I just signed for a letter & it’s from the hospital regarding petitioning the court for my mother’s guardianship.
My heart sunk when I opened it & I’m crying. I was feeling hopeful about life in general today & then this came. I feel so rotten, like I’m a horrible daughter.
I know it’s not true & I can’t be her guardian because of the abuse. Physical & emotional as a child, then only emotional as a teen & adult.
If she had changed I would but she hasn’t & don’t want my life to be all about her again.
I don’t want to be manipulated, bullied, lied to or be involved in her chronic drama & disputes with people ever again. I have to take care of myself & deal with my own problems. Many which are a result of feeling like I was her mother as a child picking her up the floor with slit wrists & afraid to leave her because she would kill herself. I use to cry when she’d take too many pills & hide them from her thinking that would help because I was only 5.
I don’t understand why I’m crying right now? Why this is affecting me this badly, why I feel so sorry for her?
Everyone who knows her tells me “she made her bed & has to lie in it”. That doesn’t make me feel better & it’s coming from people who experienced her wrath & eventually cut her out of their lives.
What is wrong with me?
I know it’s unrealistic to change my mind but this is so sad! I feel so guilty& horrible.
I don’t want her to feel like I don’t care & that’s why I had to say no! It’s much more complex then that. I don’t want her to feel alone because there are no other children but me.
I feel conflicted & everything I wanted to accomplish today, just went out the window because my heart is broken for my mother. I know she has a mental illness & it’s not her fault but I can’t be on the receiving end of that anymore. I gave up decades of my life trying to help her, giving her chance after chance, I gave her money when I had an excess of it, I’ve tried everything. I’ve told her my boundaries & what keeps my away but she’s unable to respect them. They are very small boundaries too like not calling me names or calling 20x/day starting @ 4am, not calling my place of employment & yelling, not to lie to me & things like that.
I feel so sad & don’t know how to get this feeling to go away.
Its a similar feeling to when my father who was wonderful died when I was 25.
I think it’s probably because I saw this in writing( guardianship) & it made things more real. I feel like I’m closing the door on her.
I don’t know what to do & how to not blame myself for saying no. I don’t know how to not feel like I’m a bad daughter by doing something like this. It’s weird because I can give good advice to others but can’t seem to apply it to myself.
I feel heartbroken & it really hurts.
I’d be grateful for any advice even if it’s to say I am
a bad daughter & I made a mistake.
I just want to be at peace with my decision & after reading these legal papers all I can think about is how alone my mother must feel & how I abandoned her!
Your last words there about mother being abandoned and scared? That's not how your mom feels. It's how YOU feel. YOU feel abandoned and scared. Because your mother made you feel that way when you were a kid. Any kid who has been made parent to their own mom while still a child themselves will feel abandoned and scared. You're not that kid anymore. You are not an extension of her.
It sounds like you want us to agree with your current feelings. That you're a terrible person. Sorry, but I can't agree to something that is not true.
How can you be a bad daughter, when you were really never the daughter at all? You didn't get a real childhood. She stole that from you.
It sounds like getting that letter triggered a lot of what you've tried to bury for a long time. As a child, you had no power or voice. But you do now, even if you don't feel you do.
Your mother tried to abandon you by her self-destructive behavior when you were a kid. She didn't worry about how you'd feel about it. You didn't matter much to her then, and I doubt you do now. And that's on HER. Not you. It's sad she is like this, but you cannot change it.
You know your mother is mentally ill. You can't fix her problems. You will not get the love, appreciation, or apologies that your heart wants from her. You were born to a woman who, from what you said here, really had no business having children at all. It's not your fault. You didn't deserve the pain. Not then, not now, not ever. I don't care what you mom said to you... she doesn't get to decide who you are. YOU DO!
Haven't you suffered enough? Whether you know it or not, you deserve happiness. You are worthy of being loved and appreciated.
Your mother abused you all your life. If she can't understand why you're not sitting there by her 24/7 in her old age, then she's still stuck in her mental illness. I can understand wanting to, say, make sure she has a roof over her head and basic care. But anything past that is not a cross for you to bear.
I truly appreciate the time you took to give me advice, I agree with you & all the wonderful people on this site,
I think I will give myself a break today & allow myself to grieve my inner child or whatever I’m doing that I can’t stop crying? Tomorrow is a new day & I know it will be better.
