Hi all.
My 91 year old mum is currently in hospital and near the end of her life. She has now stopped eating and drinking and the doctors say she has a week or so left.
Readers digest version: we have always had a complicated relationship. I was adopted and she treated me more like a maid than a daughter. We were estranged for years after leaving home at 15 years old. We had a very superficial relationship when I became an adult. She had nothing to do with my kids until they were adults.
My dad is gone 26 years now and my mum’s last partner passed away last year. Since then, I have been her caregiver and moved her into independent living at a retirement home. A fall on February 14th put her in hospital and she is now going to palliative care.
The crippling anxiety I feel when even getting ready to go see her is something I have never felt before. She has Alzheimer’s and is in a delirium.
I look for reasons to not go to see her and then I feel incredible guilt. When I do go see her, I come away a wreck.
I have warring feelings of resentment and love (if that makes sense). Am I a horrible person if I don’t go see her as much as I think I should? I go 2-3 times per week. I am actually terrified when I go to see her. Is this normal?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
The truth is that you did not cause any of this.
You can't cure any of this.
If you are not at fault for things it is not for you to feel "guilty" about them. Your mother suffered from serious limitations. That isn't going to change.
The better g-word would be "grief".
The approach of death is made the more difficult when a lifelong relationship has been full of pain.
It marks an ending to hope. Hope that your mother can be someone she is not and never was. Hope that you will have the mother you wanted and that is worth grieving.
This is all very complicated, and I would suggest a good therapist to help you work out things through this process. Not one who will sit listening to the same stories, but one who will shake you up, help you let loose of life- long habits formed for survival and self- protection. One who will rock your world and set you on a new path to make family and a quality loving life full of loving family and friends. And JOY.
I wish you the best. Your mother has had the best life she was able to with her limitations. There is still time for you to learn other ways, and to have the happiness you want, need and deserve.
I think you should do what you feel comfortable with Puppymom. I don't believe there are any right or wrongs here. Lealonnie is right. Dying is a personal journey and one that we as witnesses to it can't really change one way or the other for our loved ones.
If you feel that the whole experience is going to traumatize you then you should not put yourself through that. Either way, whatever you decide to do will be okay.
The visits are wretched. There is no other word for it. The grief they cause us is mind numbing, but part of the grief process in general so there's no "I could've or should've " laments to stew around in our psyches later on.
My father used to say, "we come into this world alone and we leave this world alone, too." He was right. By the time a dementia patient is actively dying, she's more on the Other Side than here, preparing to transition alone. Her body is shutting down but her soul is busy. You are hearing and witnessing the ravages of that body's systems shutting down. It's ugly and scary, too, that's for sure.
Whether you sit by her side 24/7 so she's "not alone", she's making this journey alone but to be received with joy from her loved ones who passed on before her. When my uncle was 98 and comatose for 2 weeks in bed, one day he sat bolt upright smiled widely, reached his hands toward the ceiling and cried "MAMA YOU ARE HERE"!!!! He died shortly thereafter w a smile on his face, he was at peace. Do you think he cared if his daughter was there at that time, upset and suffering??
Visit in short installments, that's my advice. Hold her hand, smooth her hair, say I love you and I admire the life you led, mom. Then go. I purposely left my parents besides before they passed bc I did not want that image of their last breath imprinted on my mind forever. I wanted to leave without that burden on me, knowing they were transitioning to a state of perfect peace, thankfully. If that makes me a "bad person" then I accept it, but I don't buy it. Death is a solitary experience as is birth.
Its vital to make YOUR end of life experience w mom something that doesn't decimate YOU. What that means for you may differ from me and that's okay too. Leaving your blood and guts on the floor won't change the ultimate outcome here. She's in God's hands now. Accept it and try to achieve peace with it.
Your mum was gifted w 91 years of life to live as she saw fit. God bless her as she takes this final leg of her journey and God bless you as you learn to live life all over again, as we all deserve to do. You did your very best for her, my friend, and hopefully you know that in your heart.
We adopted our first daughter and I am very close to her. Several years later I gave birth to our second daughter. My love for them is identical. Their love for me is identical as well.
The truth is that there are great relationships and poor relationships between parents and children whether they are biologically related or a family that is formed through adoption.
To answer your question though, no you are not a terrible person if you don’t go see her often. Why go if you don’t want to?
Through no fault of your own, you didn’t develop a strong bond with her. Why pretend or act as if you have a loving, healthy relationship? It may help to speak to a therapist to help you sort out your feelings.
Accept the facts of your situation and don’t feel guilty. You have no reason to feel guilty. You can feel badly and grieve the fact that you didn’t have a good relationship.
It’s sad all around. I wish that you would have had the childhood that you deserved. I wish that your mom had been capable of knowing how to be a loving mother and had a wonderful relationship with her precious daughter. Both of you missed out, so it is doubly sad.
Wishing you peace during this stressful and difficult time in your life.
I was going to force myself to go to the hospital today but took your advice and stayed home. I did call to make sure her condition has not deteriorated and got an update from the nurse.
I will go with my daughter tomorrow as she needs my support but I will try to no longer feel bad about not going on my own.
I am just sad that I am the only person she has in the entire world. She is going to die a lonely old woman because she only found fault with people and didn’t nurture any relationships she did have.
I will go at the end as no one deserves to die alone. I will grieve for what could have been but will treasure the amazing relationships I do have with my own children.
Thank you so much for your advice. You can’t know how much it helped♥️
Have you had any counseling for this difficult relationship? Warring feelings makes total sense to me. I had counseling off and on all my life and it helped. Wishing the best for you and an easy passing for your mother.
I may have to go back for a tune up!
I am so sorry you experienced the same childhood as I did and I hope we can both find our peace. Hugs xoxo