My mother is in intensive care after having had an acute asthma attack and almost dying because of it.
She lives in Sweden, I live in Belgium and my sister is in the UK.
I have a very unemotional relationship (I can honestly say that I have no maternal feelings towards her at all) with her with very little actual contact due to what has happened in the past and physical distance I guess. My sister has more or less cut all contact due to her own reasons - and my mother makes NO effort either.
My mother has engineered her life in such a way that she is now TOTALLY isolated. She recently moved far away from where she used to be (and where we grew up) once she retired. I had her over at X-mas and she wittered on that she was loving not knowing a single soul where she was.
So now she is in intensive care - with only t-shirt and knickers and there is NO ONE that woulld be able to bring her any clothes for when she returns home.
I feel frustrated and feel that she is not helping herself here (she is in her 60's).
She lives in cloud cookooo land.
A couple of years ago I went over and brought in 5 men to help clear her flat. 70 large bin bags of rubbish were removed (this included a LOT of rotting food from the floors etc)and we did not even scratch the surface of the pig sty.
The dust was an inch thick in places - including her bedroom. Bearing in mind that her bedroom was piled up with binbags all covered in dust there is no bloody wonder that she has developed asthma.
I was hoping that the move would give her a fresh start and I spoke to her about getting a regular cleaner in to help (she suffers from general ill health as well) etc, and she of course agreed.
Has she done that? NOOOOO! I asked her whether she has been hoovering the new flat. Nope. Not once since she moved in over a year ago - and she still has not unpacked of course. And her car is still stuffed with stuff from the final move 6 months ago. In her wisdom she has gone and bought a flat on the third floor without a lift. AAARRRGGHHH
So now I am looking into flights to get over there - as is my sister. We will try and sort the flat (but is it bloody pointless??) so that she can go home. I very much doubt that the hospital would be willing to release her into an empty flat that is no doubt absolutely disgustingly filthy.
Sorry about the rant. But what the hell can I do?? Neither my sister or I are nearby. She has absolutely NO friends. She has willingly isolated herself throughout the years and is totally estranged form her own sister and more or less from her own daughters as well.
I do not have any daughterly feelings towards her whatsoever. I am just doing this because there is no one else. It scares me a bit that I feel so bloody detached.
So... I go over there this week. But that's not the end of it is it?? What do I say to her? What do I say to the doctors? Is this final proof that she is not actually able to care for herself even though she held down a very responsible job with accolades galore up until she retired less than a year ago??
AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHH!
Anyone else had any kind of experience of this???