Thanks again!
I appreciate you & everyone on this wonderful site from the bottom of my ❤️.
Part of the cycle of abuse is the manipulation of the abuser towards the one being abused into thinking that 1) the abuse is all the fault of the abused 2) The abused will be nothing without the abuser and 3) the abuser will be nothing without the abused person. It's the very manipulation that keeps the abused person from walking away from the abusive relationship. It's also one of the things that drives an abused person right back to their abuser. And it's subtly done, over long periods of time.
One of the most insidious things about being abused, systematically, over a long period of time by someone who is supposed to love you, is that the behavior becomes familiar, and in a twisted way, routine and normal. It's a reason why children who are either abused as children or witness marital abuse as children tend to marry abusers, and the horrific cycle continues. Your heartbreak is as much about the loss of your life as you knew it as it is about anything else, if that makes any sense to you.
But you, my brave friend, broke the cycle when you said "No more. I will not put up with this behavior towards me for one more minute. I will not leave my mother to fend for herself, I will seek to get her care taken over by the state so she will be taken care of, because I am not a vindictive soul, but I will not be the one caring for her, because she continues to hurt me and I VAULE MYSELF!" There are so, so many people who never come to this epiphany, much less act on it; I am so happy and so proud of you for doing it, because YOUR LIFE matters as much as anyone else's!
I would suggest, strongly, you reach out and find a survivors' support group. Therapy might help as well, but you might just get what you need from others who have made this journey before you and can cheer you along as you go. You will find peace with your decision once you find a way to heal from the abuse you withstood; it will take time and support, but you will be able to do it!
I send you great big (((hugs)))!
I appreciate your insight & I agree with you, I appreciate you taking the time to help & encourage me. It means a lot.
Bad daughter? No, but bad parents is a label that is likely more appropriate.
I feel that you will require professional help to comb out your feelings. I am very relieved that you already understand that you should not sacrifice your life henceforth to an abuser. What thanks would there be for that from anyone?
You may never be at peace with what happened to your through the accident of birth. But with help from a professional you will come to understand that not everything has an answer, not every parent is fit to be one, and not everything can be fixed through your actions. You are a human being, not a fairy godmother with a wand who can make all of this right. This will not be right. It is what it is and that will always be wrong. A wrong that was perpetrated on you.
Please put your Mom in the guardianship of the state, which will treat her a good deal more compassionately than she ever treated you. Please continue to take care of yourself. Understand that there is damage done to you that can never be fixed, but that you can go on with a quality of life that will make your life worthwhile upon this earth. You say your mother's mental illness isn't her fault. It isn't yours either. And it can't be changed or fixed by you. You can only care for and fix yourself, with the help of those trained to help with this. Good luck and I wish you the best. Do not be bullied by the "system" to take on work they don't wish to do. You have forgiven your Mom. That's fine. But it changes nothing in the past and will not change the future, except to bring you some peace in your heart that you never had anything at all to do with this sad turn of events, and nothing you can do will fix it.
You were born to a loving father and a severely damaged mother who was uninterested and unable to learn how a parent functions.
In my thinking, you are empathetic, but your mother is unable for whatever reason, to comprehend empathy.
Since you’ve had therapy, I assume you know that you are thinking as a very intelligent and rational woman, but your “daughter self” is still there, hoping for her to admit that what she did to your child self was wrong, and asking you to let her change and be your mom now, when she is desperate and wants to depend on your help again.
But YOU have filled her place as YOUR OWN GOOD MOTHER, and HOW WONDERFUL that you have done so!
AND for her to have become a ward of the court is the BEST and safest way for her life to be managed going forward. She may attempt to place blame on you for her circumstances or she may not, but her feelings are generated by her, and not subject to control by you.
Of course it doesn’t feel better for people to tell you how bad she was. You know already! You knew at 5, and for all the time that followed. Out of YOUR generosity of spirit, you continued to offer chance after chance, until you left because the beautiful interior spark of your SELF preservation told you to.
GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO GO BACK TO YOUR SPARK of Self PreservatioN RIGHT NOW! IT’S THERE WAITING FOR YOU!
You have made a loving but safely detached decision on her behalf that legal custodial care is best, because it is safest.
