Helping mum but she treats me like dirt

[fedddupp]

I am in an impossible situation and just want to vent really. I have been living happily in another country to be as far away as possible from my Narc mum. Any contact with her over the years was always ending badly, with me fleeing and not talking to her for a while.

She is now 89 and is relatively strong. A few weeks back she checked into a hospital for a planned observation but got respiratory infection there and was discharged in a poor state.

I had no choice really but to book a flight and be with her, nursing her to health. It was unpleasant from the start but now that she is out of danger she reverted to her old tricks of talking to me curtly, silent treatments, rude demands. nothing new.

I am currently sorting out her care, so that she can remain at home with some extra help. Plus arranging a doctor supervision. It all takes time and meanwhile she takes me completely for granted, not once asking how I am, how my family is doing without me. I had to change my return ticket and ask for unpaid leave from work to do all this. I spent huge sums already. She loftily hinted that she might reimburse me but I’d rather she treated me like a daughter and not like a slave.

in short, I am stressed, tired and anxious all the time, not sure where the next scandal or barbed comment will come from.

As soon as everything is in place I plan to return home and basically just want to forget her and to never see her again.

But I tried in the past and was still worrying how she is. Blood is thicker than water but she is a truly vile, unpleasant person- not just to me but to everyone else around her.

What I am to do (I am an only child, there is no one else really whom I can as to step in)?

So she has the energy and ability to play power games to make you feel wretched.
I'd just back off. I had family members thinking I was awful and uncaring because I put some pretty basic self-protective measures in place and stopped being available to the detriment of my own young DC, my DH, my work and income. I simply stopped caring what those family members thought of me. Once you train yourself not to care about the opinions of people who misjudge you, life is a lot less stressful.

This is great advice!

Thank you, yes, I did, just for good measure. They did not know her as I do.

Thank you, yes, I tried mentioning the importance of me keeping my job but she does not really care. But I left in the end, regardless.

You’re asking. You need to tell.

I’ve tried my whole life to get approval from my mother. I know now I’ll never get it. I will never get the relationship I would like. You’re making an enormous sacrifice to try to fix it, but you can’t fix something that is broken on her side. You need to find some acceptance and get back to your own life.