[endofmytether]

I am so fed up of the troubles with my mum. She has a long list of issues that have spanned over my whole 24years of life and before I was even born. In some ways I have wished she didn’t ever have children because it’s been role reversal. For the most part I have felt like her parent, and the parent of my sister rather than her being our parent.

I grew up knowing her to have alcohol dependency, mental health issues, financial hardship, execssive spending, police arrests and antisocial behaviour, neighbour issues due to delusions of them purposely tomenting her…. the list goes on. Consequently, we grew up in my dads care for the majority of our youth.

Annoyingly she had had a period of relatively little problems and had given up the alcohol. Until… recently I have become aware that some issues have resurfaced.

She gets a weekly prescrition of sleeping tablets from the benzodiazepine family of drugs… I don’t know the specific one she takes. Basically she has been getting through the box of meds within a few days and taking way over the recommended dose. Not only this, but she has been taking other pills that belong to her partner that she can get her hands on, which are prescribed for his poor health, particularly diabetes. Essentially she is combining these meds to wipe herself out or enter oblivion I call it, and this has gone on for months and months.

It is getting stupid now. Over the years I have put up with her because I know she had a troubled upbringing (growing up in foster care) and felt it was my responsibility to “save” her. At this point I am really feeling like giving up on her and her partner can hardly cope with her anymore, which is made worse by the fact he is 25 years + her age and doesn’t need this kind of hassle in his life.

I am planning to call her doctor and ask for support for her through the mental heath team as they have been involved in the past when she had an OD episode and went in to hospital. But I have barely any confidence in the system and basically feel that it’s all down to the family to help their loved ones. Wether they have their own problems or not, and whether they have suffered enough, especially as a it’s not normal that a child has to look out for the needs of their parent?

I have my own baby daughter now and my mother’s self destructive behaviour is selfish and I can’t tolerate it anymore. But at the same time I feel like I’m the only hope she’s got. And if she doesn’t get help she is going to be turned out on the street, probably commiting offences or at risk of prison or death! She is lucky she’s made it this far without greater consequences to her life.

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