...totally diagnosed by me and my husband.
Its getting to the stage where we are not bouncing back anymore and I'm struggling with actually being married to the family.
*Has never accepted her children marrying and leaving her. She plots rather devious plans to try and get them to come back. She keeps reminding me that there is a bed waiting for my H if things go wrong between us. She once begged him to leave me because I was ruining his life (there was nothing happening at the time).
*She needs to control everything.little.thing. Right down to the clothes we wear, to where we go on holiday, to who we are friends with. She even tried to control what we could watch on tv!!
*Paranoid. She thinks people don't like her and are talking about her and plotting things. The GP is deliberately not giving her the right medication because there are too many old people and want her dead. Her neighbours are all 'whiz-wazzing' about her. If we say 'no' to something its because we have fallen out with her - she then passes this on to EVERYBODY until it finally gets back to us.
*ANGRY! When we visit you never know whether it is Jekyl or Hyde, and it is sometimes difficult to work out what is wrong, or it is over a minor slight from 20 years ago.
*She keeps accusing H of 'cutting himself off from the family'. He visits every month for an afternoon, goes to most family gatherings, keeps in touch with sibs, calls his mother once a week. But if she is feeling stressed she will wind herself up over a tiny thing and come to the conclusion he is cutting himself off.
*Insults me every single time I see her, sometimes little digs, sometimes angry accusations. If either myself or my H go on the defence she just brushes it off as me 'hurting too easily'. So I am expected to just keep quiet.
*is selectively helpless and has lots of mysterious illnesses. For instance she will leave the washing up for days and days until one of her children notices and does it for her, blaming it on a bad back. Then she will be seen running for a bus. We got her a cleaner but she sacked her so I suspect its her children who she wants to do things for her
- H and his brother describe how from a very young age they were parenting the mother. H was her personal therapist and would share inappropriate things with him which would make him worry (age 5ish)
No addictions or self-harm
Any suggestions on how to cope? Please and thank you. x