It’s actually a good thing that she’s willing to attend therapy.
If she really does have borderline personality disorder (which none of us can diagnose over the internet obviously), DBT (Dialectical behavior therapy) will do her more good than any medication will. And, yes, borderlines can have brief psychotic episodes.
Of course, you need to get her to a professional who can help sort out what exactly is going on with her. The next time she starts talking about killing herself, the answer is NOT to try to fix her yourself, but call the police and have her taken to a hospital where someone who is qualified to diagnose and treat her can evaluate her.
The specifics vary from one area to the next, but most likely your area does have laws allowing the police to bring in people who are presenting an imminent threat to themselves or thers for a psychiatric evaluation.
Yup. And think about it - she gets to have her cake and eat it too. Her daughter and her mom are still dancing to her tune, she’s just changed the melody. She just has to be sweetness and light to you so that you’ll stick around, and meanwhile she’s emotionally eviscerating people you care deeply for (and woe-is-me’ing about nearly killing herself and Grandma by wanting to yank the wheel away during the car ride from hell), but not actually doing anything to get better.
Your mom may well kill herself, but I guarantee you if she does (or merely “attempts”) it will be independent of anything you do or don’t do. She may choose to spin it as being related to something because it makes for more all-about-her drama, but it’s not you.
I don’t have any advice either olives, other than I wonder if Grandma could go stay with Aunt during the surgery time and recuperation.
And that I’m so sorry to hear about all the drama affecting you. 
And that your Mom reminds me of my sister when she was unmedicated.
I feel for you. I have a family situation myself I’m dealing with, and I wish I could say I love them all so much, but they have ruined my life. (Yeah, it’s all about me.) But they have ruined my life, I live with bitterness and resentment. And now they’re falling apart and it’s wearying and frustrating. I’m all alone here, no one to share the burden. I wish I could just cut them off completely. I wish I could get rid of my phone, because when it rings, I think, oh God, what NOW?.. But I would die from guilt, nonetheless, and the situation is so sad. So I do what I can, up to a point. I help and do what I can, I really do, though it’s enervating, depressing, scary, and I come home and just sit under a blanket and cry a little because it’s so damned sad for them. … And I realized a long time ago - I can’t do miracles. I can’t heal them. I can’t change them. They aren’t going to get any better. It’s not up to me, or anything I say or do. Whatever happens, it’s going to happen, with or without my help. … You have to kind of detach and realize it’s not in your power to make everyone’s life all better, because you do not have that power…I wish you luck, I wish you the best. You aren’t alone. If you do find some kind of support group, I hope you will come back and tell about it, and if it’s helpful or not.
Olives, I’m in the group that can’t help, except by sending love and prayers for all of you.
Olives, I’m so sorry. It really sucks, and there isn’t anything you can do about it.
I’ve been through too much dealing with my younger brother, who is also mentally ill, and refuses treatment. He would also threaten to kill himself. As I explained to my mother, you can’t give in, though, because manipulative people (and this is what they are) will use threats to their advantage. You simply can’t live with emotional blackmail. Unfortunately, there is a chance that the person will kill him- or herself when you don’t give in, but even if that happens, he/she didn’t kill him- herself because you didn’t give it, they did it because they are sick.
What you mother is doing is not right. She’s not taking responsibility for herself, and expecting you to make it right, something which is impossible, because she’s sick.
I am really sorry that you have to go thought this.
I agree with everyone else - this is not your burden to carry. You didn’t break your mom, and you can’t fix her. I think a support group would be a fantastic idea - from what you’ve written here, it sounds like you are really confused about what is appropriate interaction with your mom, and other people who deal with their mentally ill relatives might have really good advice for you.
I really think I need to post this on my fridge. I honestly have this belief sometimes that I’m the only one who understands her and can help her.
Thanks everybody for your support. We just found out that Sr. Olives’ sister apparently attempted suicide yesterday - she’s in the hospital now (and safe.) I love that kid so much. When it rains, it pours. 
Wishing you and Dom peace and strength as you deal with all of this.
That’s an extremely powerful and toxic delusion, and not at all uncommon. It’s seen in many loving, caring people. Kick that idea out of your head whenever it appears.
And hang in there.
To build on this: It’s a common train of emotion for a lot of people that it’s actually preferable to accept the delusion that they are responsible for things like your mother’s health and sanity. This way, even though they’re setting themselves up for failure, and they often recognize this, it’s less scary and helpless a feeling than accepting that there are things outside of their control.
Think about this, again: The need to feel control over their environment and the people around them is so strong that failure and all the guilt and devastation that comes with it, is preferable than admitting that there are things outside of their control.
When laid out, like this, it’s easy to see just how toxic a delusion this can be. But it’s still seductive.
