This is complicated. Daily Fail can fuck off.
My mum has been unwell for some time (lifelong chronic health issues) and this week has been diagnosed with advanced cancer which has spread around her body.
I am an only child and my mum is alone - no living relatives except for a distant brother living overseas, no husband, no partner etc. So I am in a very difficult situation.
My mum and I have a very strained relationship. When I was little she was an alcoholic and was diagnosed with schizophrenia and as a result was sectioned many times- she has not been sectioned since I was little however and just relies on antidepressants since. Of course, I have great sympathy for anyone with mental health issues but as a child - especially with the alcoholism - this was very difficult to cope with. My dad and her used to physically fight a lot and I was mostly cared for by my Gran and Grandad.
I was always quite frightened of my mum growing up. She was controlling and unpredictable. As a child she would shout at me a lot and I learnt to become a carer to her really. This continued throughout my life - I lived with her until I was 29, through my first marriage and having my now late teenage dd.
When my first marriage broke down things really fell apart between us as I finally woke up and realised how controlling she was. Little things like she told me my now ex dh was “brave” for leaving me (he cheated on me and left me for an ex he’d found on Facebook) and would turn off the WiFi when she went to bed as she thought I was on it too long chatting to people etc (I was 29 at this point!)
Long story short, we each purchased houses (I had been a high earner and we had owned half each, my Gran had also left me some inheritance) and I then met my now dh. She was absolutely vile to him for reasons I don’t understand at all and she would tell him he was a bastard that had “taken her best friend away from her” (me). And so on. For a long time I went very low contact with her, I had another child in those few years, she has never really spent much time with him and I would always be there for contact - ie once a week for a couple of hours.
About 7 years have passed since all this. I have tried - as has my dh- to forget all her initial terrible rage etc and put it down to her being stressed / mental health etc. Despite this I still feel very angry with her and I know other people would not have continued contact. Mum has never and will never apologise for anything she has said or done wrong as she doesn’t believe she’s done anything wrong. When she has these intense aggressive episodes she says she can’t remember them - I’m not sure if it’s drinking or mental health or whether her saying she can’t remember anything is her way of getting out of saying sorry. God knows.
So now she has been diagnosed with advanced cancer and I am feeling very conflicted. On the one hand I am very sorry for her, as I would feel so for anyone and of course she is my mum.
On the other hand I am struggling because when I tell anyone they fall over themselves to say how sorry they are and how awful it must be as she’s my mum etc and I don’t really feel that way.
I feel a sense of duty and a sense of responsibility but I’m not sure how else I feel. To add to my difficulties I have my own disabilities and I am struggling with the way all the (long distance) hospital visits etc are taking it out of me. I don’t want to say anything bad though or do anything bad and regret it in years to come either. I’m so conflicted.
Has anyone gone through something like this or can relate?
I feel almost guilty, like I’m not allowed to feel the way I do really. What’s making it worse is she is very good at being nice to other people and puts on a good front and they just see her as this sweet old lady, but she has this dark flip side. To give some indication of how bad she can be she was recently blacklisted by the ambulance service for being abusive and they refused to come out to her....! So I do know I’m not making it up but that’s how I’m made to feel at times.
Thank you to anyone who has got this far....!