My Mum has depression and is a bit well, mental. HELP!!

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Hi.

Hooookay! Long story short. (As short as I can, which isn't short. Therefore that statement is woefully inaccurate )

I lost my Father last year in October after a very long battle with Lung Cancer, which then ate his brain as well. It was a fairly traumatic experience as you can possibly imagine. My Mum during the period leading up to his death had used me as her emotional punching bag and personal counsellor. After he passed I then slid down to the bottom of the proverbial barrel as I was (and still am) a bit of a Daddy's girl. My Dad was fatally flawed but awesome. I also made a promise to him that I would live my life for me and that I would own it. As you only get one run through. Boy do I miss him, Anyway over the Xmas period I was diagnosed with depression and was informed by my Doctor that I was stuck in my grief cycle because my Mother was holding me there because she was burdening me with her grief as well and that I was to tell her this and explain how i was feeling and unable to cope.

So I did. However. The last few months with her have been caustic. Everytime I have gotten off the phone to her, she has reduced me to tears. By telling me that I am selfish. Or that I don't think of her. That I don't consider how she is feeling. How could I abandon her. How could I leave her with all of this. How much she misses me. That I have run away from everything. (I haven't my partner lives in Scotland. No jobs down south for her, one came up for me in Scotland. You do the logic.....)

Anyway Last night was horrible, with her telling me that I didn't love her enough. That she loved me more than I loved her. She also told me that during the last week my Dad (Bearing in mind I was living at the hospital with him and her at the time) was alive that he said to her that he wished he hadn't told me what he did in regards to living my life. That he wished he had asked me to stay. Well as you could imagine this was the slight undoing of me all this time I had been living out the promise I made to my dying Father. I asked her why she would tell me this now and she replied, because it was the truth. And looked very confused at the ramifications of her actions. (we were on skype and I was in bits!) I have told her several times that I can't help her with how she is feeling at the moment because I am not a mental health professional. She then starts screaming at me that its not that I can't its that I won't. That I made it perfectly clear that I wouldn't give up my life for my Mother and Father where as she would give up her last breath for me...... Now when she says give up my life, she means, move to Bournemouth and live there with her. In other words, do exactly what she wants with no regard for the life I wish to lead. Which I don't think is fair. However this is because she has given up her life for her Dad when he was ill. For her Husband when he was ill etc etc. But like I said, my Dad made me promise I wouldn't. So I was left facing a choice between a dying father and a living mother..... NOICE>>>>>> *head - desk*

It came to a head last night with me seriously considering never speaking to her again. I actually told her that I couldn't do this any more. That this was caustic and soul destroying. Because everything that comes out of her mouth and is aimed at me is laser guided with pain accuracy. My partner has to (sometimes literally) pick me up off the floor after each contact and she is starting to want to bury my Mother under a patio. After she logged off from Skype videoing, she left a message saying that she was sorry she couldn't carry on any more. That she had lost Dad and me and that she just can't carry one any more. She has also been telling me she is/has contemplated swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills. I then called her and slapped her with a reality check. That she either convinced me that she wasn't going to do something stupid, Or I would hang up and dial 999 right there and then and send them crashing through her door. She soon stopped being dramatic (which I thought it was) and just started bawling uncontrollably down the phone.

I have been trying to get her to go to a doctors for MONTHS. And I keep getting this southern pish attitude of 'I'm strong enough to deal with this' or 'I have my faith therefore I will survive' and the inference that I was somehow defective for allowing myself to be signed off with depression. (Clearly my mother is also a trained Dr.....????) I finally got her to do the same depression questionnaire I did. And she came out at 16 which is moderate to severe depression. (I could have diagnosed that without the questionnaire .......) So she has promised me that on Monday she will make an appointment with the Doctor and then tell me when she is going.

I can clearly see that she is suffering from depression. And I can with some monumental application of logic see that she is lashing out like a distressed five year old because she misses my Father. So she is battering me. But she is being so vicious with it because she is an adult. She is focusing all her anger on me NOT living in Bournemouth. But I am not stupid. She misses my father desperately. She is on her own in the house they lived in together. I live in Scotland and she believes at the moment that If I were there in some way it would make it all better. But It won't. Because I am not my Dad. And I know it won't. It would just prolong the agony and then she would be on her own anyway. I know that she is depressed. I understand that she is grieving.

But my question is this. How as an aspie am I supposed to support this!? Logic doesn't apply. I have to re-validate my feelings and self-awareness after every phone call. I am left feeling like the most heinous selfish daughter on the planet. Yet I know that a large part of this is because she is so emotionally unstable at the moment. I love my Mum. But I don't like her very much at the moment. And I can't fix her, because - well I can't! And I can't moved back to Bournemouth because then I would be miserable. It would possibly mean ending the relationship I have. Which would destroy me completely because she is my missing piece, the one who understands me. And ultimately the one who makes me happy. Because we fit. And I cannot seem to get her (Mum) to see that making me leave my partner would be the equivalent to her having lost Dad. (I am guessing that would then mean I understand how she feels. But I already do she isn't the only one who lost someone here. My Dad Died along with her Husband.....??!?!)