Don’t fall for it. You can’t control your environment, often enough it’s all you can do to control your own reactions.
Another point:
There is a moral shortcut that’s often taught to children: The right thing to do is often shown to be the most onerous of the choices presented. The shortcut that becomes ingrained on an emotional level is that in the future, the choice that causes oneself the most pain is automatically going to look like the morally right choice. This is a false guide, and one that causes huge amounts of damage. Not only to the person suffering under it’s weight, but also for their friends and family.
Caring for yourself, even putting your interests first, is not a bad thing. Obviously, it can be taken too far - but give your own interests, health and goals at least as much weight as you’d give to the same for your mom, or the rest of your family.
Give yourself permission to be selfish, when it’s justified.
Olive, this is internet advice, and therefore worth about what you’re paying for it, but here is my reaction to your OP:
Your Mom is playing you. Probably not consciously but at some level, she’s figured out how to get her payoff, and she’s like the lab rat pushing the lever and getting her treats. This sentence in particular got my attention:
[QUOTE=Olivesmarch4th’s Mom]
my Mom admitted she was fighting strong urges to grab a hold of the steering wheel and crash the car
[/QUOTE]
Your Mom, at least it strikes me, thrives on being the center of attention. If it’s not about her, she’s going to by God make it about her. You say you have a mutually supportive relationship, but it sounds like you’re doing all the supporting. She’s had however many years you’ve been alive to figure out what buttons to press. What possible motivation could she have for seeking professional help? She gets exactly what she wants (undivided attention) whenever she wants it. Look at this latest incident. By any sane assessment, the entire time should have been about your grandmother. But it wasn’t, was it? It was about your mother.
Of course she’ll admit she has a problem. It relieves her of any responsibility while allowing her to demand and get your attention, sympathy and help whenever she wants it. And not just yours - everyone in the family gets sucked in to a greater or lesser degree.
If you stop feeding her, your mom may in fact attempt suicide, but I think it will be an effort that is unlikely (although not impossible) to succeed. But she’ll be genuinely panicked, because her paradigm of how the world works will be overturned. But if you don’t want to be stuck in this mode for the remainder of your mutual lives, I think you need to change things. And has been said above, the first step is to recognize and truly believe that it is not your responsibility or within your control to fix her. There’s a great deal of gratification in the idea of being “the only one who truly understands her,” but the real meaning of that is that you are the only one who consistently gives her what she wants (attention) when she wants it.
You can’t force your Mom to go to therapy, but you should certainly go yourself. Support groups can be good, but they tend to be hothouses of Group Polarization, and there is a strong tendency to adopt a one-size-fits-all solution. There is also, I believe, a tendency for a support group to become an object in and of itself, so that members may often come to identify as a member of the support group before anything else. “How do you do? I’m Olivesmarch4th, and I’m a victim of insane parental abuse.” The aim of attendig a support group should be to stop needing to attend a support group, but often the reality is that one is a permanent member. Psychologists aren’t immune to this attitude, but at least they have some training, and will not necessarily self-identify as a fellow victim, which can be desirable in a therapist, because it provides some distance and perspective.
But my point here over all is that you can’t and shouldn’t try to fix your Mom, but you can and should try to fix yourself. From your OP, it sounds like your Mom is generally getting exactly what she wants from you, at a serious cost to your peace of mind. A therapist may be able to help you get out of this eternal cycle of bad behavior, attention, bad behavior, attention. Don’t buy into the assumption that your Mom is sick. The fact that she announced her desire to seize the wheel rather than actually trying to seize it strongly suggests that she knows very well what she’s doing. She may have had true periods of psychosis in the past, may again in the future, but for the moment it sounds like her grasp of reality is perfectly adequate. Your job as a daughter may very well include preventing her from walking off a cliff when she truly believes it is solid ground, but it does not include preventing her from walking off a cliff when she knows it’s a cliff. That’s her job, and no one but she can do it.
Again, I want to emphasize that this is based solely on your OP, and may be utterly worthless advice.
No advice, but all my sympathy. I can’t imagine how difficult this kind of situation is.
You are right about this, but I honestly don’t believe it’s something she’s aware she’s doing. I don’t think she understands her own emotions much less how to deal with those of others. I have seen a tendency to label people who exhibit these behaviors as ‘‘manipulative’’ because, to a rational and sane person, this would be manipulative behavior. But my Mom is not rational and I don’t think she is aware in any meaningful sense of half the stuff she does. I don’t think she ever intentionally hurt anyone. I believe that her paranoia makes her feel like a cornered animal and she reacts out of pure ‘‘fight or flight’’ self-defense. I believe this because I have felt the same way - with the important distinction that for whatever reason, I don’t act on those impulses and feelings and recognize them as irrational.
