It's impossible to put briefly, but I'll try. I think mostly looking for a handhold, because I do feel I don't have many options, except the nuclear one that I'm not willing to take with a vulnerable 81-year-old.
Highlighs are: Alcoholic mother. Literally as long as I can remember. Rehabbed several times (at great cost, I would add), on and off with AA, but mostly refuses to go or will go for a while before refusing to go (even though the only lengthy periods of non-drinking in her life with with AA. A few years ago, had another fall (while drinking, of course) and suffered a severe bleeding on the brain. She has made a good recovery, but it far from 100%, so has been in an assisted living facility. She has continued drinking while there, they had threatened to throw her out several times and finally have. To top it all off, I am literally the only person available to help her. Father and brother dead and no other relative that could reasonably be expected to take this on. Further, I live in another country across an ocean.
She is just impossible. Like many alcoholics, she is not a terrible person, but is not particularly nice to me when drinking, lies through her teeth if challenged. She hasn't "mothered" me since I was about 12 years old.
It just seems so unfair. I have all the obligations of a child without having had the benefit of a mother for so, so long. Just when I think I have her settled in a nice place where she is happy, she self-destructs. It always seems to happen when I am on a long awaited holiday or have major stress myself. I feel cursed. I really do. I have a husband, children and a (nearly) full time job. And I am running her life too. I now have to arrange a move, change her addresses, deal with insurance companies, find a new place, etc. I already fly to visit her every three months or so, which is exhausting and expensive.
In so many ways, I am a lucky person, with a loving immediate family and wonderful friends, a job I enjoy and a nice lifestyle, so I try so hard to count my blessings. But my mother is a millstone. She just ruins things and destroys everything around her while claiming she's not and lying about what's happening and then shouting when challenged. I have been to Al-anon many times over the years and received therapy. I really do know the drill. And right now, I know I just need to come up with a phrase to keep repeating to her so I don't get sucked into her denials and anger - perhaps something like, "Well, we are where we are, so let's figure out what to do now".
But it is absolute shit. I often wish she would just go ahead and finish killing herself (she has attempted suicide at least twice that I know) instead of taking this slow, tortuous route. God, it would be a relief. And then other times I'm filled with compassion for how she has completely destroyed her life. She is of course the one most harmed by her actions. Other times, I wish I had just gone NC many years ago, but I could never quite envisage living with that decision when she was so vulnerable.
I have a good life overall, but I am cursed in this area. I would not wish this on anyone.