Hi all, I have a problem I'd really appreciate some help with if possible. A bit of background-I'm 32, a mum of a 5month old baby girl, but I also happen to have a mental health condition-Schizo-Affective Bipolar Disorder, which basically means I have both schizophrenia and bipolar, which I inherited from my dad's side of the family.
Despite this I've been doing well on medication, and have tried my best to carry on and live a good life-I completed a degree at uni, set up my own business, and was a successful burlesque performer and actress for the last few years.
I got pregnant by accident, but was very happy as I thought I would never have children cos I'd messed up my body so much when I was younger and had anorexia.
However, I knew that as a mother with mental health conditions I would need even more support than most new mums, so I took the decision to move back to my parent's home town in Dorset, from Cumbria where I had lived for six years, so I closed my business and moved down with my partner.
A bit of family background-I had a very unhappy childhood cos of abuse and neglect, and ran away from home when I was 18 after my parents beat me up. When I told mum I was pregnant she promised to support me and help with the baby, and be there for me if I my condition got worse as a result of stress or hormones.
However, a couple of months after moving back in with my folks, I got a call from my doc saying I had to stop taking my meds immediately as they had caused my white blood cell count to reduce to almost nothing, so my life and my unborn child's were at risk. It doesn't take very long for my symptoms to return if I don't take my pills, so two days later I was already on the verge of a breakdown, and was very ill cos of the blood cell count thing, and my psychiatrist asked me to come in to the local mental health unit.
I did, and my partner and parents came with me. I had to wait a while before anyone could see me as I wasn't booked in for an appointment, I didn't mind, but my mum got very agitated and started slagging off the staff at the top of her voice which made me feel very uncomfortable and I started to get stressed. there was also another patient who was waiting to be seen and mum's behaviour was clearly making him anxious.
I wanted her to stop, and asked her several times but she wouldn't. she was on the verge of being abusive to the staff, I thought it was cos she was worried about me and didn't like seeing me in a mental health unit, but it emerged that it was cos she had planned to go and visit my grandad that day and she wanted the staff to hurry up so she could leave. I ended up in flood of tears and in a right state as I was feeling out of control anyway, but she got angry with me, said she was leaving to go and see my grandad who lives 50 miles away and walked out, leaving me in bits, rocking and shaking.
WE had an argument yesterday because despite her promises of help, I never see her even though she lives 2 miles away, she doesn't phone me from one week to the next, she's babysat twice for a couple of hours, and even though my baby was born a month early by emergency c-section cos my meds made her heart rate drop dangerously, and spent the first 3 weeks in hospital with baby in SCBU, she didn't even call me for two weeks after I got baby home, never mind come n see me.
So we had this argument n I told her I was still upset about her abandoning me in the unit, and tried to explain why-but she started screaming 'sod you' at me!
So my question is, should I just give up n move back up to Cumbria where I'll have lots of support from my partners side of the family but will basically hardly ever see my family again as they've already said they would never come n see me in cumbria cos mum has a bad back n can't deal with long car journeys, or try to sort it out with my folks? The problem is I just can't forgive my mum for what she did, and she isn't remotely sorry, maybe if she admitted she'd let me down then I could forgive her.