I am pissed as all hell right now, so please excuse my tendency to ramble.
First, some back story. My parents divorced about 20 years ago back when I was little. This basically “ruined” my mother. Every single problem she has had from that day forward is all my father’s fault (Mom’s words exactly).
Pretty much since then, Mom has refused to take credit for anything she could have done to contribute to her current state of misery. She has basically laid in bed for the past 10 or so years, not moving much at all except to pee. She’s now up to well over 500 pounds, has two herniated disks caused purely by her extreme weight, and can barely walk. She has been reduced to having a commode in her bedroom because she can’t even make it to the bathroom to pee anymore.
I know that she has depression. She’s on medicine for it and has been for years. Prozac, Xanax, and Zoloft have been her drugs of choice lately. Hell, I’ve been on Zoloft for about a year now. I know how shitty depression can be. The thing that gets me though is her refusal to go to any sort of counseling to work on what’s causing the depression. She’s been to a session or two with me when I was younger. They said that I was fine, but she was the one that needed help. Thing is, nothing is her fault. She out and out refuses to go to counseling because she doesn’t want to hear that anything is her fault. We went to a family counseling session 10 or so years ago where my sister and I shared some not so flattering issues we had with Mom that we wanted to work on. She refused to go again because she said we “made her look bad”. If we had so many issues, then we should be the ones going. She was fine.
So now my sister and I are left to deal with all the repercussions of Mom not dealing with her issues. We are the ones that have to clean out her commode. We’re the ones that have to pay for everything that her piddly social security check doesn’t cover. We’re the ones that have to do all of her pee-filled laundry. If she doesn’t get up in time, she wets the bed now. Her bladder simply can’t handle all the extra weight pressing on it anymore. She makes me feel guilty for leaving the apartment for any reason, even to go to work or to visit my fiancé.
She’s called for me to go in her room no less than 7 times in the past hour and a half. I feel like I am about to lose my mind if I hear my name called one more time!!
Did I forget to mention that she’s also a hoarder? She has so much crap in her room, even on her bed that she’s constantly loosing things. Important things. Things like checks, insurance cards, MEDICATION. I have tried more times than I can count to help her clean her room and organize things. I buy her bins to store medications in and she just throws crap in them instead. Her sole method of organization is to shove her crap in Avon bags. When she needs something, I HAVE to go sort through it all to find it. I can’t exactly leave her without her medication.
I really just wish that for once in my 24 years on this planet I could be the child and not the mother in this fucking relationship. I wish that for once I wouldn’t resent my mother so much for not being the mother. When I was younger (under 10), I went with Mom to take my little sister to the doctors. The doctor asked what the problems were and Mom couldn’t even answer the doctor. I was the one who knew everything because I was the one up with her all night every night. I was more of a parent to her than my own mother was. That elicited another trip to another counselor for me and my sister. Mom once again refused to go. After all, she didn’t have any problems.
I just wish I could somehow get rid of all this pent up anger and resentment. I doubt she has much longer to live what with her lifestyle being what it is. But 24 years is way too long to go on like this. I want to move out and get a house with my fiancé. She won’t let me leave her.
Damnit I hate how fucking selfish this rant sounds! I debated whether or not to post it. Just writing it all out has helped. Take it for what you will – a selfish brat complaining about her mother or a justifiably upset daughter who is at her wits end. I don’t know. I’m not even sure what I hope to get out of this. Some advice and an open forum to rant, I suppose. I just didn’t know where else to turn right now.