Would you help a parent in this situation?

[feelingbadinadoormatway]

Been NC with DM for years . Recently she contacted me and I thought I will keep it limited as I’m aware via siblings she has a terminal diagnosis.
We’ve spoken briefly a few times . I’ve tried to keep it to neutral topics it’s been ok.

I was NC due to emotional abuse when I was a child and teenager and I left home very young.

Yesterday she called me as she is feeling unwell and asked me to please help her next week with walking her dog once a day and taking her to some appointments and shopping. I was quite shocked she asked. I got a bit muddled up and just said I wasn’t sure and ended the call. My
siblings have now asked can I please help as they are doing so much and need me to step up as well ?

I don’t feel I can do it. But I feel guilty ?! Why ???? I know logically i shouldn’t feel guilty

Can you couch it ashelping your siblings at a difficult time. Or, if you can't do it, pay someone else to?

I can’t afford to, I know DM could I think the most I could manage would be to help organise a dog walker / taxis etc and she pays

Could your siblings help her to arrange a dog walker, if they can't physically help?

She's using her terminal status to hoover you back in. And guilt is always a massive weapon in these sorts of dynamics.

It is OK to stay non-contact/low contact - her diagnosis doesn't change who she is as a person or the past.

You have to decide what you can live with, but you don't owe her anything.

She's not asking little things either, it's full on start doing chores for me on a regular basis.

I’m going to ask and if they can’t / won’t I think I could arrange it but they / DM can just be invoiced. It’s making me feel torn as I like to help others but I can’t forget what was done to me

They must be desperate enough to ask. You've just found excuses not to help. So the rest of your siblings help and presumably have been abused too ?

Part of me is scared that she may have genuinely changed ? This will sound mad but I feel I grieved for her when i realised she didn’t love me ? I accepted it. If she had changed and I reconnect then when she dies I lose her again ? That probably all sounds ridiculous

My mum was in your sibling's position, her three brothers wanted nothing to do with my nan (understandably) however it really took it out of my mum, her eldest brother did eventually step in and I know it was only to support my mum, and having support like that meant the world to her, my nan is now long dead but my mum is closer to her eldest brother than to the others

Hi OP. Firstly, I’m sorry you are in this position. Secondly, it seems no one else in this situation is quite on the same page as you.
You have been NC for years, well done for deciding and enforcing this - it’s something I’ve not been able to commit to myself as I feel I will still be the most hurt party. But I also have a very stressful relationship with DM who completely decimated my self worth as a young teen. I’ve fought hard and worked on myself to be the person I wish she’d helped me be. Please bear in mind also that my DM is a narcissist so my opinion will be given through the scope of trying to protect myself/you in this situation from this,
Personally I’d say no to the request, if it were my DM I’d know that one request will lead to another, will lead to another, will lead to another. If your siblings are also asking for help I suspect they’d slacken off a bit when you start helping, and expect you to pick up the slack (expect to hear “but we’ve been looking after her for X months and need a break” or “it’s your turn”). It absolutely is not your turn if taking the turn would damage your mental health.
You’ve already said you don’t feel you can do it, so there’s your answer. It’s so hard going NC, and hard to maintain (especially if the other party still tries to keep in contact), if this is what has worked for you then you need to work to maintain it. Or switch to low contact but you still need to protect yourself and your heart. Going NC is a decision I’m sure you didn’t come to lightly and you need to remember the patterns and behaviours you endured that lead you there - you will be opening yourself up to that once again. Equally, only you know the level of guilt or remorse you may feel if something happens and you had not helped more. Personally, I’m pretty ok with being low contact forever no matter what circumstances change.
I found the Audiobook ‘you’re not crazy, it’s your mother’ useful for the discussion about choosing low or no contact. (I skipped all the therapeutic tapping stuff!) it’s on audible.

Hope this helps, go with your gut xx

no they were not abused

I understand your feelings of guilt OP, I think I would feel the same in your shoes (NC with my mother for over 3 years). However I would be honest and tell my mum and siblings that I can’t help. I know that if I did it, any of it, I would feel as trapped and powerless as I used to as a child.

How do your siblings feel about you being NC with your mum?

What?

The other siblings having also suffer abused does not mean OP isn’t allowed be NC/LC with her mother. They could do the same as her.
Her mother is an abuser, they don’t deserve free dog walks- even with a terminal diagnosis. It should not have to be said!

The siblings have made a decision to help.

Op doesn't have to make the same decision.

They tell me often ‘you only have one mum you need to let go of the past ‘

Sounds like she is trying to guilt trip you. You let them take an inch they will take a mile. I say don't get involved with it.

Easy for them to say when you were scapegoated and abused as a child and they were not.

How sad that you say she didn’t love you but loved your siblings and didn’t abuse them.

Has she never even apologised

This is infuriating, yes I only have one mum but she half starved me because I wasn’t losing my ‘puppy fat’ quick enough. Obviously we all only have one mum but some aren’t fit…

No when I used to bring it up she would just cry and say how I wouldn’t let her forget it and how she was stressed and couldn’t talk anymore

No I wouldn't help at all, she can rely on the siblings

That's really manipulative.

For some reason though I keep thinking of her alone and scared and I want to cry and then I feel guilty but I can’t bring myself to help and it’s making me feel awful

But I also remember being alone and scared myself and her laughing at me it’s as if she is two people to me the mother she truly is and what my mind wants her to be and that’s why I struggle

I think a lot depends on whether you want a relationship with your sibling(s) they will not necessarily forgive you for not helping out and they may not accept what you are classifying as abuse - especially if they had the same upbringing and experience and not think it was a problem.

We don't know the full story here so cannot advise you whether your experience as a teen trumps need now.

There’s a small part that has hope for the ‘ideal’ the typical mum whose love you take for granted and never think about and I KNOW I haven’t got that but I’m having to fight to not fall in to the trap of wanting her to have changed and just getting hurt all over again.