Mental Health Help me help my mom and her worsening mental health

[Seattle_Stranger]

I could type out pages, but I won't. It might be easier to just list some important details.

My mom whom I love dearly has always been sorta....well....crazy. She's very dramatic, quite self-absorbed, and seemingly loves to fight with family members and has always been in the center of SOME feud at any given time. Ever since my earliest memories I just remember her always in an argument with someone, and she would always act very erratically, she screams at the top of her lungs, cries hysterically, she hits people, holds years-long grudges with family, etc.. Basically, any kind of confrontation goes like this:

Me: Hey look, the sky is blue.
Mom: What's that supposed to mean?
Me: Uhh, nothing?
Mom: What do you mean nothing? You just said it didn't you?
Me: I'm saying I meant nothing by it.
Mom: That's so typical you.
Me: What do you mean typical me? I seriously meant nothing by it!
Mom: I don't like your attitude! You are rude and disrespectful!
Me: What attitude? How was I rude?
Mom: You called me stupid!
Me: What? No I didn't!
Mom: Yes you did.
Me: No I did not mom.
Mom: You did!
Me: Mom, I never said that!
Mom (most likely yelling now): You're talking to me like I'm a piece of shit! I'm your mother!! How dare you!
Me: Mom, come on, please, I don't want to fight with you. Please...
Mom (most likely cut me off and yelled over me as I was talking, and will continue to do for the remainder of the conversation): Oh no you're not getting away with it that easily! How can you say that to me!! How can you treat me like this!?
Me: Mom I did not call you to fight with you.
Mom: Then why would you say that me!? You are so rude! I don't know what I ever did to you, I'm a good mother!! (now hysterical crying) You know I lost my mom, I don't ever get to talk to her, I cry my eyes out every day and no one cares, and you're just going to treat me like this!! What the hell is the matter with you!! I could be dead tomorrow!! Maybe I will be and then you'll regret acting like this!
Me: Mom please calm down! This never need to happen!
Mom: How dare you! Don't you tell me to calm down!! Why are you so disrespectful!! How can you say all these hurtful things to me!! I sacrificed my life for you and this is how you repay me!

.....and this will go on and on, mostly with her screaming and crying and not letting me talk, and then ending up with her hanging up on me, and then comes a barrage of texts reiterating everything she just said.

I'm about to be 30, by the way. Been living 4000 miles away from home for almost 10 years now.

Now, obviously this is a quickly thrown together example, but you get the gist. She pulls things out of thin air and turns it around to look like it was an all-out attack on her that I had been plotting for months. She will get her "feelings hurt" and then start throwing random jabs, saying the MEANEST things a mother can say to her children. Just the other day in a conversation very similar to the one above, over something she overheard my sister say (whom she fights the most with) and demanded that I explain why I was "talking shit behind her back" as if I have a track record of doing so, she said to me "I'm ready to say fuck you all" in regards to me and my siblings when I denied the accusation...like I said, I could write pages... All in all, we're basically dealing with paranoia here, the fear that everyone, including family members, is out to get her. She thinks that anything anyone says must include some kind of subtext or insinuation, she's constantly asking "What's that supposed to mean?". She's convinced that she is the topic of every conversation, people are always talking about her and it's never good things. She's always afraid she's being left out of something and gets jealous any time she finds out anyone had any interaction with each other that she didn't know about, again circling back to being convinced everyone is plotting against her...

...so this is my normal mom. She's always been this way as long as I can remember and every single person in her life will attest to that. She was a good mother, but the way she dealt with issues was always very irrational. She was always a screamer and a hitter, I always was slapped, hit with a wooden spoon or a belt, usually just her bare hand and all her rings, she would always SCREAMMM and I mean SCREEEEEAM to where our neighbors were regularly concerned, she would say the most fucked up shit you could say to a small child, and any time she would ever drink she would actually pick on me and make fun of me. My uncle even recalled a time they had a big fight because she got drunk and was showing off by bullying me around, making me cry, he yelled at her to stop and she was just like "I'm just messing around", just to give some of an idea of how my mom always was. The problem is, as she gets older, she's getting way worse. Now, for reasons unknown, my two parents who went through the BITTEREST and UGLIEST divorce imaginable that stretched almost all of my teenage years, they are now "dating" again and living in bars literally every day. My dad has always been a partier/drinker, but now my mom is trying to hang, and she cannot handle that much alcohol. It's making her worse and worse and she is effectively pushing away every single person, including my dad. Her two older brothers are ready to stop talking to her, all 3 of her kids fled to opposite sides of the country, she held a grudge with her father until the day he died, she has absolutely no friends because she can't keep them, and now my dad is saying he's just about ready to give up on her too because she is nothing but misery. I am literally the ONLY person saying things like "No, mom needs our love and support, she needs family, she doesn't need any more fighting or anxiety!" but that too gets taken as some kind of attack.


