the elderly N

[reallyME]

Hops,

Yahoo?  you haven't heard of the internet service called Yahoo?  The Beyond The Echo group is through there.

I tell the lady I counsel  "Quit feeling like you OWE your mother an explanation!  You don't.  You are 50 years old."  That is my advice to anyone else too.  Stop making excuses and apologizing for EXISTING!  WE don't owe ANYONE that much of ourselves.

Dr Phil said something that really struck me, a while back "When it costs you all of who you are to be one- half of a couple, the price is too damn high!"  I AGREE!!! and I know JESUS would and does too.

~ReallyME

[Jona]

Hop

I never could have lived with my mother.  She would have ruled my life.

I did feel a responsibility to see that she was taken care of.  I have no brothers or sisters.  I stayed away from her as much as possible.  I did find out that she bad mouthed me to the rest of the family and this did bother me.  What the rest of the family does not know is that she bad mouthed every single one of them also.

It was a relief when she died.  I felt released.  However she is still in my head at times.  I no longer feel the intense anger that I used to feel when I remembered some of the things she did.  I have made a whole new life for myself.  I married and moved to another country.  I informed a couple of members of the family that I was going just a week before I left.  I haven't heard from them and I don't care.

If your mother lives another 10 years, are you going to wait to start living the life you want?  Are you living the life you want now?  I don't want you to answer these questions.  I just want you to think about whethr or not you are in a prison of sorts and think about your possibilities if you were free.

[Hopalong]

Low-level fear over brother, but I think it's mostly a hangover. Got retriggered a few months ago.
I'd rather just deal with him when I have to. He's got a busy life, so he'll just turn up about 2x a year for duty visits, or when she's very ill. In the present, our contacts have been peaceable and courteous, so I'm glad of that. (Bean, you read it exactly right. Proactive defense is what that letter would've been. ICK. I'm glad you pointed that out to me because it makes me see more clearly that this fear takes up more real estate in my brain than I was facing. Will trot that to my T...)

Jona, I am starting to pose these questions about my life and my freedom...first step, the job. I can't afford to move away right now. So it makes no sense to torment myself. But better boundaries and small freedoms I can create right now, here, in this life. (Once a secure job is in place, that creates mental space for me. It means she cannot expect me to be her primary nurse, etc. She will have to hire and pay for whomever...and I need to start distancing myself from her daily obsessive needs and start extricating myself from the daily reporting. I have been too dutiful, calling her every single afternoon, calling her if I'd be home later than early evening, constantly checking on her wellbeing. I think after this hospitalization and recovery, that she needs a FT all-day caretaker...and I do not want to be locked down every evening. I won't tolerate that any more.

For one thing, by this summer I'd like to start dating again!

OK, I'll say it.

I AM VERY GLAD THAT MY MOTHER IS IN A NURSING HOME FOR A FEW WEEKS' PHYSICAL THERAPY. I REALLY HOPE SHE DOESN'T RECOVER TOO FAST.

Woo. (No lightning bolt???)

Hops