Have just said something unforgiveable...

[moominmama86]

Oh god. Feel totally sh*t.

My mum and I have just had yet another big row and she started doing her usual 'well, you won't have to put up with me for much longer, I'm going to take all my pills' thing. And this time I just got so bloody angry and upset and told her she was completely pathetic and I was sick of hearing this and if she was going to do it, why didn't she just get on with it, then...

I'm such a sh*tty person. I know she's ill, why the hell do I say things like that to her? Why can't I just keep calm and not rise to it? I feel like I'm being emotionally blackmailed - everytime she hears something she doesn't like she threatens to kill herself. I just don't know how much more of this I can take.

Sorry. This probably doesn't make much sense but I just needed to get it off my chest.

Can you go and speak with her GP or a community psychiatric nurse? you shouldn't have to take this burden... do you seriously think she would do it?

Message withdrawn

moomin - this is not your fault. Emotional blackmail is a shi**y thing to do. It is a cruel and terrible burden to put on anyone. If she is ill, you are already under strain and presumably you have your own life to deal with too. Please do not blame yourself. Sometimes these people (I know she is your mum - not these people) but sometimes they need a 'slap in the face'. It makes perfect sense to me that you would lose it eventually. Let her calm down - you calm down and then speak again. I would be tempted to give it a couple of days though - she needs to realise that she can not control you in this way

Agree with everyone else. Threatening to kill yourself constantly is a cruel thing to do to other people, and very controlling.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but what is wrong with your mum? Is she depressed or having a nervous breakdown. The only reason I ask is that my mum is currently suffering from this.

Secur - ds and I live with her so unfortunately I can't just put the phone down

I don't think she would really do it - she's told her psychiatrist(s) that she wouldn't ever do it and it's almost become a habit to say it - which is sort of what makes it so upsetting. I think it's an appalling thing to foist on someone and am angry that she's turning something so serious into emotional blackmail.

It just started today because ds wouldn't eat his lunch. He is going through a bit of a fussy eating/clingy stage which is annoying but not a big deal as far as I'm concerned - I'm trying to not make too much of it as I'm sure it's a phase. But mum started going on about how she reckoned it's all because he's been 'damaged' by dh and I separating and the 'terrible' atmosphere between us (there isn't one, we actually get on okay now it's officially over, ds sees his dad everyday, things are fine). TBH, I think this is load of crap, and in any case I am quite capable of feeling guilty about it without her help.

I am just so tired of feeling as if everything I do and say is wrong.

Bumblelion - she's got a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which is proving almost impossible to treat, plus depresson, anxiety issues etc. It's just really really difficult at the moment. I love my mum to death and it's killing me (and my dad) to see her like this but at the same time I can only do and take so much. Ds and I moved in with them when dh and I broke up. Our separation is also apparently part of the reason she's so ill...makes me feel wonderful as you can imagine.

I'm so sorry to hear this, moomin. It brings back horrible memories of my dad's nervous breakdown in the 80's when he regularly used to threaten to kill himself - and after a while I began to think, 'Do it then'. I don't know what to suggest but just wanted to send hugs - please remember it your mum's illness that is saying unforgiveable things, not you.

A boyfriend's mom (who was also my landlady and became a good friend to me) used to sometimes come up with these suicide threats when she felt her children were letting her down... I remember telling her off for it. My mom had her own variation on it -- not active suicide threats, but "Doesn't matter how much I abuse myself because you don't care, anyway and I'll just go to Netherlands where euthanasia is legal anyway, when I get too ill to finish myself off then" (couldn't persuade her euthanisia isn't legal in Holland, either!).

Maybe this is selfish, but I really don't have sympathy for that kind of emotional blackmail cr*p. Even when it arises out of mental illness... it's unacceptable.

My mum is currently suffering from a nervous breakdown but this time (this is her 5/6 time it has happened) I feel she is more anxious, worried, nervous - rather than just being depressed, if you know what I mean.