Right now, she's insanely mad at me for something so stupid that my sister did I won't even bother explaining. We've had a couple phone calls and it always goes exactly like the example above, ending with her hanging up on me. I never yell, I never curse, I never accuse, I always desperately try to de-escalate things and that just makes her madder. I'm set to try again on another phone call today, but I'm expecting it to go similar as it usually does. I'm at the point where I don't know what to do. I want to help, I want to make her feel better and to help her stop being the center of so much drama, I want my mom to enjoy the rest of her life before she gives herself a heart attack. I can't stand to see everyone giving up on her, she doesn't need that. I just don't know what to do.

Just like my dad said "How do you tell a crazy person they're crazy? You can't, they think they're normal and everyone else is crazy." I don't want to accept that, I know there's a heart in that chest that can be exposed.

Any input is appreciated, although I'm not sure what I'm really hoping for here with this thread.

Thanks for reading..

 

[Jabberwocky]

I once created a similar thread as I too have dealt with this problem my whole life. Unfortunately for me it's quite bad as I have my own mental health problems to deal with, i.e. bipolar and it gets tough sometimes. I too am also turning 30. I have tried moving out of home but the haunting words of a mother never leaves a kids head space but you can control what happens and for this you must be selfish.

Considering you live so far away, get a new number and a cheap new phone. Give your sister this new number and make sure your mum never gets it. This will ensure that at least if anything bad does happen your sister can still contact you but not your mum. Now when you want to talk to your mum, let's say you only check the old number once a week at a set time - then decide if you want to talk or not, if not that's fine maybe next week. At least this will give you some clear headspace and you can focus on your own life which is more important in the long run as everyone else is controlling there's.

Your other option is the one which I unfortunately took and which I am trying to escape from ever since I moved back in which is hoping that your mum will change some how. Unfortunately when someone has mental health problems it can occur that they have been living in their own world for so long that they can't even see they have a problem no matter how many people tell them. They have taken the option to fight for this a long time ago rather then get the help they need. What's worse is once they get older it gets even worse as there is no going back for these people, it's some what too late in their minds or they are just fixed and the concept of change doesn't even exist any more.

Any how be selfish and do what you need to do. Remember your feelings are your feelings just as your own thoughts are. By this I mean don't let it get to you.

 

[paranoid android]

Jesus christ i could have wrote that myself which is kinda scary actually. I am very sorry OP for what both you and your mom are going through.

My mom since i can remember was always unhinged and not in complete contact with reality. She always thought people hated her or where talking about her and she would get angry as fuck for no reason and say the cruelest shit even to me and my brother. When i am with her i get the brunt of it, when my brother is with her he gets the brunt of it and when we are both there we both get called down to the dirt. Honestly i would rather she smacked me in the face with a right hook then listen to some of the shit she says. If we disagree with her on the slightest thing we get accused of calling her stupid. I spent 2 hours basically fixing her laptop that was full of viruses and in the end when i told her to use malware bytes regularly to remove the Malware and showed her how to do it i got accused of basically calling her stupid.

Not only that but she has had problems with opiates, benzos and alcohol over the years and she is the only person i have ever met that actually gets more nuts on a strong opiate then sober! She ends up sounding like someone who just drank a 40oz bottle of Rum and makes as much sense as well. Last Xmas when both me and my brother where home along with my dad we discovered that our liquor went missing on a few occasions. I put it down to my dad grabbing the wrong bottle (my dad has been drinking the same type of Rum since i can remember and i only drink maybe 3 different brands) or my brother drinking it. No big deal so i didn't say anything. Then my brother noticed some of his lager missing (i can only drink Ginger beer as i am intolerant to wheat) and when he brought it up my mom said it must have been your dad or brother that drank it. That pretty much leaves my dad because if i drank beer with wheat in it i would be intense pain for days after. Then my dad noticed his Rum going missing and he knew i never drank that type of Rum and my brother was not a fan either. Then my brother had a 6 pack of beer in the fridge one night and not less then 30 minutes later half of it was gone and he hadn't drunk any of them. My mom was visibly drunk as she is a real lightweight and when my bro blamed her she went right off her nut saying we where accusing her of shit she didn't do. I made a comment that the liquor fairy must have taken it and you can guess the reaction that got 8) . To say last Christmas was a horror show would be a major understatement. She would go around beating random stuff up in a drunken rage and you never knew when she was going to go off or what she was going to do. To say the atmosphere was toxic would be like saying you wouldn't want to go for a stroll in Chernobyl's Red Forrest.

