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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 5 of 5. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by capricorn on December 20, 2006, at 2:00:45
My mother was in a b*****d mood yesterday. Even before i got there she had been putting Nick(my brother) through the mill.
He is now so stressed he has developed an ulcer and his hiv drugs dont work well with ulcer medication.
Before i got there i phoned to ask what she wanted and duly got the two items.
I then got through the door and it turned out she wanted several other items.
Nick said to her 'why couldn't you have given him the full list' but she prefers to have us mainly Nick going out several times and inconvenienced.
She then found out she had run out of fruit juice .Nick said to her 'you can have your enlive' which is a high calorie drink to which you growled 'if you think i'm*****y having that all day'. Nick goes out and gets the drink as i had only just got in from walking several miles to see her after leaving my rambling group.
His legs are shot to pieces.
Then she gets a bee in her bonnet as to whether Nick will be in when the chest freezer we have ordered for her for Christmas is delivered.
The gift is also a means of making life easier for Nick re running around food shopping.
Both of us had explained several times he would be but she just went on and on at me till i said quite firmly 'If you will just button it for a minute and listen i'll explain'.
This was with greeted with loud abuse being hurled at me. I then told her that neither Nick and i are there to be treated like sh*t by her and her bad manners are unacceptable.
Nick came in and gave her what for telling her she was ungrateful and nothing was good enough for her and that not many middle aged men would be doing what we do for her.
Usually it's the poor unfortunate daughters who get dumped with harridans like my mum.
She then screams at me to get out of her house.I tell her 'no way' i know she'll launch into Nick big time and he has got to go for an important benefit review tomorrow.
Nick told her 'i need him here'.
She had been shouting at me and i gave her as good back.She then played her favourite party trick of saying i am acting violently and she is terrified.
Nick told her 'what about the many times you have thought nothing of hitting us or threatening with knives when you were drunk'.
She does the 'you are mentally ill and i will accuse you of being violent trick'.
She has also told several people Nick has been violent to her.
I go and sit in the living room with Nick.We are both seething.
About 2 hours later she calls for me and tells me she wants the soup that Nick has taken time and effort to make for her tipped down the toilet.
I think to myself 'the ****ing woman's crazy.She's asking for perfectly good soup to be chucked away because she has got a cob on' but i do what she says.
She then launches into me again and says 'i didn't want that soup chucked away i wanted the carers to check it you spiteful*******d'
Nick then comes out of the living room and tells her ' i heard you tell him to chuck it away' and tells her that both of us have gone out of our way to help her for over a year and that she is an ungrateful b***ch '
To which she replied 'I never asked you to and i can get Julie/Janet etc(her old library colleagues) to do it anyway' Both Nick and i's jaws dropped with sheer incredulity.
We had both put ourselves out despite the crap she has put us through and it was being viciously and ungratefully dismissed without the batting of an eyelid.
She has already told Nick that he hasn't had to do much for her because the carers clean her etc conveniently forgetting the cooking/shopping/hoovering/paying of bills etc he does while his own flat is being neglected because he is not there enough.
Then she decides she wants the keys to her house that i have back. The excuse being that she needs them to have a duplicate made.
Nick told her ' he hasn't got them with him i had to let him in'. She is doing her usual manipulative,calculated, divide and conquer routine. Get one of us out of the way and then tear into the other one like a rabid rottweiler ripping apart a child.
Nick and i decided then we would wait till her next lot of carers come and then leave.
Before we decided that Nick asked her if she wanted anything microwaved to eat before we go to which she replied in a pointedly sarcastic way 'i wouldn't want to put you out'.
As we go to say goodbye the carers are in the kitchen which is right near the bedroom and she looks at me and says with staged tremble in a voice raised enough for them to have undoubtedly heard 'I won't say in front of them but i am frightened of you'.
Nick just looked at me with incredulity.
This is the woman who once spent 9 hours drunkenly haranguing Nick and then forcing him to leave in the early hours of a bitterly cold evening after she had hit him with a broomstick.The woman who threatened me with a knife after i had spent a traumatic day visiting Brenda when she was on the elderly ward being assessed for dementia.The woman who when i told her what she had done in a drunken rage merely said quite flippantly 'sounded like a good idea to me'.
