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Should I visit my dying mother?

I need some rational thinking on this.

This is a long post. I grew up with all kinds of abuse from my mother. I had to leave home due to concerns for my safety at age 18 and also because I was free to leave then. She had mental health issues and had also been a victim of violence. She had delusions which made mine and my siblings lives hell. I would only visit her with other people present or take her out. I couldn’t stand her being at my home or me being at her home alone.

It all became too much for me at about age 30. I was having memoriies of abuse, ended up in mental health faciltity again and I cut her off. I stopped talking to her and wouldn’t answer phone calls. She was aware that I was staying away from her. I sent her a note. I even spent time with police to look into getting her charged for historical abuse. I didn’t go through with anything. I felt guilty for years but somehow came to terms with my decision. I didn’t have a father because he tried to kill her when I was a baby and went to jail for a year. I never saw him again. I also didn’t know that he was my father until I was about 12. I was told my father was someone else and given his last name.

Now I have been made aware by others that she is not well, was in hospital again yesterday and I know she is still alive but the last month I have been feeling as though she is going to die soon. I sent her flowers a few weeks ago. Then I find out that she's not doing well. I was thinking of going to see her. She is in care. I feel bad because I am not sure if I’m doing it for her or me. If I am doing it to cure my guilt for abandoning her or because I genuinely don’t want her to die alone. I’m not sure what to do.
I’m honestly terrified of what it will be like to see her again. I feel sorry for her that life was so terrible but at the same time I just dread seeing her and what she might say. She had a way of really saying things to hurt me. It was just hard. I don’t have time to write about what our life was like at home. It was a real mind cracker. I have had years of therapy and now I am happy. I have a husband and I have a job. But I just can’t work out what to do.


I feel selfish for not being able to answer this. I feel like people go to see their family when they are dying but this is different. All of my siblings never see her anymore and the final straw for them was when I told them about an incident of abuse that occurred. They just had enough by the time they heard it and cut her off too. Others had already cut her off. We were all put through hell with her growing up. I feel responsible for her being even more isolated because of the incident I revealed. Some of my siblings say they wish she would die and sound pretty hateful about her but I never felt hate. I felt nothing. I felt like I let it all go.

Anyway now I just don’t know what to do. I am not a heartless person and I don’t want her to be alone but I also just can’t handle it all. I feel like a little child again when I imagine seeing her. What should I do?
 
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I'm sorry to hear you are struggling. Having a parent die is hard even if that parent was the worst caregiver on the earth for most.

I was thinking of going to see her. She is in care. I feel bad because I am not sure if I’m doing it for her or me.
I don't think it matters why you do it. If you feel strongly enough about it, put something in place to help you with the aftermath if you need to. Extra therapy sessions, etc. No way could I let my dad die alone, even though we had a very difficult relationship and he was the primary abuser. I was doing it mostly for me, but I also was able to see that he was human--deeply flawed, but human--and I just felt I had to be there.
I never felt hate. I felt nothing. I felt like I let it all go.

Yep, I was the same. My sister cut him off completely, but I didn't, and looking back, I'm sooo glad I didn't. He changed over the years, but even if he hadn't, I would not have cut him off. That decision cost me my sister, but...so be it. I don't regret it for a second.
 
I usually do a pro con list when I’m facing a challenging situation. If you’re going for her, it’s probably people pleasing and given how she’s been with you it’s a never ending never satisfying battle. If you’re going for your own closure then that has a lot of possibilities of being helpful. If you’re going because of other people’s feelings on whether you should go I’d say that falls in people pleasing and again it won’t go well. Can you speak to her doctors about her condition and how likely it is? It’d be truly terrible to go one last time and get sucked back into the abusive relationship you had.
 
You come across as a very compassionate and empathetic person. Here you are thinking about everyone's feelings: your siblings, your mum, and yours in relation to them.

I hope you can let go the guilt you feel for your siblings actions of cutting her out after you revealed an event. It was her actions that made them do that, not your reveal of the event. This is actually all on her.

What would you want if you saw her?
Do you want to make peace? Is she capable of that (emotionally speaking)?
If she is the same person she always was, and acts the same, how would that impact you? (Remember if you do go and she is like she always was, you can simply walk out).

Whatever you decide. No there is no guilt you need to carry. Her loneliness is of her making. Is that sad? Immensely. She's missed out on so much, such as knowing you. But that was open to her to fix and she didn't/couldn't.
 
