Stressed out daughter

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Help!!!!! Is there anyone out there like me. I am sitting here, less than a week from my 32nd birthday, wondering when my life will begin. I am single, childless and my house is a wreck. My father passed away almost 3 years ago, October. My fiance and I split 2 months after his death after my recently widowed mother backed him in a corner a demanded her set a date for the wedding, while he was in the middle of buying a coorperation, a very stressful time for him and our relathionship. Needless to say that was the kick that it needed to start a quick downward decline to the end. After this ending I made the decision to leave Colorado and to move to Georgia where my parents resided to do the "daughterly duty" and be close to my mother and help take care of her as her health is not the best. Since, moving her she has dominated my life, very demanding and inpatient when needing help with things. I work full time for a family practice physican who is also my mothers physican. She will call me numerous time throughout the day for what i consider silly reasons, or just stop by cause she dosn't feel well. She has has been admitted to the hospital at least 6 times in the last year and is currently flat on her back, with back pain that has been going on for almost 3 weeks. I feel I am always on call and she demands that I jump whenever she calls. Oh, and did I fail to mention, that when she is well, she is running around acting like a 16 year old and chasing men and booking plain tickets to meet men she met on the internet??? I don't know what to do, I am burned out beyond belief, would love to meet someone and settle down and have children of my own to burn out when I get to her age. Twisted Evil

I just feel like I am drowning, I have gnats flying around my head as I typed as I have had to time to do my own dishes in almost 2 weeks, well gotta run, she is on the phone, the cat threw up, gotta drive 30 minutes to go clean it up. Help, anyone got any advise??????

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I'll be back.

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cwg--

Welcome to A2K.

Getting down to the nitty-gritty, you can either retrain you mother or you can move across the country out of her reach.

You can also commit suicide, join a convent or start mainlining heroin.

Figure out what changes you want to make and start slowly--but firmly.

Your mama wants you to jump when she calls. She may be a forceful woman and you may be a super-dutiful daughter....but no matter how forceful she is you are the person who is choosing to jump.

Start paring down the demands on your time, your life. Pick a time/place of your very own: At work? Saturday? Every day after seven?

Then enforce your privacy. "Sorry, I can't take personal phone calls," or
"Sorry, I need Saturday to unwind," or "Sorry, I'm in my jammies and coming down with a cold."

Start small--you aren't used to asserting your rights and your mother is.

Let us know how the battles go. You have us on your side.

Good luck.

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I "second" everything Noddy says, and might add that you need help with her, either through actually hiring or some senior assistance services. It is hard to separate the genuine emergency need from a role of subservient helper, all sorts of things come into play, not least of all some floating general guilt on shoulders.

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The sage advice on this forum sometimes leaves me breathless

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I agree with the idea of hiring a helper - even for a short amount of time. Another possibility is a seniors' center, if she can go there during the day when you're at work or at least for a part of the time while you're at work. At the very least, she'll be occupied and unable to call you during those times, or at least will be strongly discouraged from doing so.

I suspect she's bored silly when she's not chasing men, and probably somewhat bored when she's doing that, too. So she's looking to you to entertain her or the hospital to do so or the like. Well, that's not why you're there or why the hospital is there. So she needs some other way to occupy her time; otherwise you go nuts. And we don't want that, obviously.

A local center should have arts and possibly some entertainment stuff (an acting troupe comes in, or a singer, etc.). They may also have some physical activities, either in a pool if they're fortunate enough to have one, or maybe mild non-impact aerobics.

If there is no local senior center, or if she objects, another avenue is adult education. The local Y might have mild forms of exercise (of course you need to check with her doctor first to see if that's all right). Adult ed might have stuff like ceramics or painting.

Essentially what I'm getting at is that your mother doesn't seem to have much in the way of inner resources. Rather than pick up a book, take a walk or write a letter, she picks up the phone and bothers you when she's bored. Rather than clean up the cat's mess or think about starting dinner or knitting, she relies on you to do these kinds of things, and is impatient when you don't do them, chop chop!

Best to you; I hope this works out.

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Stressed out daughter
Take a look at the recent post "I am being driven crazy by my mother". You may find some help there; at least you will find assurances that you are not alone.

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Stressed out daughter

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