Abusive alcoholic mother in hospital - I am her servant. Please help.

[AdmiralData]

First of all I am sorry for posting about her again, a previous thread had helpful suggestions that I appreciate.
The situation has changed. I am 25 and Ive got a 10 month old son and a DH. My abusive alcoholic mother is in hospital on the mental health ward. She is even now demanding that I go down and deliver her 'groceries' and wants me to magically make clean clothes appear. The last 18 months she has broken up her marriage and my DF has cancelled the mortgage so she is now effectively homeless. She has spent thousands of pounds on alcoholic and speed and has not bothered to buy clothes.
I have to organise her employment and support allowance as well.
My siblings have disowned her. I don't drive and she has just played fuck on the phone because the new clothes I bought have been worn and she doesn't have more coming to her when all the other patients have DAILY visitors and clothes etc.
My DH works all week except wed and thurs, I am only visiting tomorrow because I don't want to spend my family time running around after her. I have no support in caring for her and I don't want to anymore but worry what will happen if I cut off all contact while she is in hospital, even though she treats me like scum. I am not wording this well at all but I am at my wits end. I have a severe anxiety disorder caused by what was apparently a traumatic childhood and my hair has fallen out as a result.
This weekend I have to help my dad move all the stuff from the marital home into his new house too, if my mother finds out the house is gone this week she will go batshit. If she turns up on my doorstep I have to turn her away, I can't have her toxicity around my son and husband.
I sound very 'poor me' but I am literally at my wits end. If anybody has any sage advice (again) I'd appreciate it.

My parents installed an answering machine to screen all their calls as they were getting so many nuisance calls, with the voice mail explaining they won't pick up unless it's genuine! Could you try that if you have a landline? Or just block the call on your mobile? You don't have to answer you know. You've done a great job and sound lovely :)

Something that you, Admiral and you, Goodness need to really take to heart, is that these woman - your mothers, in a technical sense only - are like rusty buckets that can never be filled however much love and care you pour into them. They are fundamentally holed and the love just pours straight through and leaves no trace. They will never be satisfied no matter what you do, because they are incapable of being satisfied; and they will never change because they don't want to change.

You cop all the blame not because you deserve it but because you are there. However much you have tried to make their lives better, it has failed, not because you have failed to help well enough but because they sabotage every effort. Eventually you have to say enough is enough, I will flog this dead horse no more. And try, try, try to get over the irrational but understandable sense of guilt which has been hammered into you from birth by your abuser.

Goodness - The one thing I don't think I feel anymore is guilt for my mother and her problems. Every attempt I make at helping her get thrown back in my face and she is very 'entitled' iyswim?
I'll bet money that you're a great mum, a great person and that your kids harbour no negative memories of their childhood. :)

All other PP's, I am a few weeks away from a new mobile phone and then it'll be auf wiedersein (?) to my 'Mother'. Thanks again.

That sort of makes sense Annie, well certainly after years and years of coming back from uni to deal with "I'm about to kill myself" calls, then losing a job partly after looking unstable after running left right and centre after her... and she still claims at moments like these that I don't love her...

BUT in her more with it moments I see her as a frightened, confused, hurting person with mental health issues,who regrets so much and I want to treat her as I'd want to be treated....

But I have children now, my own mental heatlh is incredibly fragile, especially when I get communication from her - and I need to learn where to put boundaries... but my idea of normal/appropriate is so warped after 34 years of crap.

I might send her a birthday card. She will be devastated if I don't invite her to my daughters birthday afternoon... but it would be the first time in several months and I don't KNOW she will be ok do I? I can't, I don't want a scene, but I know she will be hurt.... and then it will be all my fault again.

Sorry waffling with my own issues I realise - but I just couldn't believe how similar your "story" was to mine. And sort of shocked at all the nc responses, kind of proving to me how warped my own view of normal is...

Thanks so much for sharing and I'm so impressed at your learning to redefine your own self and boundaries and all that. I've got a way to go!

Your story is similar to mine except I'm one if the escapee siblings - my younger brother has taken the same role as you.

You owe her nothing - she is an adult her decisions have got her where she is. You can't change her it her behaviour. It may be difficult but I would break any contact with her, refuse to be at her beck and call - she will never appreciate you or show any thanks. Alcoholics are selfish, self centred and can only chane that themselves

Good luck, live your life and enjoy what you have made it - you've done that through sheer determination so be proud!

