Re: they say she's dying

[Guest guest]

Thank you for sharing that with us, the wisdom that when the abuse starts up,

its OK to just leave the room, or the house, for a while. I remember when it

finally, finally dawned on me that *I* could do that too. It sounds so

simplistically obvious but when one has spent their whole life trying to please

this individual and when one has never escaped a child's perspective of the

primal relationship: " She's the mother, I'm the child, I must obey her and show

her respect " it ISN'T simple and it ISN'T obvious, at all. But one time I'd

flown out for yet another visit, and nada was starting in on me, and it finally

just " clicked " in my head that *I could walk away from her even though she was

yelling at me* and I could get in the car I'd rented and drive away... to

anywhere I wanted. It had simply never occurred to me that that was an option,

before. Weird, huh?

And thank you for sharing that wisdom of the hospice nurse, that whatever a

person's main personality traits are, their standard way of behaving, it will

intensify as they approach death. I think Sister and I need to know that.

My thoughts and prayers are with you as you go through your nada's end-of-life

process with her; I wish you both peace.

-Annie

>

> Thanks, everyone. I can see that many of you have been through similar

experiences. Grief is grief, which is always awful, but this is a strange kind

of grief that not everyone out there could understand.

>

> While one of the hospice nurses was taking Mom's vital signs the other day,

Mom got into one of her nasty moods -- still delusional, still with no idea

where she was or who we all were, but entirely recognizable in her BPD meanness.

The nurse said brightly, " I'm the nurse and I'm here to check your pulse! "

>

> Mom snarled at her in a mocking voice, " Well -- I'm glad you think you're so

smart. Do whatever the hell you think you have to do. "

>

> The nurse said, " Aren't you glad that you're daughter's here with you? "

>

> Mom snarled, " Well -- she's here. "

>

> Afterward, in another room, the nurse told me that " whatever personality

people had before they became ill just gets bigger when they're dying. If

someone was a gentle little lamb all her life, that's how she'll go out of this

world. If someone was mean and sarcastic all her life, then ... well, you're

going to see a lot more of that. It's going to be a hard road for you. "

>

> She said that when it got rough I should just leave the room for a while. So

logical. And so profound. And I wished wished wished that someone had given me

that very same advice about 45 years ago.

>

> Better late than never.

>

[Guest guest]

I'm so sorry Grace; my dad's been gone for years, and I still miss him every

day.

Alastriona

Subject: Re: they say she's dying

To: WTOAdultChildren1

Date: Monday, January 17, 2011, 2:51 PM

I'm sorry to hear that your mom has cancer.  My dad was misdiagnosed for almost

a year.  By the time they figured out he had cancer, he had stage 3/4.  He

passed away within 2 1/2 months.  It's hard to watch someone suffer like that. 

It's even harder when you have unresolved issues with that person.  The only

thing that cancer gives you is a little time to prepare for the death before it

actually happens (it's not sudden like a fatal car accident). 

My thoughts are with you.  I hope you find a counselor to help you through this

difficult event, if you haven't already.

Best,

Grace

>

> I've been away from this group because these past two weeks have been the most

harrowing of my life. BPD Mom has been placed in a hospice program with

full-time caregivers living in her house, because the doctors say she has

terminal cancer.

>

> At least a year ago, I first noticed signs of dementia in her -- repeated

questions, memory loss, etc. -- but last month everything seemed to start

collapsing rapidly. She was nodding off in the middle of sentences, forgetting

where rooms of her house were, and hallucinating ever more wildly, to the point

where we took her to the ER. Over the next two days, she was diagnosed with

severe malnutrition and dehydration (because she has been anorexic since 1964,

although no one seems to believe me about this), dementia, major infections, and

bone cancer.

>

> Doctors and social workers kept coming to me to discuss this. I wept. I was

stunned. It was so many layers of feelings at once. BPD Mom has been suicidal

for years, telling me in every conversation that she wanted to get a gun and

shoot herself, or burn down the house with herself inside it. Her suicidal

ravings have nearly drowned me. She has also been physically very disabled for

years. Combined with her BPD, which of course she never knew she had, and of

course which went untreated, she has been in unbelievable physical and mental

pain for most of her life. I have had so many issues with her, but it was only

last summer when I actually realized that she was mentally ill (BPD) and that it

was she not I who was crazy, and that she had wrecked much of my life without

ever meaning to.

>

> And now this.

>

> She has remained totally out of her mind since January 3, except for one

moment during which she said to me, " I'm going to die, aren't I? How long do I

have? "

>

> I sat beside her in the hospital and then at home day after day, during which

she had no idea who I was or even that I was there, but talked continuously to

invisible people -- endless conversations, even laughter (and I haven't seen her

laugh since around 1974), on and on and on. Once in a while she would notice

" me, " then begin yelling at me to " get off your f***ing ass and take me out of

here so I can get on the ship " (nonsense, she had no idea where she was, there

was no ship, etc.).

>

> Seeing her like that, and seeing the condition of her body -- skeletal and

raddled not just by the cancer but by many decades of her own mistreatment of it

-- is sad beyond sad beyond sad. What is the point of life for the mentally ill

whose suffering is largely self-induced but who don't know that and it just goes

on and on? My own life has mostly felt meaningless, although I didn't until

recently know why -- that it was because I was raised by someone whose mental

illness did not let them love or really understand anyone, including

(especially?) me. Her illness which I did not know was illness dominated my

entire world. Her negativity and self-loathing were all I knew for my first

twenty years. Her delusions became my philosophy, my Bible. I've spent years in

therapy, years struggling for self-awareness and recovery. Of course I always

knew she would pass away someday -- I thought she would have an accident or kill

herself, as she threatened to do.

But watching it happen this way, with this long transition, is ... something.

>

------------------------------------

**This group is based on principles in Randi Kreger's new book The Essential

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