Worried about my mum

LegacyUser

I am becoming increasingly worried about my mother. I have just moved home after a couple of years abroad and have noticed a huge change in her behaviour. I'm the youngest of four & have always had an up & down relationship with her. My father left after I was born & my older siblings are a good bit older than I am, so it was like I was an only child.

She was very dependent on me for a long time, especially during my teens. Not overbearing really (she trusted me with going out etc, in return I have always been quite open & honest with her) but I always felt she treated me different than the others, like I was a substitute spouse or something. She put more expectations on me to spend all my time with her than my brothers & sisters.

She would use me as an excuse not to go out with friends (as in I would be lonely in the house on my own, which definitely wasn't the case!), she'd freak if I didn't want to go to a family party even though my siblings didn't have to do these things. She played the victim quite a lot- she would say nasty things to me, call me fat & ugly, tell me I wasn't good enough to do much with my life. When I fought back & tried to stand up for myself (which I was never good at, I always wanted to keep the peace) she would then start crying & saying how she had done so much for me & look how I treated her in return. I couldn't win with her.

I moved abroad to get some much needed space from her & to grow into an adult. I truly loved being away & even felt my relationship with her improved. But I've since had to return home, as I lost my job & have very little savings. I'm job hunting at the moment & planning to move out as soon as possible but I'm now worried about her.

She's in a high powered job and doing really, really well at it and is getting all sorts of acclaim for. She's very confident when it comes to work & it really shows. But outside of her work, her confidence is so low.

She does everything she can to avoid meeting up with her friends (she has loads of friends, who are always asking her to meet up for walks, drinks, weekends away etc) but then she says she feels isolated from everyone. She wants less & less contact with the neighbours, whom she used to be really friendly & chatty with.

She always had clutter in the house but now I feel she is really hoarding stuff. The amount of newspapers, magazines, plastic bags, glasses etc around the house is unreal (not as bad as on How Clean is Your House but it could well be on it's way). I help out around the house, cleaning & tidying up the place but she gets really angry with me for touching her "stuff" and accuses me of throwing out her things, even though I'm not. I then hear her on the phone to friends or my siblings, giving out that I don't help around the house. Same with my rent money- I give her money towards bills every week. At first she asked me for it & I agreed to it. I gave her the money & she refused to accept it. Then she told my sister that I wouldn't contribute to the house. In the end, I set up a standing order straight into her bank account.

I'm worried about her health as well. She is overweight (not hugely so) and has been advised by her doctor to lose weight. I could do with losing weight too so I suggested we both join weight watchers which she didn't want to do. I buy my own food & cook my own meals but always offer to add her to the pot- which she doesn't want. She then complains that she hates cooking for herself & makes junk food, after which she'll be angry with herself as she was "bad", in her own words. I've been running to lose weight but have offered to go for walks with her, which she refuses. I don't push these things with her- I offer once or twice & then leave it, I don't want to be a nag.

I feel like she is stressed with work & possibly depressed or feels out of control or something. I think she's lonely too. I don't know if it's my place to say any of this to her but I don't know what to do, if I can help or if I'm just making the problem worse. I want to move out of home as soon as possible- I feel my own low moods coming back being in this environment. I've asked my sister who lives closest to the home house for advice, but she just said she finds mum too needy so she keeps her distance.

I don't really know what to do. Any advice?

Firetrap

It would be well worth your while having a word with her GP I think. If you could persuade her to go, better still but maybe she might not want that. This behaviour may or may not be symptoms of something else. Is she doing OK in her job? Not making mistakes?

LegacyUser

no, no mistakes- that I know of. She has been praised by her managers & mentioned in the company's quarterly magazine for her work- I read it myself.

She just came in there now & had a go at me for throwing away a kitchen appliance & ruining her kitchen- when in fact I just made space for it in a cupboard and cleaned the place. I found some sort of creatures (kind of like see-through maggots) in a cupboard. I scooped them in a plastic bowl to show her (i knew she wouldn't believe me if I told her) and she just laughed.

All she seems to care about are my eldest sister & her kids. My sister treats her terribly- very critical of mum, demands money & babysitting off her. I don't interfere with this but I feel she takes advantage of mum. Mum dotes on the kids and is worried that my sister will ban her from seeing the kids if she doesn't comply. Mum had a go at myself & my other sister when we both said we weren't sure if we would ever had kids. She said we were denying her happiness.

She is becoming increasingly paranoid about a number of things. She became livid with me when I switched from our old family GP to another local GP- she said what would they think of her?! Same with the mechanic the family used- I didn't go back to him after the shoddy job he did on my car (actually caused more damage)- she kept coming up with excuses for him to make me go back to him.

If you met her, you would think she is the most lovely, caring person, and, most of the time, she is.. Everyone she works with thinks highly of her, all my friends adore her. I feel I can't confide in my friends as they'll just think I'm being bratty or difficult or something. My siblings don't want to get involved.