Hi all,
Just looking for some advice. My mum has been mentally ill for a long time - by that I mean she has a couple of anxiety disorders which mean she’s registered as disabled.
She nonchalantly told me about six months or so ago that she had been diagnosed as diabetic - but as she’s only mentioned it once and my MiL was told she was pre-diabetic then not diabetic at all I got muddled and couldn’t remember.
I was texting my mum yesterday as we are driving to see each other this weekend and asked her in the middle of the conversation - a simple “are you diabetic? I can’t remember”. Her response was a series of increasingly suspicious questions, she’d removed “love mum x” from the messages immediately (I know that sounds ridiculous but it’s something she does as soon as she thinks someone is attacking her) - I tried to stress that I had just forgotten, it was an innocent question and explained where the confusion came from (with MiL). This culminated in her saying she “wasn’t a fool” and “knew there was something going on”. I expressed to her that I was really sorry if it was a sensitive subject - as she’d mentioned it before I didn’t think she was. (I don’t think that was the problem by the way - but I wanted to say it just in case).
By this point I was crying hysterically. I told her I wasn’t trying to do anything untoward with the information and I was simply enquiring after her health, and that I was really sad that she would think I was doing something sinister as a result. I deliberately didn’t get angry or react to her her anger because I know that will trigger her. She told me to not bother contacting my stepdad about it (“I’m turning my phone off now - leave me alone - and don’t start on him - he already knows.”)
The shock of it made me hysterically upset. It took about an hour and a half to stop crying (shock and upset mixed with pregnancy hormones).
I know - based on the previous history - that she will not apologise or seek out reconciliation. I’ve never once received an apology from her. It’s always been down to me to seek her out and offer an olive branch.
I should say there’s quite a lot of history here - a couple of years ago I found out she’s been bad mouthing me to my other family members for almost my entire life, to the point where they seem to think I’m a bad person. Unfortunately she’s been raised to believe she is a victim, which isn’t her fault, and the whole family panders to it.
I’m PAL - this is my fourth pregnancy and I’m almost 12 weeks. We were intending to tell my parents in a few weeks’ time. But at this point I’m not sure how to approach it or if I want to put myself through more contact with her right now. But I also know that she will consider it unforgivable if she’s not told - and isn’t the absolute first to know. She does know that we’ve had IVF but isn’t aware of any outcome yet as I didn’t want to tell anyone until at least 12 weeks due to past MCs.
Just to be clear - it’s not that I want to try and weaponise the knowledge of my pregnancy (and if I did leave some time before telling her, I wouldn’t tell anyone else in that side of the family, it would be her and everyone or no one) - my reluctance comes from how volatile and sensitive her mental health seems to be, and knowing that too much stress right now is risky for me to take on for my DC so early in a sensitive pregnancy.
My question - what would you do in my situation? The next meeting is likely to be fraught. But I’m also likely to be beginning to show.