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VioletButterfly

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Okay, sorry. Don't know where to put this, so "mods" please feel free to move. I have a very coda relationship with my mother who has ALZ/DEM and she is unable to advocate for herself. She is the source of my entire life's PTSD experience. I don't feel that I can sever this relationship as I am her comprehensive POA, but I am dying, stressing, freaking out. OMG. How do you deal with this? Boundaries work, references, whatever else would be welcome. Tks! VB
 
If anyone knows what works, please let me know, too.

My only solution was to sever ties as the relationship was literally killing me.

I wish you the best OP and hope you're able to find something that works for you.
 
im so sorry to hear your going through so much, particularly with a parent with ALZ. My father died from ALZ but i had the fortune to take 9 months off before he was fully hospitalized and oh what fun we had. He knew early on he was getting it , and when we were together he was lucid probably 30% of the time. We got drunk, smoked joints and spent many hours remembering our many travels all over Australia in heavy haulage trucks. Many a day he would disappear only for me to get a call from the local bottle shop (liquor store) saying he was on the bench outside drunk and had lost his way.

But as sad as it was at times , i wouldn't change a thing, i was grateful to be able to spend the time with him - funnily when i was a 17- 25yrs you could not put us in the same room as we would fight and i didn't like him. But acceptance and age can change you , i stopped looking at him as a parent and more as an individual - he had ptsd for my whole life and it was serious, but at the same time he taught me so much. Its never easy watching a person with ALZ fade away - one thing that may make it easier is to play music from your moms youth, studies have found amazing results from this and there are some docs on netflix that are brilliant in showing this.

One person had their partner at home for 10 years with full ALZ and the thing that stopped her becoming unmanageable was music ..music from her youth ! Its such a bitch of a disease...it took my grandmother many years ago and now is taking my mother in law - sadly there is no easy out - there will come a time when a nursing home is the only option as they drain you more than anyone can imagine. I truly hope you find peace within yourself and can carry on, and if at any time you need to vent , dont hesitate to PM me , i will do what i can to help in any way i can.
 
This is something I wish I had an answer to. I will inherent the care of people who were both complicit with my CSA and were abusers in their own right. I think I couldn't take care of them if I held resentment still. I'm not sure where I stand in regards to that and the ability of forgiveness.

Another thing I'm thinking on is reward versus harm. Do you WANT to take care of her? Is the reward of care taking worth the pain of going through the actions?

I don't have any of those magical answers I always look for, but I hope that you can make the best decision for yourself. And, I think, it is important to remember that it is, ultimately, your own decision ....
 
My mother is in the same situation. Her mom was pure evil forever, and caused her PTSD. Now that the alz has taken over though... it's weird, it's like for the first time in her life she doesn't know how to be vicious and horrible. It's just strange. How to feel, you know... Here's the beast that destroyed your life, and now they're just a lonely confused old animal. Who knows what to do?

All our prayers are with you.
 
I'm in the same situation. Very complicated. I CHOSE to continue caring for her but worked and am still working very hard in therapy to set boundaries and to process what happened in my past.

What helped me? I finally realized that I actually DO have a choice (even though most parts of me feel like I don't). I can choose to sever ties. I can choose to continue to be victimized by her. I can choose to take responsibility for myself as best as I am able and learn to create boundaries/learn that I am a separate person from her, etc. It varies from moment to moment how much time I can spend with her without getting triggered. It is not easy. But the more I practice grounding and boundaries, the better I am able to deal. And taking the responsibility that I am CHOOSING to be her caretaker helps.

You have to CHOOSE what is best for you/all your parts. There's no good answer in a situation such as this. None of it is easy or clear. But as adults we have a choice in many things that we did not have a choice about as children. Take your time and listen to all your parts and what they have to say about your continued relationship with her. This is all about YOUR needs now as much as it is about her needs.

I wish you well. It is a difficult thing to manage.
 
