Comments on mind.expressions: Becoming the Enemy

2008-06-27T17:36:00.000-05:00

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Beth, I am glad to hear that there was that brief ...

2008-06-27T14:29:00.000-05:00

Beth, I am glad to hear that there was that brief but very important opportunity for a good interaction with your mother. Like you said, a great gift. All of us in this situation (and there are many of us, I know) hope for such a thing!

Best wishes,

Delany

I lived through a very similar situation with my o...

2008-06-27T12:48:00.000-05:00

I lived through a very similar situation with my own mother, and empathize with you. I will tell you that a few weeks before my mother died, I visited her in the healthcare facility where she was living, and for the first time in many, many years, she had about 30 minutes of clarity, and interacted with me in a loving, rational manner. I cannot explain it, except to say it was a great and unexpected gift. I hope you might have some such moment, too.

Thanks, Anon. It is a very sad fact of human exist...

2008-06-27T12:34:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Anon. It is a very sad fact of human existence, isn't it, that there are a lot of very difficult people in this world, people who create suffering both for themselves, and for others. The challenge, if you love such a person (and it seems impossible, sometimes), is to work hard to maintain a sense of the larger picture, and not to allow yourself to become so totally caught up in the drama (and chaos and sadness and regret and anger) that all of life gets tainted by it. I hope your mother finds a way to get some space, and that you and she can have some peace.

Best wishes,

Delany

Delany, my mum has a similar situation going on wi...

2008-06-27T11:34:00.000-05:00

Delany, my mum has a similar situation going on with her own mother, who is now in her late eighties. Reading your post I suddenly felt like calling her up and just having a chat, but I can't, because I'm in Germany and she's out in the bush in Australia. I've always seen Grandma as more than slightly unhinged, and felt quite distant from the situation, except when it threatened to turn Mum's relationship with me toxic.
Mum deliberately took absolutely nothing from the house when she moved Grandma into the nursing home, but always ends up enduring wild accusations as to where this or that went. This is a mild and relatively harmless example of her general behaviour.
As far as I can tell, Grandma has always been fractionally loopy; a fact that was confirmed last year when I met up with her brother, my great-uncle, whom she'd succeeded in completely alienating many years earlier. I saw that meeting as really important and was expecting Mum to be somehow liberated my the fact that Grandma had always been like that, but the crazier Grandma gets, the sadder I see Mum feel. It seems to be an all-or-nothing package. She can't simultaneously treasure the rare glimpses of genuine affection her mother has shown her, and ignore all the devastating and wrong things that she has been through thanks to Grandma's (undiagnosed) disease.
I love my Mum. I can't stand the fact that she can't see how wonderful she is, largely because her own mother won't and can't confirm it. But she is one of the coolest people I know. You've really reminded me of that with your post. I'm going to call her in the morning. Thanks.