Transformed way back to horrible childhood

[Danie]

My husband and I visited my uNPD, histrionic etc. mother for 1 1/2 hours on Thanksgiving. It was pretty much a pity-visit. She only lives 12 miles away; yet she herself is afraid to travel. She has extreme anxiety of all kinds, poisoning, being robbed (money) and traveling to name a few.

She's so much like her mother. The house is very closed up, the windows are covered. It's kind of junky-old furniture, pill bottles in the living room, 30 year old artwork on the wall, throw rugs everywhere, smelly. She has no idea or instinct to freshen it up and have visitors.

Since my husband was with me I felt I could tolerate it, and I did better than if I were alone, but my PTSD has kicked in, but it's better than usual. I feel spaced out, kind of depressed and kind of lost and am unfortunately focusing on all the moments from our visit which were filled with her complaining. She doesn't just complain......that would be easy, she traumatizes us.

My 65 year-old BIL is having heart issues and she my mother cannot get her fill of hashing it our and exclaiming how frightening and upsetting it is to her ( I guess it should be to everyone?) When we got to my mom's residence she had her own heart information from her heart attack 10 years laid out on the coffee table and made me read aloud about A-FIB. She also had her husband's own will out to make a point that my sister hopefully has a will or it's going to be a big crisis! My mom seems to think if my BIL dies "everything has to go through probate". Even though we tell her the surviving spouse gets everything (for lack of a better way to say it) she refuses to believe that. Either way, my sister's affairs are not my business!

So I still feel just yukky. My mom instilled hopelessness and fear into me and my sisters when we were little and I bought into it until I became an adult and realized life is NOT all fear and pain and misery. Things I tell myself are: I am what I think about all day, life has so many wonderful beautiful things to offer, I don't need to buy into her mentality of suffering etc. and it works to re-frame things and think for myself, but visiting her sucks me right back into PTSD.

Realistically I am concerned that she makes no effort to pack up her house and move on. She's 81 and has a very hard time physically. She hurt her back trying to lift a 40 lb bag of water softener salt 3 weeks ago. I printed off some information FROM the internet and gave it to her to inform her to use ice and heat. She disputed this idea, but said she did have a little ice pack the dentist gave her ?

When I handed her the information she didn't even look at it, didn't thank me and just tossed it aside. She did say, "where'd you get this?" And when I said I printed if off the internet she looked confused. She was so excited to get to the good stuff: my BIL's heart problem!

Anyway, she had an exercise bike in her basement she wanted to get rid of. I knew this ahead of time. Before my husband and I left we carried it out from the basement and left it in the garage and I took a picture of it with my phone so I could list it for sale. She's so anxious and controlling we have go over and over how this is going to go. She changes the details and worries she might have to deal with someone or something. After we left and were our eating dinner she called both of us and left messages that it was the wrong exercise bike! That one was her husband's and hers was still in the basement.

Also, while we were still there she giggled as she told us 3 people showed up to snow shovel her sidewalk. She enlists people (for free of course) and gets pissed if they don't show up at her convenience so she gets other people involved. She didn't tell us the whole truth, about being pissed off, I heard that later from my sister. She just giggles that they all showed up!

What really sends me into PTSD is her very dramatic, watery-eyed complaining of how lonely she is and and how hard life is without a husband. That messes up my head, for some reason. I think because I heard her mournful desperate cries for help way back as a baby and it scared me. It was other things in her life that were just too hard to overcome, but what ever stage she's at it's all too hard and she makes it her children's problem. It probably triggers me because when I was little I didn't know enough to ignore it and I believed we were all gonna die a torturous lonely death! That's how she made me feel.

[SunnyMeadow]

I'm working on my reaction to my uNPDmother's dramatic watery-eyed complaining of how lonely she is (good way to describe it). Our mothers sounds eerily similar, this is difficult stuff to work around!

I've been hardening my heart to her because she really and truly doesn't care about anyone else but her. Anyone who has a medical issue is turned into how hard it is for her. And heaven help you if you don't follow her medical advice. She becomes furious.

Like your mom, mine l-o-v-e-s when people help her FOR FREE. She thinks it shows how wonderful and sweet she is. She rubs it in to me. You said you feel yucky....that's a good way to describe it. I feel the same way when I make an obligatory visit. Take care of you and do things you like to do, happy things. Find some activities that help you stop thinking of her.

[jojosmile]

I get sad too because I want to help them have a good time and they literally won't be helped. They want to be miserable.
Maybe that helps. Pity them or not, they want to be miserable. They will stay miserable.
So why pity?
May as well leave them be.
God knows that's easier said than done, though, especially while still in the FOG.
I thought I was out but this week I'm back in and having to get out all over again.