that (though god I tried).

I think though that I need not to borrow trouble by anticipating crisis, and I have to keep reminding myself my perception of the world is not hers, so I always suspect she is less bothered thatn I would be. I will continue to do teh infrequent updates and check in, but try not to offer more. When crisis comes, if it does, I will deal with it then.

All sorts of people all my life. Good and bad actors. People find it realy hard to believe mothers can be awful (which is odd because I spend my life thinking I am an awful mother).

Op get yourself back to therapy
and don’t do anything more than you are already doing for your mother

and be prepared for her to blow up your phone

You are a lovely person. She was a bad mother. Really objectively, which of these (lovely person or bad mother) deserves the most love and compassion? Because you have to offer yourself kindness as well.

She’s in assisted living/sheltered accommodation so she’s safe. And there are people around her. Don’t do something to assuage guilt which will just lead to more and more guilt. Which it will, because that’s who she is.

My mother was foul. Verbally and sometimes physically. I’ve seen her once in the last year and that was once too often. I used to wish my dad would leave and remarry as yours did and I was constantly walking on eggshells.

So I’m another one giving you permission to keep your distance! Not that you need it. Good luck OP. Hopefully she’ll stick to emailing and won’t bother with the phone.

@Asabat Honestly I feel you and everything you are saying. It was almost like reading this from my own future self. I had and still do have an awful relationship with my mum. We are currently NC but over the years her, life events or circumstances have drawn me back to having her around but this quickly changes into another trauma cycle and soon the minimising, the blame, abuse and rewriting history come back again leaving you feeling even worse for falling for it again.

You are a kinder person than I am because I know in my heart that when she's at the end of life I really won't care. I also have had the "she's your mother", "you'll regret it once she's gone" lines my whole life even from people who have seen the worst of this and it annoys me because all I associate with her is pain, plus she has never been their for me so why should I extend my own human responses to her.

My advice would be to do what is best for you and your own sanity, try not to let guilt and your caring nature trick you into something damaging to you. However if you do decide to help, go in with your eyes wide open because you will likely be in a more vulnerable position for the cycle to continue.

You are not alone, and i as others know what you are talking about.

She gave birth to you and that is what pulls you to her “the invisible cord”

But if she could not look at her own childhood with insight as to how she can improve her own life and that of her children, then she was lost a long time ago.

Many of these mothers know their own failings deep down and are bitter and resentful if their own daughters are different and achieve what they did not.

How you interact with your mother should be front and centre about your own emotional survival.

your mother is the living past she cannot change anymore than the past can.

So whatever you chose to do, be aware there will be no resolution or reconciliation.

It is a very sad thing to know but her death will release you.

And for me the death of my own mother.

i know i will cry at her funeral for what i never had, not for what she was.

I am not sure why you feel “awful”, whether it’s social pressure or something else. You mention people who have wonderful relationships with their mother and I get that, but that’s not you or your experience. The fact that you have established low contact and kept it that way for years is such an achievement!

A warning ⚠️: if you go back into the “fray” now when your mother is starting her 80s it will be much much harder to distance yourself again should you find the need to disengage. Unless there is some pressing other reason, you could find yourself getting into a very messy and perilous situation. Prioritise your own health and happiness.

If you can afford/find a counsellor/therapist to peruse these feelings it might be helpful (also for the support). I found I needed to return for a short period of therapy when my mother was older.

Trust me @Asabat you are not alone. But as someone desperately trying to pull out of the orbit of M and her toxic family after many years of being NC or VLC, I know how you are feeling and how hard it is.

Your Mum is safe and supervised in sheltered housing. You can have as little or as much contact as you want.

Please don't sacrifice yourself to look after her.

OP, many years ago I read an interview with Noel Gallagher of Oasis.

His father was a horrific sociopath who abused him, his older brother Paul and their mother. Everything from violently asaulting Noel, destroying their possessions, eroding their mother's self esteem and forcing her to work 3 jobs while he spent his wages on booze.

