Problems with my mum - long, sorry!

[moominmama86]

I would really appreciate some mumsnet wisdom on this one as I'm at my wit's end. This is going to be a long message but thanks in advance to anyone who sticks with it

My mum and I have always enjoyed a pretty good relationship - we're not the 'best mates' type of mother and daughter and we've been known to argue! - but I love her to bits and we've always been close. However, over the last few months our relationship has really deteriorated, mainly because she is ill and I am finding it really hard to deal with. I feel awful about it but I just can't seem to treat her with the love and compassion she needs and it's really driving us apart.

Two years ago she was diagnosed with an obsessive-compulsive type disorder, where (amongst other things) she had the numbers '1,2,3,4' going round and round in her head non-stop. This coupled with a deep depression and severe anxiety problems means she has been in a very bad way for a long time now. She has seen numerous psychiatrists, psychoogists, doctors, therapists - you name it, we've tried it. She's had cognitive therapy, has been on a bewildering variety of drugs and has also been admitted as a psychiatric inpatient - all to absolutely no avail. Unsurprisingly, she feels she's never going to get better - in fact things are getting worse. She feels desperate and suicidal and doesn't want to wake up in the morning. All of this I can understand, rationally, and there's nothing, absolutely nothing that I wouldn't do to help her if I could.

The trouble is that she's now got to the stage of desperation where she doesn't believe that she can be helped, and consequently is basically refusing point-blank to engage with any therapy. She says it's all pointless. A second opinion from a very trusted therapist (who helped her 10 years ago when she had a similar problem) says that she doesn't in fact have OCD and that she is a bit of an unusual case. She has interpreted this to mean that she is beyond help and should be locked up. She constantly says that suicide is her only remaining option rather than go on like this. She spends every day sitting in the house chainsmoking and crying, asking me or my dad to help her but then refusing any help when we try, telling us we don't know what we're talking about, we have no idea what she's going through, etc etc etc. She will go and see her therapist and nod and smile in all the right places and give the impression of being, basically, fully 'in charge' and quite capable and rational - then she will come home and all hell will break loose - I have seen her run around the house screaming and begging to be locked up, and then halfway down the road in the car to the hospital change her mind and say she's fine and wants to get back home and cook dinner.

And the worst thing is that I am just getting angrier and angrier about all this. It makes me furious that she is refusing professional help, and yet is quite willing to let me deal with her daily talk about killing herself. I am losing my temper with her more and more because, whilst I know she is ill and depressed and scared, she will not lift a finger to help herself, even though she can plainly see what it is doing to the rest of her family.

I know how awful this sounds and I know that I should probably just put my arms around her and give her a hug when she starts (and of course sometimes I do!) but I can't take much more of this misery. It is tearing my family apart and her absolute refusal to take seriously any help she is offered is beginning to look more like plain selfishness than anything else. Please don't judge me - I would sacrifice pretty much anything to get my mum better but my life is being destroyed by this illness too. I have a failing marriage and 9-month-old ds to deal with, no home of my own (we live with mum and dad at the moment), no job and no money - I don't know if I have the strength to support everything... I want to be there for my mum so much but how can I help someone who doesn't seem to want help?? Should I step right back and basically wash my hands of it all? I don't want to and don't even know if I could (especially as we live in the same house) but I don't know that I can stand another day of tears and screaming and being told I have to help her and then being told I don't know what I'm talking about and that no-one can help her....???

God, sorry this is such a waffle. I needed to get it off my chest more than anything else. Any words appreciated...

How was Easter Moominmama? Was thinking of you.

Well, this is beginning to get silly.

On Tuesday, after many many months (years, in fact) of cr*p, dh and I decided that our marriage is finally over. It's been a bit of a disaster zone from day 1, if I'm honest, and some people would say that we should never have got married at all. So, in many ways, it's something of a relief.

Over the last few months, our fights, which were always explosive anyway, had begun to turn physically violent, and it has always been my feeling that once you start down that road it's very difficult to stop, and that things almost always get worse, not better. That has proved to be the case. Tuesday was probably the most awful day of my life and it was all played out in front of my mum and ds.

The really unbearable thing, however, is that dh will now be leaving the country. He is not originally from the UK, has never made any secret of the fact that he thinks 'this place sucks' (one of the many and varied issues we have been dealing with) and will not consider staying here, despite the fact that he has a job, friends and, of course, a son in this country. I have told him over and over that no-one is asking him to leave the country, and that in fact I would be very happy if he stayed to have a proper relationship with his son, but he will not.

I feel this huge burden of guilt, even though I know it's his decision. I feel as if, because I have finally called time on a miserable, unfulfilling and downright destructive marriage (for both of us), I am taking his child away from him, because I always knew he would probably return to the US if we split. In fact, it's this knowledge that has kept me plugging away at our relationship, that made me feel I should take him back when we separated earlier this year.

What the hell is happening? How did I get to this point in my life where everything seems to be collapsing around my ears?

I'm sorry - all this must just seem quite crazy. I'm aware that I'm starting to look suspiciously like one of those trolls - unfortunately this is all pathetically true. I just need someone to scoop me up and carry me away to a dark cave where I can live until everything is back to normal!

Big Hugs - I think you need to forgive yourself and accept tehre was nothing else you could have done . This is hard I know as it took me some time to get back to normal after an abusive relationship but please there is nothing more short of destroying yourself taht you could hve done and it is your Dh's choice to go not yours and you haev not made him choose to do this I think this is v.selfish of him and you should not feel burdened (spelling) by this. Thinking of you

Thanks lovely mums

Shrub, actually that does sound really tempting. I think I will look into it. I have been thinking about trying meditation for some time now anyway - you never know. You are a star for suggesting it - thank you.

Dh will be getting on a plane in a week or so and I have no real idea of whether he will be coming back or not. I have told him that even though he and I are splitting, I will support and help him in any way possible (have already given him a healthy sum of money to help him find his feet again!) if he decides he wants to come back to the UK after he has got his head together and licked his wounds in the US. It is our marriage that is coming to an end, not his relationship with ds - or so I would like to think. However, although I know he loves ds and it is breaking his heart to leave him, I really don't know what the future will hold.

I know that he has told some of his friends that I am 'in love with someone else' which is utter rubbish, but I am trying not to be bitter. I feel terribly guilty because dh is acting rather as if this has all come straight out of the blue in a previously happy relationship, which is not the case at all, but I suppose however much you know it's on the cards, the reality of a breakup is a real shock. I wish with all my heart things could be different but there was just no way I could go on living like that - ultimately it would have been utterly disastrous for me, for dh, and for ds.

Thanks again. You have no idea (or maybe you do!) how much it means to have so much lovely support and kind words.