About my mother:
Oct. 25th, 2009 05:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmic_celeryI can see my problems clearly, and I can see how to fix them. But I don't, and that's what bothers me the most.
My mother has been breaking. She doesn't have anyone to talk to now about what's worrying her except her boyfriend who doesn't really understand her, and me. And even if I understand why she rattles on to me all the time, I don't like listening to her endless complaints and she knows it. She is preoccupied with the cleanliness (or lack of) of the house, and deeply laments her friend who recently moved mostly, I think, because that friend used to help clean up the house. She's generally in poor health, and on top of it doesn't know how to regulate herself or eat properly. This week she brought home a bunch of random canned food...which makes me wonder if she's even still thinking in somewhat logical progressions. She gets up, half awake in the middle of the night and talks to me in barely coherent sentences.
She occasionally falls into a familiar rant: She works all day, I do not. School does not count as work. She is put upon. Everyone in her life has always put her down. She feels demeaned. She brings up incidents with family members and my father from years and years ago as evidence of this. She reminds me none too subtly that I was the product of a loveless marriage. She cries. Now she's started talking about how she hates her life, how everything has gone wrong.
I wait it out. I try to listen for requests while detaching myself and trying not say anything that will set her off more.
This time around was added in the new stress of the new stupid little dog...which she bought in the first place, I know, because losing our last dog was another on the list of friends that she's lost. But she gets upset with the dog because it's not the previous dog, and doesn't act like the previous dog. It pees around the house (we've got training pads which it goes on, but they're not really serving to train her to do anything) and it finds and tears apart just about anything that it can find. She's been talking about getting rid of it, but I'm not sure if she's serious and I should help to find it another home or if it's just her melancholy talking and she'd rather have it around.
Also, we've been going to my Grandmother's weekly, to help get her groceries for her. While mom gets the groceries, I stay and get some time with my Grandmother and talk, or read something. I can't imagine how much added stress that is for my mom, especially when she is doing things like buying random canned food for us. Also, she's doing this for my Grandmother (not her mother, my father's) out of a sense of guilt and duty, half because she thinks she's the only one around who will do this weekly for her, and partly because she thinks that she didn't take good enough care of her own mother in her last years.
I know what she needs. She's told me often enough. She needs a clean and orderly house. She needs a friend who will not mind listening to her troubles. She needs constant validation. She needs someone to help her eat healthier, to go to the store with her. To plan meals and to cook after she gets off a long day of work and she hurts.
Also, I need a job so that I can help with finances.
I could do all these things. But, for the most part, I don't. I try, but not hard enough. I have enough trouble taking action on the things I need to do to make my life work and become better.
Yesterday I did nothing all day with my open textbook sitting next to me unread.
I should be able to do this. I should be able to muster enough initiative to do the things most people don't have second thoughts about. But I'm still hiding. I'm making incremental progress and it's really not enough.
My mother has been breaking. She doesn't have anyone to talk to now about what's worrying her except her boyfriend who doesn't really understand her, and me. And even if I understand why she rattles on to me all the time, I don't like listening to her endless complaints and she knows it. She is preoccupied with the cleanliness (or lack of) of the house, and deeply laments her friend who recently moved mostly, I think, because that friend used to help clean up the house. She's generally in poor health, and on top of it doesn't know how to regulate herself or eat properly. This week she brought home a bunch of random canned food...which makes me wonder if she's even still thinking in somewhat logical progressions. She gets up, half awake in the middle of the night and talks to me in barely coherent sentences.
She occasionally falls into a familiar rant: She works all day, I do not. School does not count as work. She is put upon. Everyone in her life has always put her down. She feels demeaned. She brings up incidents with family members and my father from years and years ago as evidence of this. She reminds me none too subtly that I was the product of a loveless marriage. She cries. Now she's started talking about how she hates her life, how everything has gone wrong.
I wait it out. I try to listen for requests while detaching myself and trying not say anything that will set her off more.
This time around was added in the new stress of the new stupid little dog...which she bought in the first place, I know, because losing our last dog was another on the list of friends that she's lost. But she gets upset with the dog because it's not the previous dog, and doesn't act like the previous dog. It pees around the house (we've got training pads which it goes on, but they're not really serving to train her to do anything) and it finds and tears apart just about anything that it can find. She's been talking about getting rid of it, but I'm not sure if she's serious and I should help to find it another home or if it's just her melancholy talking and she'd rather have it around.
Also, we've been going to my Grandmother's weekly, to help get her groceries for her. While mom gets the groceries, I stay and get some time with my Grandmother and talk, or read something. I can't imagine how much added stress that is for my mom, especially when she is doing things like buying random canned food for us. Also, she's doing this for my Grandmother (not her mother, my father's) out of a sense of guilt and duty, half because she thinks she's the only one around who will do this weekly for her, and partly because she thinks that she didn't take good enough care of her own mother in her last years.
I know what she needs. She's told me often enough. She needs a clean and orderly house. She needs a friend who will not mind listening to her troubles. She needs constant validation. She needs someone to help her eat healthier, to go to the store with her. To plan meals and to cook after she gets off a long day of work and she hurts.
Also, I need a job so that I can help with finances.
I could do all these things. But, for the most part, I don't. I try, but not hard enough. I have enough trouble taking action on the things I need to do to make my life work and become better.
Yesterday I did nothing all day with my open textbook sitting next to me unread.
I should be able to do this. I should be able to muster enough initiative to do the things most people don't have second thoughts about. But I'm still hiding. I'm making incremental progress and it's really not enough.
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no subject
on 2009-10-25 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-10-25 03:50 pm (UTC)Is she seeing a doctor who can help her deal with her depression, and unclear thoughts?
I'm sorry for butting in, when I don't know the whole situation, but what I say is true I think.
no subject
on 2009-10-25 07:34 pm (UTC)"Is she seeing a doctor who can help her deal with her depression, and unclear thoughts?"
She's been on anti-depressants since before I was born. I know that she has seen various psychologists over the years, but she isn't currently seeing one. The last time I brought up the possibility to her she dismissed it, and I'm wary of bringing it up again.
no subject
on 2009-10-25 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-10-26 08:53 pm (UTC)I agree with the general idea of what vegablack62 said. Do what you can to help your mother out, but you can't fix or take responsibility for all of someone else's problems, no matter who it is. If she needs a friend, healthier eating habits, and less of an obsession with a clean house then try to encourage her on those points, but don't make it your fault if she doesn't get them.
I'm not any good at taking action myself, so I don't have any advice there.