How do I break the cycle of drama?

[Sneezy]

My mom lost her purse last week.  She started calling me on Monday - blowing up my cell phone, home phone, work phone, until I called back.  I tried to keep her calm, but the phone calls and texts went on non-stop until I went over to her apartment on Tuesday and helped her search her apartment.  The drama kept ramping up.  Mom wouldn't eat, couldn't sleep, canceled a doctor's appointment, wouldn't take her medications, and basically made herself a complete wreck.  I tried to stay calm as I helped her call her bank and credit card companies.  Then the lies and the blame started.  One story after another - it was my fault because I didn't keep track of her important papers for her.  Wait, someone found her purse and turned it in.  No, her purse was turned in and then stolen again (see how it changed there from "lost" to "stolen").  Finally, I got tired of the lies and conflicting stories and Mom trying to blame me.  By Thursday, I was getting short with her and now I am the bad daughter and she is the martyr.  She is even having to take the accessible city van to the licensing office to get a new driver's license because her terrible daughter (that's me) refuses to spend half a day to do this for her.  And I feel guilty.  And angry. 

It's the same cycle over and over.

1. Mom is bored and needs attention
2. Something bad happens
3. Mom blows up my phone and text and demands that I fix the problem
4. I try to stay calm and logical and work through the issue
5. Mom stops eating, starts shaking, gets more and more hysterical
6. The conflicting stories start
7. Mom blames me because . . . (insert made up reason)
8. I get mad, tell her to stop blaming me, tell her that her stories don't make sense
9. Mom is hurt.  She is a martyr.  What an awful daughter she has.  After all, she is just a sweet, helpless little old lady who needs her daughter to help her like everyone else's daughter helps them.  Why won't her daughter support her?  Why does her daughter treat her so harshly?  Woe is mom.
10. I feel guilty

This cycle repeats itself over and over and although I recognize it, I still get caught in it.  So where/how can I stop it?  I need to interrupt this cycle and keep it from becoming a never-ending part of my life.  NC would be one option (and it's one my DH is starting to recommend).  But I'm afraid the guilt of going NC with an 80-year old who does truly need some help from me would be more than I could stomach.

[donutmoonpanda]

You're in a tough position, Sneezy, and I don't envy you. But I can say that you can take back your life, your time, your sanity, whenever you want. We don't owe our parents anything.

The guilt with NC does get easier. You just have to do it and then work on RESISTING that urge to give up. That urge that wants you to bury your feelings and sell yourself out to make her comfortable and go back to business as usual (hopping back on the cycle). Every day of NC for me has made that urge go away a little more, a little more. And I get more energy to just THINK rationally and practice self-care. I've realized so many things since NC and I feel so much more... real, important, complete. There are setbacks when she tries to reach out to me, but I have practice now, going back to focusing on my own needs. Focusing on how it feels, not how it looks to anyone else.

Focus on you. Guilt will try to drag you away, just come back and focus on yourself. Over and over again, like mindfulness meditation. It doesn't matter how many times the guilt comes up, just come back to focusing on yourself and your needs. You're not helping anyone or loving anyone if you're not helping and loving yourself. If I can do it, I know you can do it.

[notrightinthehead]

Using the Toolbox you could start at step 3
You answer the phone only when it is convenient for you. You express sympathy and validation, something along the line- oh dear, that is a worry, I am sorry you lost your purse. I am sure you will be able to sort that out. That might keep you busy for a while. Have to go now. Good luck mum. After that your phone goes on silent.

Step 5 As you now only answer your mum's calls once a day, you will not get roped into the drama so much. You keep a level head. When your mum has made herself sick enough to have landed in the ER, you speak to the professionals and trust them to be able and competent.

Step 6 the conflicting stories will no longer be important to you because you watch the drama unfold without taking part in it.

You might be a bad daughter no matter how much you bend yourself into a pretzel, your mum might have a black hole of need that you never might be able to fill. It's your responsibility to make sure that you remain healthy and rational and are not enmeshed in the drama. That will be better for yourself and your mum.

[sunshine702]

It sounds like a tantrum.

And no matter how irrational it is YOUR FAULT.  Why? Beacause bad things are YOUR FAULT.

Practice on the limiting exposure to the nasty phase.  Pre plan the excuse.  There is a ticking timb bomb I know of in my situatiion happening April 15.  We are moving and I am getting a new number.  I allready have it but the switch (no contact) is magically happening around April 15th... weird  lol.

