I have lived with mental illness twice (my brother as a child and my second wife to within two months of her suicide), and lots of plain old stubbornness/attachment to less than healthy patterns (my first wife).

As my wife was doing poorly, she needed some minor but significant uterine surgery. As she was recovering, her surgeon took me aside and made some blunt points with me. She said she had long-term professional relationships with clients and had seen the results about how life problems are dealt with. Seeking paths that are healthier and non-isolating are essential to more years of good life. Turning away from them will over time create a mountain of problems that will overwhelm health and establish a sequence of misery that results in eventual physical end. Problems and denials may be shared, and the ill health will be as well. A search for vitality and health appropriate to one’s natural aging can be sought as well, leading to improvements for both partners. She said this is all about choice, and warned me that if my mate wasn’t going to make good choices, I still had the ability to make good choices for myself. That night another altercation led by my wife forced me to make a choice for health, and that was to try to make healthy decisions for myself that were as compassionate as I could manage for my wife.

It sounds very much like the denial your mother faces is very serious and will accumulate in a very poisonous way to her. It also sounds like you have encouraged and supported every healthy step she has taken. That is a beautiful and loving. That is the essence of being a good daughter and, more importantly, friend. You have not abandoned her, she has abandoned herself to her stories and judgments. As much as your pain is real, hers is so very severe, and it is killing her.

This is very significant. Our mothers are the soil our baby roots have grown in. It is very sad to see her turn away from life. This experience will change who you are. It can change you for the better, if you embrace the seeds of its wisdom.

It is very good to expose your suffering to those who truly love, support and encourage you. In the sharing you will find some acceptance and solace for those things that you cannot change, and strength for changing those things that you could/can. Because when it comes down to it, your mother’s choices are her own, and the pain she suffers or attempts to deny is her own.

If you are able to try to guide her toward health in a way you and her can both benefit from, do that with the love and encouragement from your friends. If you cannot, or your wounds or hers are too deep, just do no harm – that is a kind and compassionate way, and is completely acceptable, and you are a good daughter for holding the love in your heart and withholding the rage and frustration. The Universe’s spirit will find joy in your restraint.

Thank you for choosing awareness, life, health, love and compassion. There is so much we cannot fix in this world, and the saddest of all are other people’s unhealthy choices… but that is what is, and we can choose to change just ourselves, it is all we really have any choice over.

Much love,
James

This is a beautiful, heartbreakingly honest post. My mother also has mental illness, and it took me a long, long time to learn how to not be as attached (I don’t know if I will ever be able to completely detach!) to the poor choices she has made and continues to make with her life. And it’s true, with mental illness, you can’t expect it to get better — in fact, as it’s been pointed out to me, it’s probably going to get worse. I try not to think about that too much, and just allow my mother to live her life the way she chooses, but the only way I’ve been able to do that is by not talking with her regularly. So, we used to talk daily, and after many years of working on differentiation, I now talk to her maybe once every few months. It’s about all I can do. I have learned to take care of myself in the process of not taking care of her anymore (and she has miraculously found other ways to get her needs met, which I didn’t believe could happen many years ago).

I feel real compassion for you. I hope you are having good compassion for yourself. It’s so tough when your parent isn’t capable of having a “normal” relationship with you, as a parent or sometimes even a friend, relative, etc. I wish you well on your journey. It’s a windy road to travel.