I am a mental health social worker with a caseload full of service users exactly like your mother. I can only echo what mamadoc previously advised. Cease contact. Let social services step in. There is always help available from services should she wish to engage - she will not be left unsupported (unless through choice). She is not your responsibility, nor your job to fix. Look after yourself.

Hi Derby - I know I'm not the OP, but its really "good" to hear you say that. My mother's assertive outreach worker used to ring me every time my mother was sectioned/in AnE (including day after wedding day, at work...) So that I could be there to ease things when the police had to take her... I felt I really "ought" to as if I was ill I'd want help.

I find it so so so hard to walk a path between seeing her "ill" and as "making choices". She's bi polar as well, and once she stops taking her medication she gets really ill. And if I was ill I wouldn't want to be left...

So I don't know whether to just not be involved when she's being abusive ( I don't thin kI'm going to invite her to my kids birthday for the first time ever) or what to do when she comes "back" to normality and all singing and dancing. Do I just switch back into happy families?

Sort of - do I just flip back when she's in "good" phase, or keep distance at all time or?

I know you can't answer it, and I'm not the OP, but this thread is honestly the first time I've thought it might be ok to distance myself from her...

Of course it's ok Goodness. Caring for someone with a serious mental illness and/or addiction issues is EXHAUSTING. I go home at the end of the day - carers don't. I have a massive amount of respect for the families/friends of my service users as they are often run ragged by the practical and emotional demands their loved ones illnesses place upon them. Also, I try to remain mindful of the tendancy for services to over rely on families to support the service user (as, bluntly, it's easier/cheaper) and not to perpetuate this in my own practice. If a carer says to me 'enough' then I fully respect that decision and would never judge them for that. You are a person in your own right who must preserve your own mental health/physical health and other relationships first and foremost. Learn to detach with love (Al Anon literature talks a lot about this). You can't fix your loved one, nor should you try. Recovery from addiction or mental illness comes from within, it cannot be 'done to' someone. Take care

Goodness, I have no personal experience of this but am I right in thinking that your DM's 'bad times' come about because she decides to stop taking her medication? And when she is on her medication, that's the 'OK' times? If so, then surely she has control over her own actions, and is deciding, when lucid, not to take her meds - and then you pick up the pieces. How much insight does she have, when well, into what it's like for you - if she knows, and chooses to anyway, then that is 'hostile fire' and grounds a'plenty for you to withdraw your support. Have you had that conversation in her better times?

She stops taking meds when she thinks shes all healed. Its really really common with bi polar and part of the illness.sigh.

her alcoholism started as self medication years before the bi polar was diagnosed. Shes full on - periods of losing hair/ malnutrition/ usually doible incomtinence. All the usual hard core alcoholic stuff.

absolutelt no point talking to her drunk, but I think shes "just" nuts or lightly drinking. I'm the scapegoat, brother golden child.

when well she just dismissses it as "I was ill" and genuinely doesnt remember most of the nasty stuff. She used to believe I got her sectioned (as if it was that easy!) As she remembers me being there and in her mind she thinks shes fine (no self awareness when ill). So I get blamed!!!

I usually try to reassure her that I know its because shes ill. But my desire for a mum and my duaghters to have a grandmum is so so strong I tru to meet up with her, invute her over etc whem she is well. But lookinh back she doesnt take me ip on a lot of it.

I love that I can be myself with her whrn shes well...but shes less well and less often. I'm thinking I need to start treating her as a distant relative when.she does finally visit. And not confide in her etc.

its so hard. When shes well I want to be close to her... I.crave it... but its not like that at other times

I'm quite mixed up :s I dont have close family or close friends I'm myself with that openly if it makes sense. It's lonely.

I am humbled by your compassion Goodness, and Admiral's, you really deserved so much nicer mothers! You didn't have them but you have not repeated their pattern.

You need to have such a robust plan of action in place in case your compassion gets the better of you! Goodness, may be you can warn your mother you will have zero tolerance of her behaviour if she fails to keep up her meds and then stick to your decision?

Your mothers need to bear full responsibility for their actions without you propping them up, the consequences might be tough on them but you have to realise any help is just 'enabling' them to carry on treating you badly.

You can now concentrate on being the loving, wonderful compassionate mothers to your own dc and being the mother you never had.

Stay strong xx