And to be honest, a HUGE part of this is guilt that I somehow got out of it. I somehow dealt with my crap and built a life and she never found a way out. And I guess it’s not rational but I feel like I’m leaving a fallen soldier behind. My Mom is a casualty of our family. Why I wasn’t, I don’t know*, but I recognize the unfairness and I think she does too.
*I sort of do know. I had an Aunt who took care of me, loved me, and offered me a safe haven - but never allowed me to deny responsibility for my own actions.
Actually, right now, that distinction belongs to my Grandmother. I do believe she is reinforcing my mother’s delusions by following her ‘‘rules’’ which is making her behavior even worse. Typically when someone doesn’t validate her POV, my Mom will blow up, disown a bunch of people, and then two months later call and act like nothing happened. The problem is, partly, my Grandma doesn’t have the strength right now to do anything other than submit to my mother’s wishes.
Yes, I agree I have a problem with my own behavior, as even though I’m not technically involved in any of this, I feel extremely involved, responsible and worried. I acknowledge 100% that I need to do something about that… as someone mentioned upthread, ‘‘you seem confused about the best way to react’’ … that’s exactly right. My old ways of dealing with this are no longer working, because my Grandfather’s death triggered a pretty dramatic change in the structure and functioning of my family. I need to regroup.
I agree with your view on support groups, though I think the same thing can happen in therapy. I’ve had years and years and years of therapy, and it wasn’t until I did straight-up CBT and prolonged exposure that I got anywhere with my own life. I value therapy very highly, but I’m not sure after 8 years beating it to death, there’s anything new I could learn. I would be interested in something very targeted, like concrete skills for dealing with mentally ill family members.
I don’t know, after having lived with her for seventeen years, I could ever believe she is not sick. The fact that she had a desire to seize the wheel and didn’t speaks more to me about her improvement in control over her impulses, because in the past, she certainly would have just done it.
That’s an interesting point to consider.
On the contrary, I think your advice is excellent, as is everyone else’s. I will be reading and considering it very carefully as I try to determine how I need to change my approach to this situation.
Hey Olives, firstly let me send you lots of understanding and compassion for these difficulties, you truly do not deserve this mess in your life.
Next, I’d like to point out that your Mom has not been disguising the crazy, as you claim. In every incident you’ve shared with us it’s been right there on display, for anyone with eyes to see. Such threads always garner chorus’s of, ‘Run. Run fast, fun far, run now!’ With the predictable response that, you still love this one, you’re the only one who understands that one, you owe a lot to the other one. (You can love from afar, thinking you’re the only one is pure delusion, you don’t owe someone for doing the right thing, it was their choice!) This incident isn’t really all that new or interesting in it’s manifestation, it’s really just the same old thing, dressed up in new clothes.
I know, from experience, how hard it is to fully separate from family, few things are as difficult. Like you, I struggled to find mental health after a dysfunctional upbringing. It’s a hard won victory, but definitely worth defending. You seem to keep returning to the well, shocked anew, that it’s still the same, or worse, as before.
They are adults and you cannot live their lives or impact their demons, that’s on them. Think of it like separating from your college bound child, yeah, it hurts and it sucks, but you have to do it. Both for your mental health and theirs.
Perhaps they’re right and you’re never going to be strong enough to fully break from orbiting them and their craziness, which the evidence would support. Personally, I don’t believe that for a minute. Or perhaps they’re wrong and you will finally break free.
But you can’t have it both ways. If you want this wound to heal then stop reopening it, by giving this toxicity room in your life. Maybe you’re afraid of letting it truly heal because it’s become so much a part of who you are? You need to examine why you can’t give yourself permission to make the final break from them.
I watched my siblings, who came from the same contaminated gene pool as I, struggle in the same way. Sitting on the fence, seeing what needs to be done, but unable to act. I lost a brother to suicide largely because he couldn’t give himself permission to break away completely and he couldn’t live in the crazy either. Which is why I am writing this post to you. Your mental health is worth protecting, quit dancing with the devil.
What would you do if it was your child, involved in some horrible unhealthy relationship, that could conceivably land them in the nut house? Would you listen to, “but I’m the only one who understands, but I owe them so much, they are my favorite, but I lurve them!”? I doubt it, you’d be there joining the chorus of, “get out, before you make yourself crazy, you cannot fix this, it isn’t going to get better!”
The lesson of compassion is only half learned if you only manifest it for others. You need to reflect on where is the compassion for Olives?
How exactly are you not involved? You wrote a huge heartfelt post about being involved. Before attempting to deal with your families delusional thinking, you should deal with your own, in my opinion.
Mostly I want to send you an ocean of strength, because I think that’s what you need. You have the strength, and I think you know that. I think acting from the position of power and strength, frightens you, sort of like a fear of success.
