Is there anything I can do about my mother's life of hell?

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For the last 5 years I've felt unbearably guilty for not being able to do anything to make my mother's life better. My problems are that I have an autistic (and epileptic) sister who will almost certainly never be able to live independently, and a father who hasn't worked since the early '90s -- I think that once my sister qualified for Disability Living Allowance he thought "great, I don't have to bother looking for work any more". Given how much my grief my mother gave him for not getting a job, when I was unemployed myself, I kept myself going with the thought "once I get a job, I'll be able to do something for my mam".

To my horror, when I did get a job, my mother would only take £80 a week (barely enough just to pay the council-house rent and the council tax) and refused to take more even if offered. I was unwilling to get a social life, thinking "if I can't do anything to make my Mam's life better, I have no right to a social life". This made my internet addiction worse -- I rationalized it via "if Mam wanted to surf the net she could, but she can't get out to have a real social life". Facebook and blogs though are a highly inferior substitute though!

Another huge problem for my mother is her isolation -- her parents are now both dead (her father in 2009 and her mother in 2011). She was especially traumatized by her mother's death, as it meant she had nowhere to go when things at home were getting her down (she lived in a bungalow about 100 metres away). Neither her brother nor anyone on my dad's side of the family want anything to do with her.

I thought things were getting a little better when I got shorter and flexible hours at work last November, but in January my Dad had a brain haemmorhage! Although he is now out of hospital, he still has serious problems with memory and eyesight, and Mam is convinced he'll never drive again. This means that she's currently depending on me to take her for groceries (on Friday evening after work to Asda, plus to Tesco and other shops on Saturday). Since the death of her parents means she no longer feels any ties to our current village she'd like to move into Peterlee to be within walking distance of a major supermarket, but that would mean I'd have to buy her a house (there'd be a long waiting list for council housing no doubt). Although I have a reasonable amount of money in the bank (inherited from my mother's parents -- it was given to me so that my parents wouldn't lose benefits) it still seems a bit much to have to buy her a whole house! (Maybe her incredible reluctance to take my money for lesser things was with this in mind all along though? )

I'm worried it may make it almost impossible for me to get my own place (although I like my job, the salary at £18,900 per year isn't great), which I now deeply long to do! For one thing it might allow me to get a social life without feeling shame -- nearly 32 and never even having had a girlfriend is scary! I'm scared my mother will think (even more so that she would have done before) that I'm abandoning her in her hour of need.

Is buying my parents a house really the best thing to do with my money? And would it really do much about her loneliness? I sometime think persuading her to learn to drive herself might help more, but wouldn't it come across as heartless.

What do people here think?

George

In my experience, people will end up living the same kind of life anywhere they find themselves. Buying your mother a house might provide a brief change in her life, but I doubt it would lead to any long term, permanent change. My feeling is that it is the little choices that people make on a day to day, moment by moment basis that have profound effects on their lives. A big change probably won't make much of a difference.

I suspect if you were to help her find a social group and made sure she had better access to friends, this would be of far more benefit to her. From what you write, her isolation seems to be the core of the problem. Buying her a house might fix a symptom, but not really address the real issue that needs attention.

I understand your feelings of guilt. I have similar issues with my parents. But you can do only so much. Obviously you care very much about her and are doing your best. My feeling is your mother would be happiest if you helped her with small things that expanded her social life.

Good luck.

I wish I my mother was alive now. She passed away of Kidney Disease. Something I very well may get. I cry over her sometimes STILL, I'm 21. Me and my dad, we take care of eachother. He's 66 and I'm 21. I fear for him. I'm scared of losing the only person I have left that I really care about in this world. I hate fear and worry.

I think her thinking is that moving close to the town centre will make her able to access social activities which she cannot currently due to her inability to drive, and the poor state of public transport where we're currently living...

I wish I had a mother, she died when I was 5 from Hereditary Kidney Disease. I honestly have wanted to DIE just so I could see her again in her blue wedding dress. It makes me happy that life is "So short" I take care of my 66 year old father and he takes care of me. I love him more then life itself. I miss my mommy so dang much.

I do *not* think it would be heartless to teach your mother to drive. It's the smartest thing to do because what if something were to happen to you? And that would also provide better access to healthcare and treatment options for your sister and your dad.

Mithos ...

My mother committed suicide when I was 20. It's been nearly 21 years now. I still miss her but I've had to move on with my life. My dad died just over a year ago from sudden, aggressive cancer.

It does get easier with time but you need to start looking for a support group that offers grief counseling if you can stand that kind of interaction or private sessions if not. It's not healthy for you to still be so distraught over her loss 15-16 years later.

One problem is that my mother is a nervous wreck in the car even just as a passenger -- she doesn't think she could ever manage to pass a driving test...

