Am i a complete bitch

[lighthouse]

My mother is now pretty much wheelchaire bound and suffers from various illness. This i might add is due to being obese. Throught my childhood i have had to look after my 4 other siblings and had a pretty crap childhood due to her inability to do anything for us due to her size. Very rarely do i ask her to babysit my DD overnight as i know how awkward this is although she has a perfectly capable husband (my stepfather) at home as well as my sister 18.

She rang last week and said to me plan a night out as we will have DD for the night, i get a phonecall yesterday saying they will have her Sunday for a few hours instead my mothers legs playing up. Thankfully my sister has offered to babysit here at home for me instead. I phone my mother clearly a bit pissed off and she says i never ask how she is. I get angry and frustrated that she lets me down constantly and lies through her teeth about things and she wonders why i never ask how she is! Tonight i told her that i never ask as she is always ill and it frankly pisses me off. She could have done something about this a long time ago when she was still able to get herself about.

Am i being unreasonable for being angry at her? As thid is all self inflicted and she has never been able to do motherly things because of her size. I even had to get my DH to come home from a week away in london 4hr drive, once because i fell ill and was unable to look after her and couldn't ask my mother to help me beacuse she was too large to manage the stairs for the loo.

Please tell me if i am being a complete bitch here.

I think you are being horrible about her size, tbh. Her lying etc is a different issue but your OP seems to focus very much on the fact that she is overweight.

I'm sure she's not exacly overjoyed at having to spend most of her life in a wheelchair and living a very restricted life as a result.

If you have had to put up with her being obese to the point of killing herself, then you would understand. She has diabetes brought on by being huge, ceralitis in both legs due to the weight, alsorts of illnesses everysingle one of them being weight related. She is killing herself and won't do anything about it and i am supposed to be sympathetic.

She is 5ft 1 and about 30 stone +

Imagine the daamage that does to a body.

When DD was due, i couldn't go shopping with my mother because she couldn't get about. I was heavily pregnant and unable to push her chair. I have missed out on a normal childhood. And so have my siblings.

Although she could have done more to help herself, it doesnt really make her illness self-inflicted IYSWIM.

It's not at all surprising that you feel resentful if childhood was comprimised because of this. There are obviously deep-rooted issues there.

It was probably unkind to blurt it all out in an angry phonecall though, especially if she had no idea you felt this way. But you are not being a bitch. Just handled it badly.

Message withdrawn

Have you spoken to her since the phonecall?

Blimey you are definitely a bit me, me, me and then some

I'm sure she deliberately carries all this extra weight just to piss you off and ruin her health

Honestly, what a wonderful daughter you must be! I'm sure she is as proud of you as you are of her!

i can see where you are coming from, though i have no experience of this.

i think instead of getting angry about this it might be best for you to look into some counselling, to try to work out your feelings about your childhood, so you can move on more positively in life.

I don't think you are necessarily being a bitch, just pretty angry, and that obviously has to come from somewhere. Has your mother ever had any psychological help to address the underlying issues behind her weight problem? I'm sure she doesn't want to be in this situation....

I can understand why you feel the way you do but yes you do come across a bit like you need to work some things out. Being that obese is not just a case of choosing not to eat - she must have some deeply rooted psycological problems for it to have got to that extreme. I think to a degree she needs your pity not your blame. I also agree with Dior that it's time you built your expectations of her on who she is, not who you wished her to be as a child. My mother and I had a very turbluent relationship when I was a child but I have a good relationship with her now because I've accepted who she is - and that's not who I want/wanted as a mother (particularly as a child), but all I've got and pleased for that. It's tough coming to that realisation though. I think you need to build some bridges and offer help, or at least stand back and don't expect her to change.

I think iy is hard to judge whether you are being a bitch without knowing whether your Mum has made efforts to lose weight. Does she eat excessive amounts? Has she tried diets and exercise etc? If she has and it has failed then I think you are being a bit harsh. If she has never tried to address her size, and it has meant your childhood was blighted, then I do feel for you.