As we walked to get a taxi i told Nick that i will not go to see her unless he is there
as she would think nothing of crying wolf and convincing the police i had attacked her.
Nick needs me even if it is usually only one day a week i go over there and occasionally more.
I know she would do it as many many years ago she told me that my then current girlfriend and i should not have babies as they would be funny and then thirty seconds later said 'huh you've probably got her pregnant already'. I of course asked her immediately to apologise as we had not even engaged in mild petting and she stood there and blatantly denied it. I was 20 and my first unsuccesful attempt at sex was 4 years later.
For the next 6 months i pressed for a deserved apology but rather than do that she eventually told my father i was harrassing her and distressing her and with the aid of my then pdoc had me forced to become an in patient for 9 months. I wasn't sectioned but was told that if i didn't go in voluntarily i would be sectioned anyway.
This is why i have no doubt that she would pull the 'my son's mentally ill,he's violent to me con.'
It is that incident and the incident that occurred during my first admission(which i think i have mentioned before) that above anything else sealed my contempt for the sheer stupidity of pdocs and the despicably immoral and abusive way they can choose to behave towards vulnerable people.
It took thirty years and the good fortune to eventually get a decent pdoc to even begin to trust.
Even so the fear still lurks in the background and i doubt i will ever be able to fully trust.
Even now thirty years plus after my first harrowing and traumatic experience as an 18 yar old inpatient a smell of soup or a certain kind of tobacco or a disinfectanty smell
can take me back to those times and leave me frozen for several minutes in a state of
exquisitely painful rememberance.
Though thankfully those moments are less frequent than they used to be.
Posted by TexasChic on December 20, 2006, at 8:17:08
In reply to Hellish visit to my mother's, posted by capricorn on December 20, 2006, at 2:00:45
Oh capricorn, I'm sorry both you and your brother have to go through all that. Your Mom is being manipulative and cruel. I'm no pdoc or anything, but I would say she doesn't deserve your company. She knows she's got you in a spot where she can say whatever she wants, and you will feel guilty if you don't put up with it. You deserve to have peace of mind, and you will never get it around her. You deserve to be treated like a human being. I think you should cut all communication unless she learns to behave better to you and your brother. Of course, I don't know the details and like I said, I'm no pdoc, so you can take my opinion for what its worth. Its just that I have had to deal with manipulative people like that too, and the thing I learned is nobody can force you to spend time with them, ultimately it come down to being your decision.
I hope things get better for you and your bro. Emotional blackmail's a b*tch.
-T
Posted by fayeroe on December 20, 2006, at 8:31:02
In reply to Re: Hellish visit to my mother's » capricorn, posted by TexasChic on December 20, 2006, at 8:17:08
capricorn, i don't know you but i read your posts here and i am offering my comments to you because what you're going through really bothers me.
no one has the right to treat their children as your mum is treating you and your brother. i feel like you both need a break from her. she sounds as if she won't be happy until she makes the both of you as miserable as possible.
i suggest staying away, the both of you, and let her caregivers handle her needs. good luck, pat
Posted by Phillipa on December 20, 2006, at 12:01:49
In reply to Re: Hellish visit to my mother's, posted by fayeroe on December 20, 2006, at 8:31:02
Capricorn that's horrible how you mum treats you and you brother and I agree stay away. Maybe call her doc. Does she have one? Is she on meds or just the drinking? And if she's old could she be very delusional, Dementia? Love Phillipa
Posted by Declan on December 20, 2006, at 18:31:14
In reply to Hellish visit to my mother's, posted by capricorn on December 20, 2006, at 2:00:45
I guess money would help, especially for Nick.
Then it would just be a question of what you both are prepared to put up with, and you shouldn't have to put up with that.
That sounds way worse than any Mike Lynch film of family life I've seen.You learn a lot about someone when they show (by their actions) what they are not prepared to put up with.......what hurts them and where they draw the line, and it speaks volumes.
You are (I think) old enough not to have to put up with this.
It's chronic, isn't it?
Goes on until you are old, and if you are unlucky (or whatever) it can continue down to the next generation with people tormenting each other.
This is the end of the thread.
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