I think it was my self-control.
DoperChic, I’m afraid I’m going to use your thread to get onto my soapbox (No, not my nuclear power/GM crops/food irradiation one - the OTHER soapbox. No, not the USS Nevada. The other OTHER soapbox. The selfish one.) and pontificate. I hope you won’t mind.
There is, in western culture as a whole, a meme that tells us that selfishness is bad, and that it’s the ideal to sacrifice for those we love and care about. And on the whole, this is a good meme, and one I subscribe to, myself. But it’s got problems, too.
For a lot of people, when given a choice between a selfish action or one that is harmful to oneself and that someone else would like, the selfish action is the default right choice. At the risk of getting all sexually confused, a lot of people judge what is right by what hurts them the most. For a child, this is not often a wrong meter-stick. Homework is not something that anyone but a few geeks (and not many of those) would do for their own preference. Some rare children can accept the concept of current sacrifice setting up a payoff in the long run, but most do their homework because if they don’t worse things will happen.
As we get older this mode of thinking, however, can lead one to noble, or right choices that one would never reccommend to a stranger. Because the measure that the person using isn’t what the benefit to society, a loved one, or a group might be - but rather what option causes that person the most pain. At the extreme case, I happen to believe this is a common ideation with many suicides: “I’m such a burden, if I were dead - no one would be burdened anymore.”
That kind of thinking isn’t really what I’d call rational - it certainly discounts the pain that suicide can cause, at the very least. And often the burdens being imaged by the potential suicide are far greater in their mind than in the minds of their loved ones.
DoperChic, you’re not in a situation that drastic. Yet. But it’s getting close to matching my favorite analogy.
One of the first, and most important, lessons any rescue worker must learn is how to help without becoming part of the casualty. Sometimes there’s no choice: one must take risks to try to save someone. There is a difference between taking risks for a potential gain, even grave, potentially fatal risks and taking the same risks for no gain. Or accepting deadly consequences for little gain.
We all hold the men and women of the NYFD who rushed into the Twin Towers to save people as heros. They saved many people, and there were gains that can be measured from their sacrifces. And they, most of them, didn’t know that the Towers were about to collapse. But if we change the scenario a little bit, and are looking a crew of firefighters who’ve been told that this building will collapse in 10 minutes, and it will take the most athletic of the firefighters 15 minutes to reach the floors of the building where the fire has trapped victims, most people would view anyone rushing in, at that point, as an idiot - throwing their lives away because they’d rather fail in a futile rescue attempt than to accept that there are times that you can’t help a victim.
This rule can be rather coldbloodedly stated: Don’t act, until you know you won’t simply become part of the casualty.
Speaking as someone with a little firefighting experience, this is a hard lesson to swallow. Some people can’t learn it. I couldn’t. And because of that, I was more of a hazard to people I was working with than someone who could learn that lesson would be. In some scenarios I’d become a part of the problem, making things worse, not better. In spite of my good intentions.
You’re now in a position where you’ve admitted that if you keep caring for your mother as you are, now - something is going to give. You’re pretty sure it’s your sanity but it could be your physical health, or your relationship with your fiancee, or your work, or something else. But you’re still operating, it seems to me, on the “pain as determinant of right or wrong” paradigm. Since your mother and your aunts want the situation to continue, and since if you were to stand by your thirty day ultimatum people you care about, deeply, will be hurt and angry - perhaps even angry enough to sever ties with you - and because if you back down the only person you’re perceiving as being hurt is yourself, it’s tempting to back down and let the situation continue.
But if that’s an accurate description of the thinking you’re fighting, now, you’re only considering part of the picture. And the smaller part, IMNSHO.
If you continue giving your mother what she wants she is going to eat herself to death in relatively short order. eleanorigby has mentioned some of the less obvious health hazards facing someone as bedridden as your mother is may face. It’s a sad fact that bed sores can be lethal. This is on top of the joint problems, the muscle problems, the abuse she’s putting her circulatory system through, and the obviously untreated mental illnesses. At the risk of sounding far too grim, I’m surprised she’s not cooled down to room temperature years ago.
So, in the long term, while your mother will be gratified if you continue to enable her current behavior, she’s going to die. Soon. Likewise, your aunts either don’t care if she dies, or haven’t admitted that’s what she’s heading towards. If they don’t care, bugger 'em with a scorpion fish - their desires shouldn’t matter one gnat’s fart to you. If they do care, help them to realize that the situation, as it exists is killing your mother.
Have you ever had the pleasure of getting any swimming training? If you haven’t there’s a lesson common to any class that touches on the topic of how to save someone who’s drowning: often a drowning person will panic, and try to climb on their would-be rescuer. In order for the would-be rescuer to survive, the tactic I was taught was to dive down, deep - taking the drowning victim with the rescuer, until the victim releases his or her hold on the rescuer. The rescuer can then surface, recover his or her strength, and try to approach again. This tactic is one that could lead, directly to the victim going down for the last time. But all the trainers I’ve ever met agree - in that situation, even if the victim can achieve his or her goal of using the rescuer as a float - it’s a temporary solution at best. The rescuer, turned into a victim him or herself, can only support the original victim for a short period of time before drowning themselves. And then the original victim will lose their support, and drown anyways. So, compared to losing both the original victim and the would-be rescuer - risking the original victim, even leading to their ultimate death, is better than losing both persons.
That’s the situation I believe you’re in. Your mom was going down for the third time, and you’re out there trying to help her. But everyone, including your aunts, seems to be telling you to be good float for her. And you can’t keep her above water, unless she’s willing to stop panicking, and start doing as you direct. You’re in danger of drowning, too, now. Do you have the courage to take that dive to freedom? Even knowing it might be the beginning of the end for your mom?
I certainly hope you’re going to be that selfish. One life or two seems to be the choice being offered to you. I can’t see how any moral person wouldn’t prefer to see one life lost, instead of two.
Being selfish is not always immoral. Besides, your mom has the title sewn up, I think, for Most Selfish Woman. You’re not even in the running. The only potential challenger is here . And compared to stealing a whole life, what’s a few thousands of dollars?
(Yes, Ivylass, I do mean that if DoperChic’s mom and aunts won’t see reason, she should shove off and let them struggle on their own. I use the term selfish quite deliberately.)
and her back got better from it! (like DoperChic’s Mom, mine has been sick all my life).