Pick something from your regular life (kids baseball practice) and put it into the phone call.  Gotta run mom J's baseball practice.

You build up that deflect and low contact muscle each time you use it.  It's a process.  Nothing will ever be good enough though.  Don't play that game.  She isn't rational.

[Cat of the Canals]

I know this isn't the answer you want, but I don't think you can break it. PDs are gonna do their PD things with our without us. The only thing you can control (and I know you've heard this before) is what you do.

Of course there are ways to potentially mitigate some of the drama reaching you at all: blocking her phone number on your cell phone or setting a custom ringtone for her number to "silent." Turning the ringer off of your home phone. And if that's not feasible for the work phone as well, letting her calls go to voicemail.

Building on what notrightinthehead said, if it were me, and I felt that dropping the rope completely wasn't an option, I'd come up with some sort of triage system, the same way a hospital has triage nurses who determine who gets care first based on need. You use this system to determine the following:

• Is mom's Problem o' the Week an emergency or non-emergency?
• if emergency - next steps will probably be fairly obvious, depending on the specifics of the situation (call ambulance, doctor, etc.)
• if non-emergency - determine whether this is a problem mom can reasonably handle herself
• if mom can handle herself - tell her you're sorry she's in this position, it sounds very frustrating. if she wants (demands) assistance, she'll have to wait until you have time, no promises when that will happen, goodbye and good luck!
• if mom can't handle herself - decide when you have the time to offer help/assistance, and let her know.
• if mom does not respect your boundaries (EXAMPLE: continuing to demand help NOW, calling incessantly), possible institution of consequences (EXAMPLE: for every day she continues to harass you, that's another day added to when you will go help her)

The hardest part of this whole thing will be ignoring her attempts to get you to come running to take care of her mess, but the only way you might temper some of this behavior is to stop rewarding the bad behavior (the incessant calling/texting). Even if that doesn't happen, at least you won't feel like you're walking straight into the same drama trap again.

[Boat Babe]

Using the Toolbox you could start at step 3
You answer the phone only when it is convenient for you. You express sympathy and validation, something along the line- oh dear, that is a worry, I am sorry you lost your purse. I am sure you will be able to sort that out. That might keep you busy for a while. Have to go now. Good luck mum. After that your phone goes on silent.

Step 5 As you now only answer your mum's calls once a day, you will not get roped into the drama so much. You keep a level head. When your mum has made herself sick enough to have landed in the ER, you speak to the professionals and trust them to be able and competent.

Step 6 the conflicting stories will no longer be important to you because you watch the drama unfold without taking part in it.

You might be a bad daughter no matter how much you bend yourself into a pretzel, your mum might have a black hole of need that you never might be able to fill. It's your responsibility to make sure that you remain healthy and rational and are not enmeshed in the drama. That will be better for yourself and your mum.

[p123]

All sounds very familiar. With Dad EVERYTHING is an emergency that has to be dealt with NOW.

As you say, I'm sure its boredom.

[Liketheducks]

It is VERY familiar.   I can echo that NC gets easier over time.   I also felt like a terrible daughter/person.   I made an objective list of the things I DID do rather than those things seen through my FOO's lens of drama.    That helped me a lot.   
I actually had my SIL nurse call me to say that mom needed to go to the hospital and rather than I drop everything to take her, I suggested an ambulance.   It wasn't a real  medical drama, it was manufactured as a manipulation to rope me back into the role I used to play.     In the circle of drama, we all play roles.  I had been groomed as the savior/rescuer.       When I stepped out of that circle.....my peace escalated.   It has been a few years, and a boat load of therapy, but it is harder for them to take me out of that more peaceful space.   It may seem strange, but I feel like so much more of an adult now, than when I was playing the "adult" for my FOO.

[Sneezy]

Thank you everyone - as I read your responses I am so grateful for this community.  Last week was a rough week.  I had a minor medical procedure on Wednesday and I think that made me a little more responsive to mom's drama (and more likely than normal to get roped into her hysteria).  You all are right, I'm not going to change her.  It's so hard because when she calls me and is crying and carrying on, I feel like I should fix whatever the problem is.  But that's not normal.  I would never do that to my adult daughter.  Sure, I've bounced problems off of her and sometimes vented to her.  But not very often - it's not her job to listen to me rant and rave.  So why do I think it's ok for my mother to do that to me?  It's time for me to step back (again) and stop answering the phone all the time and let my mom deal with her own stuff.