YOU JOB now, is to come to grips with the loss of the mother she SHOULD have been for you AND to relish the awareness that you are the product of YOUR OWN upbringing of yourself!
YOU TRULY DO sound like quite a kind and caring and incite
filled woman. BE YOU! I know some fully evolved children of mentally ill, abusive parents who have learned to reach a comfortable state of objectivity when thinking of their parents. You can too.
Go stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself " I AM A WORTHY PERSON. I AM GOOD PERSON. I DESERVE TO HAVE A HAPPY LIFE."
Your mother, for whatever reason, is unable to have any caring feelings for you. You can't expect an irrational person to have rational thoughts. So stop worrying about your mom, and start doing things for yourself that makes YOU happy.
Sending you a giant hug.
You can love a person very, very much and still recognise that you are unable to meet her needs, you know. You have not abandoned and are not abandoning your mother. You have simply learned that your banging your head against a brick wall does no good to her and a great deal of harm to you - and trying to care for someone with your mother's challenges IS banging your head against a brick wall. She needs something different from love, she needs orderly procedures carried out by trained professionals. That's the thing to focus on, that this step will ensure your mother gets what she *needs* from people she can't hurt.
If nothing else, tell yourself you will just wait and see. I think once this guardianship is settled you'll actually feel a lot happier about how it works for your mother.
I'm sorry about your childhood and all you dealt with way too early in life. No child should ever have to experience what you did.
I will say you are a good daughter; despite all you're mother put you through you care about what happens to her and are worried about how she feels.
I have no real advise to give you, you are grieving for a lot of things about you and your mother. I just wanted you to know your writing broke my heart. I pray you are blessed with peace, grace, joy and love.
* Do you think Mother will change? (ie start to respect your boundaries?)
* Are you hoping she will?
* Knowing how she is, what level of contact/involvement is best for YOU? For your self-protection?
* Would taking on her Guardianship match this level of contact/involvement?
Does Mother need Guardianship? We know that is Yes.
* Does her legal Guardian NEED to be YOU? Really? Or do you think you SHOULD be?
I think this could be the sticking point here.
I was once stuck there. I was was thinking two opposite things at the same time:
1. I SHOULD do it +
2. I CAN'T do it
I was told this is *cognitive dissonance*. Have you heard of this?
"In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values".
How I got past that point was asking & asking myself why I should do it & why I couldn't do it until I unwraveled the layers down to a more basic question:
* Did I think I had to fix it?
Medicineislogic, you said "I know she has a mental illness & it’s not her fault".
Well done for accepting this hard truth. Many many (((hugs))) & warm wishes to you.
One last question:
* Can you fix her?
If you had accepted guardianship, you would NOT, repeat NOT be required to take her in, move in with her or provide ANY kind of care. Being guardian only relates to making decisions about how their affairs will be handled. It is a lot of work, and requires detailed accounting to provide to the courts. Rejecting that is merely saying I don't want to manage any of that. It has nothing to do with what kind of person you are.
Also note, despite "giving up" guardianship, you can still choose to have some kind of relationship with your mother. That is up to you. If you can handle it and want to visit, try it. If you can't, well so what? She was never really there for you and even if you could "be there" for her, what would it accomplish? Most likely more verbal abuse. But, the option is there. Giving up guardianship just means you can't make any legal decisions for her. Nothing more, nothing less.
As you stated, "Tomorrow is a new day & I know it will be better."
You've signed the paperwork, and that is behind you. Time to heal yourself! It would be a difficult decision if there was a good relationship, but clearly in this case there wasn't one. Again, signing that paperwork just says you won't be responsible for decisions for your mother. That does NOT make you a bad person in any way!
Best wishes
The baggage you carry because of your mom is complex and we are not therapists, there is so much here in your letter. But just because she bore you doesn’t mean you have to be held responsible for her bad decisions or abuse. The healthy and wise thing is to extricate yourself from it. And please seek counseling for these feelings of guilt because they are undeserved and misplaced.
Often the abused so wants to be loved and earn love because they think they can be better and fix it. Sadly this is fairy tale thinking. Get yourself to a counselor to deal with the grief you are feeling over not having a normal mother daughter relationship that you wish you could fix. Your mother's problems are hers and not yours
Please read any of the books by Townsend and Cloud about "boundaries." Use their techniques when you contact/visit your mom.