The second to last time it happened was just after my dad died, I had my youngest child and me and ex-DH were in the process of splitting up.

My HV told me that however hard it was for me, for my own sanity and peace of mind I had to take a step back and not be so involved as, at the end of the day, it doesn't actually make her any better or worse - I just end up feeling worse (if that makes sense).

It is very hard to see my mum like this and it breaks my heart, but I have had to learn that there is nothing I can do to make her better.

She sees a psychiatrist (who doesn't help much, but saying that, I can't see what the psychiatrist could do anyway).

It is very very hard for me (as I am sure it is for you) to see my mum like this. When she is well (and she can be well for years) she is so "well" - outgoing, sociable, living a life. At the moment she hardly ever goes out, doesn't do food shopping (this is one thing I do do for her), doesn't drive, doesn't clean the house - actually, hardly keeps herself clean and healthy - in my mind she is just not living a life at the moment.

She has got a brand new car which is 6 months old now and it has got about 7 miles on the clock. She has got 2 cars - one convertible and one sports car but doesn't drive either of them at the moment as she feels too nervous to drive.

She does drive me mad at times and I do find I get angry with her - before when she has been "poorly" as I call it I have actually hit out at her. I can remember one incident when I was driving her home from the doctors and I was so upset at how she was acting that I felt I could have physically driven my car into the tree - I was driving along a residential road with my 3 children in the car and couldn't believe that I was even contemplating something so drastic, but the reason I was feeling like that (and I did tell my mum how I was feeling) was the desperation and upset at seeing how my mum was.

Zebra - when you say about it being unacceptable - even if arising out of mental illness - I can say that whatever my mum says/acts, I don't take any of it personally - her illness is greater than how she really feels. When she does become better, she recalls some of how she has been, but not all of it and she honestly doesn't mean to hurt us, her family, with the way she is acting.

Bumblelion - your mum sounds very much like mine. She was the life and soul and it breaks my heart to see her now, this broken person, shuffling around, unsmiling, hardly talking, not going out, not spending time with her friends, not living, really. I think sometimes I get so angry simply because I feel so bloody helpless - all I can do is shout and that's so ridiculous. Sometimes I think I even shout just to get some reaction from her, because otherwise all she does is sit, cry and chainsmoke.

I know I shouldn't take it personally. I know I should ignore her when she says ds is ill when he quite clearly isn't, when she says the reason she's like this is because of the 'years of trauma' she's suffered with me (??!?) I just hate all this and I wish it would stop.

But is it acceptable, Bumblelion -- if the way your mum behaves is so upsetting to you that it made you feel like causing a road accident, endangering you, her, and your children? In a way, having kids was the best thing ever for making me detach from my mom's problems. I was forced to realise that I had other priorities in life. Especially making sure her lack of sanity didn't affect mine.

We tell our children when their behaviour is unacceptable, I don't see why we can't tell friends or other people (including our parents) the same... especially if they have lost all persective themselves. Even if it arises out of mental illness. I'm not talking about a one-off acute episode/threats, but when somebody falls into a long-term pattern of emotional blackmail, it's really not on.

No, it's not acceptable, not at all, but what is the answer? So many times my mum has made these threats and I've started to think 'not if I manage it first' - difference is I keep these dark thoughts to myself and don't burden anyone else with them (except MNers lol!) So I know where Bumblelion is coming from.

You're right though, Zebra, about children helping you to gain perspective. My ds is my life now and nothing is more important than him and his wellbeing. He gets me through - in fact I think he gets us all through.

Oh well. Just spent today helping my newly ex-h move into his new (gorgeous, palatial, babe-magnet) flat. So feeling a bit strange and tearful about all that, naturally. Then came home exhausted to a barrage of snide, unhelpful remarks about him from mum. And the stupid thing is, all I could think was 'be thankful she's involved and interested enough for once to make these sarky comments'. And ds is pooing yellow snot! Everything's out of whack right now, but it can only get better. I hope!