Our reactions towards our parents are not always rational. My Mum died of breast cancer. We were very close but sometimes I get cross with her memory for having smoked, for having been a bit overweight, for having been on the Pill for decades. All things that upped her risk factors for a disease that robbed her of the chance of being a grandma and robbed me of having the woman I love most around for my adult life. I know I am being a bit unfair and I expect you do too, but it so hard when you see other people with happy, healthy, active parents who are involved members of a loving extended family.

Have you seen the film 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape?' If not, I think you might want to watch it (and it has a young Johnny Depp and very young Leonardo Di Caprio in it as well). It is an extremely interesting film IMO and examines the relationshiop between four living at home teenagers/young adults and their extremely overweight mother.

As for whether you are being a bitch - not sure tbh. In my limited experience, I think the best way forward is to lower your expectations of what your mother can do for you. Don't expect too much from her so you are grateful for whatever attention she can give you.

really hard question

must be so much unresolved anger there, that you need to deal with. towards your mum, and the childhood you never had

must be immensely frustrating for you, but i imagine your mum is not the happiest lady in the world......

self inflicted - well, people who get this grossly over weight often have massive underlying issues, i doubt many people aim to end up 30 + stone, immobile and dependent on others

you need to talk to someone about how you feel, and also, talk to your mum

My friend could have written the same post a few years back about her alcoholic mother. Like your mum she had an addiction that she chose to do nothing about (until a couple of years ago) that meant my friend had to bring up her siblings for a good while whilst only a teen herself. She was also quite self obsessed and phonecalls would always be turned round to her and her problems.Luckily she finally sought help and turned her life around and is like a different person now.
I can totally see where you're coming from and I think if the word alcoholic replaced the words obese/obesity in your OP people would have been more sympathetic. Your mum should have got help and she still could but maybe there does come a time where you have to accept that she may never do this and decide whether you can maintain a relationship with her as she is or not.

My mother was/is anorexic/bulimic. I lost my childhood too.

I have learned to stop expecting my mother to make it up to me. She never will, because she didn't deliberately do it in the first place.

I am a grown up and my childhood is over. I can make decision about the way my adulthood will be.

I think it's time you came to terms with the fact that your mother is never going to be the sort of mother you want her to be. Nor will be being resentful bring back your childhood.

I don't think you are being a bitch at all.

I have an aunt who is in a wheelchair and suffers very poor health because of her obesity and complete inability to do anything to help herself. Whilst part of me feels sorry for her, the other half of me is angry for her children. They have had a crap childhood because all she ever thinks about is how poorly she is and how someone else needs to sort it out with a pill or an operation. I don't think you are being a bitch but you mum probably didn't plan her life like this either. Counselling might be a good plan.

No I think it is absolutely understandable to feel anger about this

Poor you, lighthouse. It sounds like your childhood was very tough because of your mother's illness/weight problem. I'm not surprised you feel resentful and sad that she has been unable to care for you in any real sense of the word, whether that was could be helped or not.

I don't think you are being a bitch at all. However, I wouldn't rely on your ,mum for help woith childcare in the future (even if she offers) because she is obvisouly quite severely disabled by her weight and not able to take care of a child. Is your mum getting any help for her weight problem?

i don't think any of us have a right to judge your position. you've clearly been very impacted by her condition and it's come out in an unfortunate way. you both need a lot of support.

I agree that it's natural to feel angry. I recognise the feeling that you are having to watch her kill herself and somehow you are not allowed to respond.

A lovely friend told me to 'look after my own soul' when I was getting very worried about my husband pushing himself too hard at work (always has been hard on himself and me, he is 45 and his father died of a heart attack at 48..) I'm finding it a hard job to care for myself, but I think she may be right.

So if you can find ways to be kind to yourself, mother yourself even, please try them. I even found it wierd to be gentle when I put on skin lotion or washed my hair, I'd always really scrubbed before.

Flylady might not be your thing, but fly stands for finally loving yourself, and it is helping me.

I think most obesity is due to BOTH eating too much AND due to a problem that people can't control