We both tried to talk her into getting help but she was having none of it blaming it all on us and living in this house. She moved out the spring and is still acting the way she was and if anything getting worse. So both me and my brother have had to distance ourselves from it to save our own sanity. With my mom around my brother started drinking more then i have ever seen him drink and i started shooting more dilaudid and morphine then i did before and that's saying alot. When i distanced myself from the situation though my Bipolar disorder has been the best it's ever been and i was even able to go off some medications without any relapse. Mental disorders and addiction run in our family on both sides but she refuses to acknowledge that she may have a problem instead blaming it on everyone around her.

I would say try and get her some help anyway you can but don't let her drag you down. I know it's hard to realize that you can only do so much for people who refuse to help themselves but i had to realize that in order to keep my own sanity or whatever is left of it anyway.

Sorry i haven't got much advice but fuck if i had the answers id be doing them myself. All i can say is keep your head up and don't let her drag you down with her.

 

[pentouch]

Me: Hey look, the sky is blue.
....
Mom: You called me stupid!
Yeah I would be offended too,like I dont know if sky is blue..:D
On serious note,man I dont know,seems pretty obvious that youll do whatever you gonna do and she will keep whatever she is doing . In the end all is that matters - being good ,spreading love, no matter what are our surroundings and how cruel the world could be. Sorry to say ,but I would like to ,although your motivation is clear ,your mother is trying hard cut off human contact ,she hates people,I dont know maybe giving up on her,letting her some time alone would be healthy ..

 

[VitamaN]

If my mom was like this id record conversations and ask her to listen to them.

 

[The Doc.]

I was actually gping to make a post like this about my mom here yours sounds alot like my mom.
I just posted in the vent/rant thread in the dark side about what my mom is doing to me and my sister.
I ended up getting some money finally after me and my sister fought in court to get some of my dads estate.My dad didn't want kids and is most of the reason my mom is so mentally unstable. Since my dad took us out of his will me and my sister being his kids had to contest his will in court with a lawyer but we wind a pretty good chunk of money. Nows that's out of the way but my mother has now apparently disowned me and my sister for being "selfish assholes". My sister phoned me screaming and crying this ungodly cry last night because while I was out at a friends house (to escape my mother's crazy behaviour) my mom phoned my sister and told her she never wants to look at her " scrunched up face" ever again and same with your selfish brother she said(Me). I don't know what the fuck she's talking about, my sister is beautiful and my mom has the angry look on her face all the time so WTF?

It all started when my mom started making plans with the money me and my sister were getting. She wanted a brand new car and this and that and she would guilt trip us a few times a day to make us think she needs a car badly. I've lived and supported my mother for almost a decade now and I'm only 23 years old and I have done everything for her I buy all her food pay the rent so she can spend her disability benefits on herself etc. But no matter what I do its never good enough she always thinks a possession will make her happy but everytime we buy her something she gets happy for a while then realises life still sucks and goes back to being miserable. Now me and my sister have this money and my sister has enough to pay her own car off then have a decent down payment for a house so that set my mom off telling her she is selfish for not spending the money on her family (even though I have been buying my mom everything she pleases). I want to continue school to work in the medical industry then mabye have enough for a down payment but school will be expensive so who knows if I'll even have enough just for school.

My moms attitude with money is spend spend spend until its gone then worry about bills and stuff later having to ask others for money.

So I guess I'm finding my own place she is so crazy I seen her wandering down the busy road stumbling around a bit with absolutely no expression on her face. She has turned my grandma against us now too she phoned and called us selfish too.
I have never seem someone so crazy in a long time my mom is doing so many fucked up things I'm scared to even leave my little pup with her while I go to work today I'm pondering if I should take him with me because I'm too scared to leave him with her like this.

Its just such a shame my mom wants me and my sister to end up like her and such a shame we want to to something with our lives yet my mom doesn't want us too because she wants a brand new car instead of us going to school or buying a house with he only chance we will probably get.

I'm just tired I've taken my mom on two shopping sprees at walmart since getting my money and still she talks about a car but the fact is she can't pay for insurance or gas so its on me and my sister to pay for yet another thing for my mom. She doesn't understand she says its only 200 bucks a month but the fact is she has to ask me and my sister for extra money every month even though I pay our rent so something is fucked up.

