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Can't cope with the guilt trips & responsibility

CornySenior Contributor02 Feb 2019, 8:21 pm AEDT

Can't cope with the guilt trips & responsibility

I'm having one of those evenings when I can't stop crying and just want to runaway and never come back. Carer's burnout.......just doesn't even begin to describe how my brain feels when I am dealing with my mother.

Nothing is ever enough. I don't visit enough, I don't call enough, I don't do enough, never, ever enough, she's constantly lonley, and yet is waited on hand and foot.

She is always reminding me that her loneliness is worse than anyone else's and this enormous, vacuous, dark crater is my responsbility to fix, and I just can't take it anymore.

I'm going away tomorrow for the break I never get to enjoy at Christmas or New Years, year after year after year after year, when everyone I know is out enjoying themselves. And yet when I take a break I get guilt trips and emotional manipulation, little digs that I am not enough and could always do or be more - for her.

I am so fed up with being a function and having to disregard my own inner experience.

Its just too much for one person some days.

Other people go to their mother to be recharged. And I have to get away from mine.

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In response to: Can't cope with the guilt trips & responsibility

LittleSisterCasual Contributor27 Feb 2019, 8:07 am AEDT

Re: Can't cope with the guilt trips & responsibility

Thanks Corn Dog for your words. I read them twice.

I had a blow up with C and made some demands (respect, manners etc) and surprise surprise, she rang me later and sounded totally sane and calm and cooperative. Let’s see how long it lasts. I think I just have to pull her up EVERY TIME she crosses the line. I hate being put in the authoritarian role. I resigned from that years ago. That was poor ol’ Dad’s job.

In response to: Can't cope with the guilt trips & responsibility

Unknown userMember15 Mar 2019, 8:37 pm AEDT

Re: Can't cope with the guilt trips & responsibility

How are you going @Corny ?

In response to: Re: Can't cope with the guilt trips & responsibility

Shaz51Senior Contributor16 Mar 2019, 4:40 pm AEDT

Re: Can't cope with the guilt trips & responsibility

hello @VeeM , @LittleSister , @Corny , @Former-Member , @Faith-and-Hope

how are you today

In response to: Can't cope with the guilt trips & responsibility

CarlachrisSenior Contributor04 June 2019, 2:19 pm AEST

Re: Can't cope with the guilt trips & responsibility

I too am dealing with not one but my own mother and my MIL being very passive aggressive towards me the only member of the family who cares enough to care and my husbands MI. Some days I just swing from one to the other. The more I share re the mum situation the more people share with me that they are in a similar situation. It seems to be very widespread. I worked for over 30 yrs in the Aged care sector and saw for myself the interplay of this happening to hundreds of other families. I retired but stepped into the mess myself. Even knowing all I knew I was not prepared for the cruelty and neglect of me as the whipping post for all three. Boundaries need to be respected and very tightly controlled. I have now explained quietly to them “IF YOU HURT ME I CANNOT HELP YOU ANYMORE”. They don’t like it but that’s my rule. It some weird backwards way I am now respected. Go figure.

Bless and gentle hugs. You are not alone and neither am I.

In response to: Can't cope with the guilt trips & responsibility

outlanderSenior Contributor23 June 2019, 10:01 am AEST

Re: Can't cope with the guilt trips & responsibility

hey @Corny just wondering how your going?

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