First of all, does an adult child owe anything to its biological parent? I don't do all or nothing black or white thinking, so the answer is, always, "it depends" on the people and situation. In your case, I don't know enough information to have an opinion. But if this person is for sure solely responsible for your PTSD as in they harmed you, then I feel that not only do you owe them less than nothing, it's also your right to decide. We're all going to die. Having a terminal illness doesn't make someone "special" because life is in itself terminal. So I don't see you as having to do anything at all.

Personally, I don't expect anything from my kids, and when they are older I will tell them this. They can put me anywhere if I go off the rails. Life is my gift to them. I want them to have a good life, totally unlike mine. That is all I can do to make up for my suffering. I have PTSD, so I'm not the ideal mother, but, daily, I endeavor to provide them with the best life I can give them with support, education, fun, exploration, love, hugs, reflections of beauty, creativity, dignity, respect, and the American freedom that many have died and suffered for. I suffered, and my only desire is for them to be as happy and free from misery as possible, almost to live the life I can never have. Most of all, I want them to be free and respected to make their own way in life, not to live for me. They owe me nothing. They are the greatest gift life has to offer me, and I love them more than I love myself. How could I expect anything from them?

I realize this is not a popular or warm fuzzy way of viewing family. But, in the scope of how our culture has shifted, in which the most important years of a child's life, 3 months to 5 years, in North America is now outsourced to the lowest educated strangers, I wonder if that generation will feel responsible to "repay" something that wasn't fully given. I don't know, but when it comes to abusive or abandoning or negligent parents who did real and lasting harm, who have not apologized, or even admitted it, I say, "don't throw your pearls to swine."

There are good people, young people, the hope of our world, who really deserve our time and energy. The dying deserve basic dignity and civility, no matter what they've done, but it doesn't have to come from YOU. YOUR compassionate gifts to the world should go to the best possible recipients.

A woman I am close to told me that it fell to her to relocate her sexually abusive grandfather to a home, and she took care of all his arrangements. Even doing that, you should see her face when she says it, like she's going to be sick, feels terribly wrong to her. She did it out of duty, but she gained no self respect from it. I think it was a bad idea. A social worker or someone paid to do it should have done it. I don't think her doing all the packing, caring for him, bathing him, feeding him and moving him, was right. He didn't deserve it, and she knows it. It was wrong on so many deep levels. It did not earn her heavenly halos; dark circles form under her eyes when she speaks of it. The anger and resentments only increased. Don't feed the demons.

As POA, you can delegate all her care, and I suggest that you pass the buck.
 
You know, I'm starting this issue with my mother, an abuser in her own right.
Even now, as an adult, she says harmful, belittling things; makes me doubt myself; cuts me in ways no one else can.

She started a tirade again last week. I said a lot of angry but truthful things. I cut her off.
She called me several times and left voice messages I haven't listened to. She called my son and cryed to his voice mail about how I had gone 'crazy' and "scared her'
She called my cousin, whom she's been avoiding for weeks and hinted that I might not be ok, and that she needed help and I wouldn't help her.

My son and my cousin saw through all of this.
I've had a much more peacful week. I feel more centered not dealing with her abuse.

Will this continue? I hope I have the strength to continue this. I do not plan to visit when I go back to town in a few weeks. I care but not at the expense of my sanity.
 
Can I ask you why you're hesitant to cut ties?

For me, it literally came down to choosing between my future and my past. If I chose to continue a relationship with my mother, I was giving up EVERYTHING (and I truly do mean everything) that I wanted in my future. (Relationships, career, the whole shebang.)

I understand your CODA issues and such, but can you see that she's continuing to "win" as she is holding you back from healing?

A very wise therapist told me that I would never heal as long as my abuser was in my life. She was right. And you can sit here and argue with me until the cows come home, but ever since I kicked my mother out of my life, I have gone through INCREDIBLE changes. Aspects that I thought would take a long time to resolve have improved dramatically in a very short amount of time. I know you think that you can create healthy distance, use those coping skills, etc, but I assure you that the most profound healing will be experienced only after your abuser is out of your life. Until then, its just about survival, not moving forward.
 
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