I guess I feel I could have handled it all so much better but I didn't have the skills back then. I was terrified.
I actually am employed as a mental health family peer worker now. I feel that I should be able to do better because of my job title as well. It really just stinks that I couldn't have a father and mother who were able to love me as I needed. You can't get eveything you want in life. That's a lesson we all learn and some of us more than others.
 
You come across as a very compassionate and empathetic person. Here you are thinking about everyone's feelings: your siblings, your mum, and yours in relation to them.

I hope you can let go the guilt you feel for your siblings actions of cutting her out after you revealed an event. It was her actions that made them do that, not your reveal of the event. This is actually all on her.

What would you want if you saw her?
Do you want to make peace? Is she capable of that (emotionally speaking)?
If she is the same person she always was, and acts the same, how would that impact you? (Remember if you do go and she is like she always was, you can simply walk out).

Whatever you decide. No there is no guilt you need to carry. Her loneliness is of her making. Is that sad? Immensely. She's missed out on so much, such as knowing you. But that was open to her to fix and she didn't/couldn't.
I miss her sometimes. She really was proud of me like other parents aren't. She was proud that I had a job. She didn't even care what I did. I always felt embarrassed when she would tell people what I do with such pride. I thought I was an absolute loser and an imposter. She did have some good points and I turned out pretty good in the end, with a lot of help from other people too. I do wish I could just erase the past. I feel that she was even worse after I left home. That was the end really. The day I left home, the person helping me said, "You know if you leave today you might never be able to go back?" He was right. I always felt pretty unsafe with her but after I left home I never felt safe again in her presence because leaving home was the ultimate betrayal.
But back to your question. I just wish that I could embrace her and forget anything that happened in the past and that she would forgive me for leaving her, even though I had to. I wish we could act like everything is fine. But that is unrealistic.
I do want peace because I believe in God and I don't think it's right to leave this world without working things out with people.
 
If I am doing it to cure my guilt for abandoning her or because I genuinely don’t want her to die alone. I’m not sure what to do.

All-in-all, I would revisit your definition of "abandonment." It is not abandoning someone to refuse abusive behavior.

This is a very complex situation, but I would encourage you to look at it from a more self-centered perspective. Will seeing her confer any benefit to you at all? Is she capable of not abusing you while you are in her presence? Enduring more abuse simply because she is dying, is just self-flagellation. Death is not a magic wand that bestows sainthood upon all who are touched by it.

There is no rational purpose to being in her presence because she is not capable of engaging with you rationally. I had a similar circumstance with my grandmother -> she has NPD (diagnosed, she was that difficult in care) and she was also beginning to go senile. I was the only person in our entire family who would bother with her, because I am good at handling people with NPD and we got along well as a result.

But she began to struggle with basic self-care, could not look after herself, was falling all the time (she was in her late 70s/80s), diabetes, chronic illness/heart problems. She wanted me to move in with her and care for her 24/7, but I am not trained to provide the level of care that she really required, and I am also not physically capable of doing it. So I got her into a care facility and she perceived this as having lost her freedom (she had several psychiatric episodes that resulted in such, so she was not necessarily wrong) and believed that I was the cause of it.

Every time I would go visit her, she would emotionally decompensate and begin harassing and abusing everyone around her. She would literally scream at the top of her lungs, insult everyone around her, throw things, etc. Me, the staff, anyone who looked at her, etc. Once she is gone, she is gone. Our relationship was complex. I feel a duty and obligation toward my family members that is derived from my religious beliefs. I believe in restorative justice and reconciliation. I believe in forgiveness.

But ultimately, I had to stop visiting her, because it was producing only incoherence and abuse. Her treatment team and I both came to that agreement mutually, that it would be better for everyone if I stopped coming so that she stopped having those episodes. Unfortunately regardless of our beliefs, or wants, or desires, or standards of personal conduct with regards to our family - if meaningful contact cannot be made, then there is really no purpose to showing up.

If all that will happen is that you experience harm at her hands, there is no purpose to showing up. You have to balance the grief of wanting her to be a mom, with the reality that she is not capable of being a mom -> and decide how much of this and that you are putting into the desire to visit her out of a sense of potential closure. (As, according to your description of her, it is very unlikely this will occur.)
 
All-in-all, I would revisit your definition of "abandonment." It is not abandoning someone to refuse abusive behavior.