I think I can sum this up with ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! !! !! ! *Head-desk* HELP!! !

There was a song when I was growing up that came to mind when I read this; (Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes - If You Don't Know Me By Now) A Verse of the song goes "we've all got our own funny moods; I've got mine, you've got yours too". Not knowing the situation, I can suggest being straight up and honest about your feelings. Tell your Mum that you have your own problems you are trying to deal with and you don't how to deal with her problems too. Tell her you love her but she needs to be more considerate of your mental health.

i know this situation..

what you can do for yourself, and this is very important for your mental health:

remember that you are NOT selfish. your mom is being selfish for trying to guilt-trap you into feeling selfish so that she can get you to do what she wants no matter how miserable it would make you feel and she is also selfish because she is destroying you emotionally by how she acts. this is not her fault because she is obviously severely depressed and devastated by the loss of your dad and unable to cope with it alone, but what she does is still wrong. you are not selfish. you are only trying to live your own life and this is your right. dont let her destroy that.

in case you start doubting yourself or get too deep into depression please talk to your partner or a counselor about it. they will support you and assure you that you are not selfish.


what you can do for your mom:

- try to make her realise that she is severely depressed (you already did that with the scale, that was very good) and that she needs professional help with this instead of ignoring it (try to find someone who can help her when she has accepted that).

- try to be there for her when she is freaking out (your reaction to her suicide threat was great and very responsible and you are already being there for her as good as you can by talking to her regularily no matter how it makes you feel).

- try to tell her that you love her and you want to help her but that you cant take it anymore when you cant and why, and try to find a solution together with her. you could visit her when you have the time and she could visit you when she needs to be around you, but only when it is ok for you and doesnt drain you emotionally and not because of you feel you have to.

To me that sounds like a lot more than depression, if even depression.......but I am not a psychologist or anything, just from my impression that sounds a bit more like a personality disorder. Uhh I mean I would say you should try and help, but you've already explained it's too much for you yourself to deal with and besides from my understanding you live quite a ways away from her. But yeah if she seems serious about suicide at any point certainly call 911.......but sometimes people are not entirely serious about suicide attempts.

But yeah you do have your own life to live so I understand having a hard time dealing with this on top of that.

First of all, don't let her guilt trip you. You're doing what's right for you and even if you were there you couldn't help her through this.

She does need professional help.

Does she have any close friends? If she does, can you call them and explain the situation to them and impress the importance for them to get professional help? Even if she chooses not to at least they can keep an eye on the situation and she may be more willing to let them talk her around into getting help. Also, now that they are aware she needs help, they will be able to see for themselves how bad it is and the warning signs, I don't think they would dispute it if you asked them to do this.

I think you are on the right track by being firm with her and calling her out on it when she starts talking about things like suicide, and not letting yourself be manipulated by it.

Would you consider going back for a visit for a week or two? I know it would be emotionally draining/trying to say the least, but it might be a way to demonstrate to her that your presence won't fix everything for her. Because, based on what you've said here, I'd bet that you guys wouldn't get along any better face to face right now than in different countries. She can only focus on that as a possibility because it's not a tangible and flawed reality.

I don't envy either of you in the slightest, but I hope things improve with time. Sorry I don't have more helpful advice.

Thank you all. I think I was really needing to feel validated in how I was feeling and checking that I hadn't 'got it wrong' on the response front.

I spoke to her again last night and it was like night and day. Completely different person. Nice, positive, loving. Laughing even. And I think this is what throws me completely because she is swinging like a pendulum. She isn't going to the Doctors because she 'feels' she has turned a corner. In other words beating the emotional crap out of me (once again I might add) appears to have allowed her to vent, cry, wail and get it all out. The problem is that I can't keep providing this function because I will end up back at square one.

I agree that going to see her is a good thing. And I think we can all understand my reticence considering that she is indeed a bit bat s**t crazy at the moment. And the GF is at the point where she is so frustrated and hurt for me, everytime I come off a call from her and I get this specific look across my face. Which is usually a combination of hurt and angst whilst the processor in my brain desperately tries to rationalise and analyse everything that has been thrown at me.

I have said to her, that if the smallest whiff of what has been occurring happens again, it will be straight to the doctors. Because I will make the appointment for her.

That said. She has now built a routine into her evenings. She has dinner at a certain time, and goes to bed at a certain time. And yesterday for the first time in ages had a good nights sleep. She felt (and I could see this) so proud of this achievement that me insisting at that time she still went to the doctors would have been more damaging than good. So I just rode the positive wave with her. (God I sound like an NT huh?) I think having spent so much time in offices managing people, it has some how given me the ability to understand the programming a bit. Its not a fail safe method. But a lot of the time some NT's are transparent enough for me to be able to see how their 'programming' works and then apply the right software to enable the desired result I require.

Possibly a bit like psychology? I don't know.

Suffice to say at the moment Mum is on a stable upswing and I am a little bit loathed to derail it.

But thank you all for taking the time to post.

It does sound like she's taking positive steps. I'd be encouraging for the time being, but like you said, if things start to degenerate again...make that doc appt.