I might be losing my job of 8 years because of a new company buying it out so i am scared shirtless about that and now my mom acting like like this.

Fuck I want to give up just go back to heroin already it makes life not hurt so much. I had a father who didn't even want to see a picture of me to know what I looked like for 13 years till he died. Now a mother who resents me for not buying her a new car when I do everything to make her happy.

This is what's going on with me so your not alone my friend just remember with mental Illnesses its something they can't help. Its just so hard because we want to help but the person just isn't thinking rationally. I'm currently trying to find my mom help from a psychiatrist so she can stand on her own two feet one day and she seems to finally agree something is not right. I said your sick not so much greedy and talked it out with her and explained I want the old mom back and I want her to be well again. Nothing works unless the person is willing to help themselves it doesn't matter how bad we want them to get well its like addiction the patient needs to take the first step to recovery.

I'm here if you ever want to talk its not your fault and don't take much of what she says to heart because there's obviously something going on in her head we cannot understand.

All the best

 

[endotropic]

If my mom was like this id record conversations and ask her to listen to them.

I think this is good advice, but don't record without her knowledge, or you'll just exacerbate her paranoia. Mention something along the lines that you've been having trouble remembering the things you say recently, so you want to record it for your benefit.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I think this is good advice, but don't record without her knowledge, or you'll just exacerbate her paranoia. Mention something along the lines that you've been having trouble remembering the things you say recently, so you want to record it for your benefit.

This would trigger her even more and go into even further denial.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I just found the old threads I created a while back. Hope this helps OP

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads...ith-people-who-don-t-understand-mental-health
http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads...ple-who-don-t-want-to-seek-psychological-help
http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/522886-How-to-help-someone-with-depression-Anxiety-OCD

 

[paranoid android]

I was actually gping to make a post like this about my mom here yours sounds alot like my mom.
I just posted in the vent/rant thread in the dark side about what my mom is doing to me and my sister.
I ended up getting some money finally after me and my sister fought in court to get some of my dads estate.My dad didn't want kids and is most of the reason my mom is so mentally unstable. Since my dad took us out of his will me and my sister being his kids had to contest his will in court with a lawyer but we wind a pretty good chunk of money. Nows that's out of the way but my mother has now apparently disowned me and my sister for being "selfish assholes". My sister phoned me screaming and crying this ungodly cry last night because while I was out at a friends house (to escape my mother's crazy behaviour) my mom phoned my sister and told her she never wants to look at her " scrunched up face" ever again and same with your selfish brother she said(Me). I don't know what the fuck she's talking about, my sister is beautiful and my mom has the angry look on her face all the time so WTF?

It all started when my mom started making plans with the money me and my sister were getting. She wanted a brand new car and this and that and she would guilt trip us a few times a day to make us think she needs a car badly. I've lived and supported my mother for almost a decade now and I'm only 23 years old and I have done everything for her I buy all her food pay the rent so she can spend her disability benefits on herself etc. But no matter what I do its never good enough she always thinks a possession will make her happy but everytime we buy her something she gets happy for a while then realises life still sucks and goes back to being miserable. Now me and my sister have this money and my sister has enough to pay her own car off then have a decent down payment for a house so that set my mom off telling her she is selfish for not spending the money on her family (even though I have been buying my mom everything she pleases). I want to continue school to work in the medical industry then mabye have enough for a down payment but school will be expensive so who knows if I'll even have enough just for school.

My moms attitude with money is spend spend spend until its gone then worry about bills and stuff later having to ask others for money.

So I guess I'm finding my own place she is so crazy I seen her wandering down the busy road stumbling around a bit with absolutely no expression on her face. She has turned my grandma against us now too she phoned and called us selfish too.
I have never seem someone so crazy in a long time my mom is doing so many fucked up things I'm scared to even leave my little pup with her while I go to work today I'm pondering if I should take him with me because I'm too scared to leave him with her like this.

Its just such a shame my mom wants me and my sister to end up like her and such a shame we want to to something with our lives yet my mom doesn't want us too because she wants a brand new car instead of us going to school or buying a house with he only chance we will probably get.

I'm just tired I've taken my mom on two shopping sprees at walmart since getting my money and still she talks about a car but the fact is she can't pay for insurance or gas so its on me and my sister to pay for yet another thing for my mom. She doesn't understand she says its only 200 bucks a month but the fact is she has to ask me and my sister for extra money every month even though I pay our rent so something is fucked up.