This is a very complex situation, but I would encourage you to look at it from a more self-centered perspective. Will seeing her confer any benefit to you at all? Is she capable of not abusing you while you are in her presence? Enduring more abuse simply because she is dying, is just self-flagellation. Death is not a magic wand that bestows sainthood upon all who are touched by it.

There is no rational purpose to being in her presence because she is not capable of engaging with you rationally. I had a similar circumstance with my grandmother -> she has NPD (diagnosed, she was that difficult in care) and she was also beginning to go senile. I was the only person in our entire family who would bother with her, because I am good at handling people with NPD and we got along well as a result.

But she began to struggle with basic self-care, could not look after herself, was falling all the time (she was in her late 70s/80s), diabetes, chronic illness/heart problems. She wanted me to move in with her and care for her 24/7, but I am not trained to provide the level of care that she really required, and I am also not physically capable of doing it. So I got her into a care facility and she perceived this as having lost her freedom (she had several psychiatric episodes that resulted in such, so she was not necessarily wrong) and believed that I was the cause of it.

Every time I would go visit her, she would emotionally decompensate and begin harassing and abusing everyone around her. She would literally scream at the top of her lungs, insult everyone around her, throw things, etc. Me, the staff, anyone who looked at her, etc. Once she is gone, she is gone. Our relationship was complex. I feel a duty and obligation toward my family members that is derived from my religious beliefs. I believe in restorative justice and reconciliation. I believe in forgiveness.

But ultimately, I had to stop visiting her, because it was producing only incoherence and abuse. Her treatment team and I both came to that agreement mutually, that it would be better for everyone if I stopped coming so that she stopped having those episodes. Unfortunately regardless of our beliefs, or wants, or desires, or standards of personal conduct with regards to our family - if meaningful contact cannot be made, then there is really no purpose to showing up.

If all that will happen is that you experience harm at her hands, there is no purpose to showing up. You have to balance the grief of wanting her to be a mom, with the reality that she is not capable of being a mom -> and decide how much of this and that you are putting into the desire to visit her out of a sense of potential closure. (As, according to your description of her, it is very unlikely this will occur.)
Thank you. I really appreciate you taking time to comment. That is much to think about. I will keep reading these comments from everyone. I knew that when the time came for her to leave this earth I would feel grief because of what I missed out on in a mother. I wished I could just have a mother who I felt safe around all the time. She was a nice enough and loving person, she just had a lot of trauma and delusions, which made her a nightmare to be around a lot of the time because she shared them and I had to deal with and the consequences of her actions and words. I really feel that she couldn't help herself, that she thoroughly believed them. No one knew how to help her, they just thought she was a nasty woman. They were different times and mental healtheducation was not as it is now.
 
I guess I feel I could have handled it all so much better but I didn't have the skills back then. I was terrified.
I actually am employed as a mental health family peer worker now. I feel that I should be able to do better because of my job title as well. It really just stinks that I couldn't have a father and mother who were able to love me as I needed. You can't get eveything you want in life. That's a lesson we all learn and some of us more than others.
This is you carrying all the burden and responsibility of someone else's decisions.
And it's soooooo much easier helping out in a professional role in other people's lives than working out the messy dynamics of our own families. You're not in your family as a mentaltj health family peer. You don't have professional boundaires and the emotional detachment that professional roles brings when it's your own family and you are the adult child/sibling.

It does stink you didn't get the parents you needed.
 
I was thinking of going to see her. She is in care. I feel bad because I am not sure if I’m doing it for her or me. If I am doing it to cure my guilt for abandoning her or because I genuinely don’t want her to die alone. I’m not sure what to do.

not easy terrain to navigate, ireal. my parents, 10 siblings and their off-spring have me enough practice that i ought to be good at ^it^ by now, but each and every round feels messier than the last, however i choose to process all the peripheral grief and trauma.

my emotions are the most accurate guide i have found for navigating the emotional sewers of my birth family. when i feel called to **go there**, i take it in itsy bitsy baby steps and keep my finger on that emotional pulse, every step of the way. i go as far as i can nudge myself and let the rest go. i hope i didn't make that sound justy or easy. the fact that those murky waters contain every emotion in the human spectrum, plus lots of turds and other goodies i don't care to analyze makes those itsy bitsy baby steps as dangerous as bold leaps and bounds.

sigh. . . why can't life be easy?
steadying support and loads of empathy.

for what it's worth
i buy the notion that the death of a loved one is corporeal. the love lives on.
the death of an abuser is the death of hope. the last hope of reconciliation dies with them.
 
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