I’m feeling a bit at the end of my tether. My mum has depression, started with PND when she had me and has had depression all my life. She is quite bipolar - she will have periods of being very positive, busy, etc, and then periods of being extremely low, negative, unable to see anything good, etc. We cycle through this as a family pretty regularly, my lovely Dad just thinks she needs ‘cheering up’ and has very little insight.
My issue is, my (shallow) well of sympathy is running dry. Isn’t that an awful thing to say. But she will not get treatment, says drugs don’t work and various excuses with counselling - waiting lists, etc. I’ve just spoken to her on the phone and her negativity made me want to scream. Life is pretty good, for all of us at the moment, but her pessimism just drives me up the wall. I have to work quite hard not to follow her pattern, and I find it incredibly hard when she makes no effort to break the cycle. Any advice? Am I just a horrible person for getting cross at her? Not to her face, but it affects our relationship because I avoid speaking to her when she’s like this.