I might be losing my job of 8 years because of a new company buying it out so i am scared shirtless about that and now my mom acting like like this.

Fuck I want to give up just go back to heroin already it makes life not hurt so much. I had a father who didn't even want to see a picture of me to know what I looked like for 13 years till he died. Now a mother who resents me for not buying her a new car when I do everything to make her happy.

This is what's going on with me so your not alone my friend just remember with mental Illnesses its something they can't help. Its just so hard because we want to help but the person just isn't thinking rationally. I'm currently trying to find my mom help from a psychiatrist so she can stand on her own two feet one day and she seems to finally agree something is not right. I said your sick not so much greedy and talked it out with her and explained I want the old mom back and I want her to be well again. Nothing works unless the person is willing to help themselves it doesn't matter how bad we want them to get well its like addiction the patient needs to take the first step to recovery.

I'm here if you ever want to talk its not your fault and don't take much of what she says to heart because there's obviously something going on in her head we cannot understand.

All the best

Jesus christ i don't even know what to say to that it's so sad . And i am emphasizing with you not pitying you as there are few things i hate worse then pity.

I was basically raised by my mom and so was my brother and i bore the brunt of her tirades growing up. My dad was away half the year and the other half he was never home anyway so i always say i was raised in a 1 parent household and so does my brother. She was very mentally unstable even when i was a kid never minmd now that i am 32. I was the devil to her basically and you wouldn't know but i was John Gotti or Pablo fuckin Escobar by the way she talks about me. One incident that sticks out in my mind was one time when these 3 neighborhood kids my age where beating on my brother who is 4 years younger then me. I saw the racket from the window and grabbed the bat and ran down and sent 1 of them home with a arm broken in both places and another got a fracture and another got the bat right across the back. The 3 bitches (by bitch i mean guys who are weak, shit disturbing rats who bitch out) ran home crying to their mommies and their fuckin parents called the house and my mom blamed me even though i saved my brother from getting his arse kicked. You would think that a mom would be proud that i stuck up for my brother especially with those odds and everyone else was proud of me even my dad and relatives but my mom saw me as a violent lunatic even though i did not start it. From them on she saw me as satan incarnate.

That hurt because nobody and i mean fucking nobody fucks with my brother. Another time in traffic a lunatic cut me and my mom off and ran out of the car screaming at her. When he got over to my moms window i wasn't letting him get any closer so right in the middle of a downtown traffic jam i hopped out and said "yer dead you cunt your dead let's fucking go!". Instead of fighting he ran back to the safety of his car and i tried to run after him to beat his head in with that car door but my mom stopped me. Instead of congratulating me on sticking up for her and possibly stop her from being assaulted this only made me more the devil in her eyes as i resorted to violent measures to settle things. Like she was one to talk as in a drug fueled rage the other Xmas she kept punching me in the face with a closed right fist as hard as she could until she fucked her hand up on my jaw. I didn't give her the satisfaction of ducking or blocking as i wanted to prove to her that i could take her beatings without even blinking. She of course then said something like "psychopaths like you don't feel pain". Those are just a few incidents but no matter what i did i could not please her so i finally gave up trying at all and so did my brother. Maybe that's why me and my brother despite the occasional knock down fight where so close and still are even though he's in another province now. I saved his ass more then once and vice versa. I can't say a bad thing about him and nobody else had better either .

Man don't go back on the smack seriously. I dulled myself out for years because of that nonsense and it doesn't work. Anytime you feel like talking or blowing off steam by ranting please PM me if you want to especially you being a fellow Canuck n all even if you are a west coast hippy . The only advice i can give is to try and distance yourself from the situation as much as possible or it will drive you mad. Good luck me b'y and keep in touch

 

[Jabberwocky]

If my mom was like this id record conversations and ask her to listen to them.

I was about to write the exact same thing.
I think its solid advice and might force her to see that her perception of reality has a way of turning against herself.
You might want to let her know about the recording before you start recording though and you need to figure out a way of letting her known that without it sounding like you are "against" her.
You could also show her this thread.

 

[endotropic]

This would trigger her even more and go into even further denial.

Yes that's entirely possible, I guess I just wanted to say if you're going to record your conversation make sure she's aware of it before hand, because recording surreptitiously will DEFINITELY inflame things further.

 

[paranoid android]

Yes that's entirely possible, I guess I just wanted to say if you're going to record your conversation make sure she's aware of it before hand, because recording surreptitiously will DEFINITELY inflame things further.

I was just going to say that. It may also add to her persecution complex either way really.