I think life presents us with series of choices throughout our existence, some of which are good, some bad, and some in the middle. The best we can do is analyze the choices and make the most appropriate decision of which we are capable.
Regrets can happen, regardless of our choices. And we don't have confirmation of our selections, so a lot of the analysis if not regret is in our minds, and can't always be rationally analyzed, especially when we're dealing with wanting the best for our parents, and balancing our own needs.
Based on your initial post, it seems as though you faced a very challenging dilemma, but made what you feel is the best decision for care for your mother. I think that's a rational and appropriate decision, even though it troubles you.
In caring for our loved ones, I think we're faced with these kinds of decisions more frequently, and they're far more personal and emotional. Will we ever come to terms with our decisions? I'm not sure...I still review and rationalize decisions I made 2 decades ago, but there's nothing I can do except to remind myself that the situations were challenging and no decision was much better than another.
I see that your last posts were on the same date as opening this thread. I hope you're still here to see how much support others have offered, and wish you peace and acceptance of a difficult situation as you and your mother move forward.
Since you couldn't save her and she is fully aware of how to manipulate or push your buttons, you probably aren't the best person to be in charge of her affairs. It didn't work all these years. You aren't any more equipped to change the outcome now than you were then.
Just be her daughter. Visit. If visit gets ugly, say you have to leave and will return later. If she tries to get you to do things the guardian won't do, tell her that the doctors could see you weren't the best person to be in charge of her care. You will only abandon her if you really abandon her. Don't.
Should a serial killer's wife stay with him or would leaving be abandonment? There comes a time when another's behavior needs to be addressed through action - for the healing to begin of the significant other(s).
Take care.
"I have put up with this abuse for FAR too long. I have decided that I am FREE from it, and I plan to live my OWN life from now on. I am a good person who has done my best for my mother, but now it is time for someone else to take over. I can only change myself and no one else. I realize my own needs and desires are valid. Therefore, from today onward, I am going to discover how to meet them, and resolve to do what it takes to make my own happiness a reality. Once again, I am FREE from my mother's clutches, and my new life begins NOW."
If you want to visit your mother in future, you can do so. However, if you don't, that is fine, too. Your needs come first now.
(btw, this reminds me of Stuart Smalley on SNL, Daily Affirmations skit, gazing into the mirror and saying "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggonit, people like me!!! OP could add this to the end of the above soliloquy. The short clips start out with an intro including some more good things one can repeat into the mirror:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ldAQ6Rh5ZI )
You need therapy.
You need to let the court appoint a guardian for your mother.
You need to rebuild a life for yourself and allow time to heal from the myriad wounds your mother inflicted upon you.
In my opinion, your mother's current situation is her fault, not yours. She sought no help for herself when she was abusing you. People of average intelligence are capable of recognizing the need to change their behavior. She chose not to change her ways.
Go no contact with the hospital, the social worker, your mother, etc. Do not let them sucker you into being a part of your mother's life.
I don't know what, if anything, you need to do with the petition but someone on this forum can probably answer that.
You deserve so much better than you have been given by your mother. You recognize that you cannot help her. You recognize that caring for an abuser is unhealthy for yourself. Your mother has taken up too much space in your head already. I urge you to stop thinking about your mother because she will be fine.
Do something kind for yourself right now and every day. Do you have friends? Do you have hobbies?
1 : responsible for having done wrong.
2 : suffering from or showing bad feelings about having done wrong.
You have done NOTHING wrong. You are not abandoning your mother. It sounds like she abandoned you as a child. Go on with your life. At this point, she has not changed and you will be signing over your life to years of misery. If you need help, see a therapist. If your mother feels alone, it's because of her own actions. Give yourself permission to have peace in your life. It's all about you. Take care of yourself.
* Keep remembering WHY you said NO initially.
* It is not unusual, from my understanding, for 'the abused person' to be 'loyal to the abuser.'
* As you said "I just want to be at peace (with my decision). The peace may take some time. I sense it took immense courage for you to do what you did. And YOU do deserve to have some inner peace. You've suffered enough.
HarpCat said:
You might want to read Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw. A friend of mine who had similar parents as your's said it was a huge help."
I say: GET INTO THERAPY YESTERDAY. Heal yourself.
Gena / Touch Matters
good luck to you