We all love you Olives, and we’re right here if you need to talk, but we all seem to want more for you, than you’re willing to reach for.
(And, of course, this advice is also worth exactly what you paid for it, perhaps less
You’re probably heard the term before, “Healthy selfishness.” That’s the kind of selfishness that puts the oxygen mask on the mother first so she’s conscious to help her kids (did someone say that already? It’s a great analogy.)
I agree; I also agree with Olives saying that she wants to learn some concrete skills and get some useful ideas on exactly what is the game plan to best deal with her mom so she can help her mom as much as she can, and she can also preserve her own sanity. I’m not a fan of people being in therapy or groups forever, either - at some point, you have to take off the training wheels and just live your life. They can be really good for learning things from other people that you just can’t see on your own.
I agree with this, too.
That’s right - you deserve to have compassion for yourself, too, Olives. You probably know that in your head, but you need to keep learning it in your heart - you deserve a healthy, sane, peaceful life. You really do.
I’m sorry to hear about **Sr. Olives’ ** sister - I guess he needs to learn the same lessons about not being able to fix family, too. :((
Thank you for your continued input. I am listening and really giving it all some thought.
[QUOTE=elbows]
Next, I’d like to point out that your Mom has not been disguising the crazy, as you claim. In every incident you’ve shared with us it’s been right there on display, for anyone with eyes to see. Such threads always garner chorus’s of, ‘Run. Run fast, fun far, run now!’ With the predictable response that, you still love this one, you’re the only one who understands that one, you owe a lot to the other one. (You can love from afar, thinking you’re the only one is pure delusion, you don’t owe someone for doing the right thing, it was their choice!) This incident isn’t really all that new or interesting in it’s manifestation, it’s really just the same old thing, dressed up in new clothes.
[/QUOTE]
Ooh, so you’ve noticed. It’s true she does impact my mental health still, but I guess I always compare it to how much control I used to give her over my life. I’ve made significant progress. I assumed this was as good as it can get. Perhaps I do have some delusions of my own to let go of.
I guess, when a parent gets sick, I thought the right thing to do is take care of them - like my Aunt is taking care of my Grandma when she needs help. Sometimes it is hard on my Aunt, yes, but there’s nobody else around to do it. I don’t see how mental illness should be any different. My uncle is mentally ill and I view him as largely ignored and abandoned by our family. I don’t want that to happen to my Mom.
I’m saying this because if it is truly deluded, I need to know how to combat it.
You have given me a lot to think about here.
The thing of it is, you can take a rational, and good, principle, like “when a parent (or spouse) gets sick, the right thing to do is to take care of them,” and make everything in your life subordinate to that principle. At which point it becomes a hindrance and even a threat to effective long-term care.
I don’t know if you recall the mess I mentioned here on the Dope a couple of years ago when my dad’s NPH* hit crisis point, and his unwillingness to moderate his behavior lead, directly, to my mother having a near-fatal heart incident**. One of the many lessons I’ve taken from that horrible time was that my mother’s desire to care for my father, as her own mother’s example had been, lead to her nearly getting killed. Had we been more able to consider alternative treatments, including moving my father out of the home into an assisted living facility, it’s possible that she’d never have had the heart incident.
You can kill yourself trying to care for someone, if you don’t put your own health first. At which point, since they may no longer be able to advocate for themselves, your actions and desire to care for them has left them in a position where they will be helpless against the bureaucracies that eventually step in to try to care for that person.
If you want another horrible example, there’s this post from a Nurse K’s medical blog, where the mother of a developmentally delayed adult child has delayed her treatment for an urgent problem until she couldn’t ignore the problem any longer. And no longer had the time or wherewithal to be able to oversee her son’s care and placement.
Take care of yourself, first.
*NPH - Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus, a over-pressure of cerebral spinal fluid causes physical deformations in the brain, leading to cognitive and physical impairment.
** She suffered a stress-induced cardiomyopathy, also known as takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or broken-heart syndrome. Stress causes the heart muscle to become weak, leading to the ventricles of the heart swelling up. She’s one of the very lucky 20% who has had CPR and survived with no impairment. But that outcome only could happen because she’d already been the ER when she coded.
Just for interest’s sake, and cause it’s cool, I should point out that tako tsubo means ‘octopus trap’ after the bulging contour of the left ventricle. Today’s hijack was brought to you by the letter ‘T’.
Glad your mom’s OK.
I’ve been in your situation, in a roundabout way. My siblings are addicts, and my dad is an enabler. There comes certain situations, when you think, “HEY! I have an in here. I can finally help him get the help he needs!” and you run for it, and do the full-court push. But it never seems to take…
I think you might get a lot of good, practical information by reading some literature or attending an Al-Anon meeting. It’s all about boundaries and saving yourself. Getting wrapped up in their drama is very harmful to yourself.