He once called their mother one evening when she was at her factory shift job and told her if she didn't come home right then and there, he'd set fire to their house and kill baby Liam and little Noel. (When she got home, the boys were alone in the house and Gallagher senior was nowhere to be seen - he'd left the boys after the phonecall to go down the pub on a bender. Didnt come home for days)

Noel was no-contact with his dad since the day their mother packed a bag and fled the home with the kids. But he said people would ask him why. Surely his dad wasnt that bad? But- he took you to Manchester City's football stadium to watch them play!!!!!

Noel's sarcastic response was something like: He wasn't such a bad dad after all, eh?

Please don't feel you have to explain away your decision. It's something that must be gnawing away at you now she's older, and ultimately it is your decison whether or not you want to be involved in the future... but you owe her as much as Noel owes his dad. Nothing.

A parent has one job. One. There is no excuse for a parent to abuse their child. Not one. Not trauma, not mental illness or ill health, nothing. When you empathise or sympathise with someone who has hurt you repeatedly, you are playing into the abusers' scheme. They don't deserve a shred of it.

You are a truly wonderful, phenomenal person to have made it into adulthood with your empathy intact and your ability to still care/have concern for your mum... but you deserve better than being drawn back into an unhealthy dynamic.

Take a leaf out of Noel's book. Put yourself first. Don't sacrifice yourself and all the hard work you've put in.

And fuck the tossers online or elsewhere who might judge you or play the old 'but she's your mum' card.

They're almost always narcissists or bullies themselves, filled with horror at the thought of an adult child who broke away and stopped the cycle. That's how narcs and abusers reproduce, so naturally they want to shame and bully people who have ended the cycle.

All my best wishes to you. 🩵 Listen to Oasis' Live Forever... 'lately I don't really wanna know how your garden grows, 'cos I just wanna fly.'

Take the advice, don't let the past try to get its grubby hands on your self esteem. You're worth every inch of the freedom and the life you've built for yourself.

**(there's a lot of wisdom in Noel's very Irish-Mancunian brand of musical melancholy).

The way you can empathise and relate to her struggles with hormones, her own upbringing, maybe societal attitudes to separation/divorce(?) etc shows you’re a bigger and more sympathetic person.

I can do this with mine, now I’m menopausal, I think back to how she must have felt. But she chose to take it out on her children and be sweetness and light to her friends, for instance, and that’s a choice she made, so she wasn’t just a victim of life’s circumstances, she had choices and made bad ones.

Karma
She reaps what she sows.

Don’t feel guilty!

This. And get a new mobile number!

Feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the responses today. I actually feel uncomfortable when other people say how bad she is, and feel defensive of her! She is just another a flawed human being, but then I remember as people have said that she made choices. Also when I have detailed what actually happened to counsellors, they have clearly confirmed that it was grim and difficult and abusive. But still my head says - it's no where near as bad as some people endure.

I feel so pathetic that I can't just get over it though, at 50, I have a pretty happy life, great family and friends, gorgeous kids (I means its as complicated and variable as anyone's life). My need for unconditional love from a mum (and while absolutely fabulous as my stepmum was to me - literally saving my life - it's not unconditional either) is still so strong. And there is something in me that still loves her on some visceral level, and wants to save her. Compassion is a bugger, but god I wish she would disappear, but I feel like she will be around for ever. I am going to be 80 myself and still haunted by this. But as PP have said I will grieve what could/should have been, not what actually was. I think I am alsways gireving this actually.

I first had counselling before I had my first child because I was so scared of being like her. And on some levels I have been - my hormonal difficulties have been very similar to hers and it breaks my heart that she went through it all without support or proper understanding. She once said to my SIL years ago something along the lines of: i seem to be being punished forever for the mistakes I made, which breaks my heart. But then I remember that my body goes into revolt when I see her and the upset has dominated great chunks of my life. I also remember that other than wanting to claim mine and my kids successes, she genuinely has no real interest in me or them and actually hasn't really ever tried very hard. I will continue with occaisional pics and carefully edited news.

I won't be changing my number, but will block if she abuses it in any way.

Apologies that was long - thank you all so much for helping me work it through. I always reccomend Difficult Mothers by Terri Apter, may I should go back to it myself. Can't, unfortunately afford therapy or counselling right now.