Pushed to the brink
This is probably the last straw with my mother. I honestly don't know how much more I can take.
She does not appreciate anything anyone does for her. Either she doesn't know how, or doesn't want to.
She won't do anything around the house. Every day she will talk about doing something or another, and either Rocco (my cousin who's staying with us) or I will jump up and do it for her. But when it's done she won't say thank you. She will either complain that it's not done the way she wants, or she wants something else done. She will drink, smoke, watch tv and sleep. Her personal hygiene has also suffered. Although the bathroom was fixed a couple of months ago, she will go for weeks without showering or brushing her teeth. Last week I did laundry and her clothes reeked. I had to wash everything in hot water.
When we drive to Indiana so she can buy her cigarettes and booze, she will complain about how we drive. After one trying day of driving in traffic and listening to her bitch, I simply told her that she can have Rocco take her. He can drive recklessly at times while I am mostly careful. She shut up and poured herself a glass of scotch and lit a cigarette. And because she has been smoking and drinking more than ever, the monthly trips to Indiana have become twice monthly.
Yes, I know she's older, and older people are cranky (to put it mildly). But she has always been like this. I always felt responsible for her moods and tried to anticipate them. She has been emotionally, verbally and physically abusive. With her old age, the abuse has increased tenfold. Although I know I can't take responsibility for her moods, I have still felt afraid of her. But now, that fear is shrinking.
After Tom died, she wanted to be alone. After years of abuse, I didn't know how to comfort her. I felt guilt for not giving her the love and comfort that a daughter should have. Instead I went to Wisconsin. The guilt followed, and it was more than I could bear. I became afraid to leave the house. I couldn't care for myself or my daughter. I was hospitalized for depression. We lost Tom's condo and had to come back. My mother was cold as ice for months. It was after she lost her job and the place where she lived that she turned to me to care for her.
This past year she has grown worse. I did learn to shrug off her moods, but now she is intolerable to live with. Every year around the holidays she goes into a deep depression and binges on cigarettes and alcohol, because we lost Tom around that time. She will be verbally abusive to the point where we don't want to be around her. She will cry in her sleep. How can we comfort someone who does not want to be comforted? After almost a lifetime of abuse, how can I love her? Usually she turns the corner once the holidays end, but this time she hasn't.
I'm grateful that Rocco is here because he can usually reach her. But this time, even Rocco is teaching his limit with her. Yesterday we went to the bar to get away from her and got really drunk. We didn't return until several hours later when my mother was asleep, and then we went to bed. He has told me that he doesn't want to be around her anymore. It was a promise he made to his dying mother to take care of my mother that keeps him around.
Today was the last straw. For days my mother wanted tuna casserole. I had offered to make it homemade, but she wanted Tuna Helper. Finally today I made it, in ther oven with breadcrumbs. And you know what? She complained that she couldn't taste the pasta. After the time and effort in making it, no thank you for making it, she didn't like it. That was it. I was done pleasing her. I told her she can make it herself next time, cleaned up the kitchen and went to my room, where I'm writing this now.
Over the years she has turned away from people who have cared about her - siblings, nieces and nephews. She has blamed my uncle for my aunt's death. She won't visit relatives for the holidays because of long-held resentments. I have kept in touch with family on Facebook because my mother won't do the work of maintaining relationships. I have told her that she would die alone but she doesn't believe that. She believes that my father's family, whom she hasn't spoken with since my grandmothet's funeral almost three years ago, will take care of her. Fine, start a relationship with them. I won't do it for her.
If you want friends and family around you in your old age, maintain relationships now while you still can. I know my mother is secretly afraid of being alone, yet she won't do the work of sustaining a relationship. Yes, she either has borderline petsonality disorderr or narcissistic petsonality disorder, but she won't accept or get help for it. Mental illness is no excuse for treating people like crap.
I am going to have to reach out to family for help in dealing with my mother. She will probably have to go into assisted living, and that means I will have to find a better way of supporting myself. Rocco has said he can help me get a job at Wrigley Field for baseball season, and I'm going to have to go for it. I'm not making much money mystery shopping, and I need something more.
If I learn something from this, it would be to treat people well because I will need them. I know it sounds self-serving, but I don't want to be like my mother and piss away relationships. She'll learn, though, in this life or the next.