Take her out into a remote area where she can just kind of putz around and won't likely encounter another vehicle a few times. She may find it to be a much different experience from behind the wheel where she actually has some control over what the car is doing instead of focusing on everything else outside her environment. If after a half-dozen tries, she does seem to be responding in a positive manner at all, then reassess your options at that time. My mom was the worst passenger in the world but she could drive like a bat out of hell and not blink an eye.

I hate Mother's Day (it's today in the UK)!

I offered to take my mother out somewhere this afternoon, but she didn't want to go, saying that since I never wanted to talk to her at home, she couldn't take me seriously when I suggested I wanted to take her somewhere. She just began ranting about how I didn't REALLY want to take her anywhere as it was sacrificing "valuable computer time". She also ranted about me being a "scrounger" for taking their money, even though said money is practically shoved down my throat!

I haven't got a clue how to respond to her craving for conversation as my life (little more than work, meals, getting a bath, surfing the net, and playing Scrabble with my mother) doesn't exactly give me any good conversation material!

It also seems like she loves humiliating me -- when we were watching TV one of the people on the programme mentioned how he'd taken his mother for meals and to the theatre, and Mam repeated it to me (as if to say "why couldn't you do something like that for me?") However, she'd never said anything to me about wanting to go to the theatre, and I wouldn't want to take her to a restaurant because I'd only show her up with my own picky eating!

Last edited by GCarty on 24 Mar 2012, 5:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

It may be worth exploring your options more fully before giving up. As you are already a council tenant it may be possible to organise a swap, rather than having to go on the council list from scratch, see this website Durham Home Swap

Or you could look at the private rentals market. I don't know whether you qualify for housing benefit, but if you do, you can still claim it for private rentals.

Also, if your dad now has some disabilities as a result of his brain haemorrhage he may also be able to claim DLA in his own right.

Maybe if your parents do decide to move that would be a good time to look at moving out yourself?

Whatever you decide, good luck with it all.

I've started to look at houses online, but Mam last night said to me "you're only looking at houses now because you don't want to have to take me shopping". Also, she doesn't think I'd be able to manage with my own place! (Although my view is that the stress of my current situation has warped my mind.)

Just want to find some way of escaping! At least if I did buy them a house I'd have a lot less reason to feel shame, but finding a house that's both within my budget and suitable for my sister's needs could be a major challenge.

(Also, check out what I've added to my last message...)

If you do go down the route of buying a house I would advise you to keep it in your name because

1. Your circumstances may change in the future

2. The government won't be able to take it off them to cover care costs should their health deteriorate as they age

Agree with what LittleBlackCat said. Another thing to remember, a house could just mean a bigger place for her to clean. Make sure she actually wants a house. Also, is it possible to use some of the money you would spend on a house to arrange for a grocery delivery service for her? Then your visits with her could be fun things like going out for lunch or coffee/tea, seeing movies or going to museums, whatever the two of you enjoy, rather than just running errands.

Mam has sometimes mentioned the possibility that she could go through to town on the bus and get a taxi back with the shopping, but she's reluctant to do so currently as we're paying £50/week for a Motability car (from when Dad was able to drive...)

I'd love to take my mother out to do some "fun" things (although taking her for a meal would be a problem because of my picky eating, as mentioned previously). I don't know what she'd actually like to do though, and trying to get some answers out of her just turns her off going out altogether!

You're from Texas, where AIUI driving tests are trivially easy (probably because they KNOW how car-dependent their entire built environment is). That's not the case here in England. My mother is convinced she'd NEVER be able to pass a driving test (my dad took four attempts and I took three, btw), so suggesting that she ought to learn to drive would certainly come across as heartless (even if I offered to pay for her lessons).

I don't think he's quite that bad, but my mother is already attempting to get a bus pass for him (+ carer) so that they'd be able to go into town for free while my sister's at the day centre. That would help a lot, as she wouldn't feel like a prisoner in her home so much, and I'd only be needed for the big grocery shop (where there'd be too much stuff to bring back on the bus). My mother's biggest problem is clearly loneliness.

I really long to be able to move out, but my mother doesn't think I could manage independent living! However, the only main housework job I don't yet know how to do is ironing, and how hard can it be if even a numpty like my dad can do it? I think she's more concerned about my internet addiction, and various mental problems I have (nervous biting of fingers and of pillows being a big one) -- she's often barked out at me "don't do that outside or you'll get sectioned!" I think though it's probably the misery of my home situation that's causing these mental issues in the first place! This week she's also started bullying me about my weight (which admittedly is a problem, caused to some degree by comfort eating of crisps while at work).

In mid-April, I said I was going to go to some salsa dancing classes after work, thinking that it would get me seeing people and give me an interest other than the computer. I assumed it would be uncontroversial as I'd done it for a few months previously (back in 2003), so I was shell-shocked when my mother came up with every reason why I shouldn't go (my car could get damaged in the car park, I'd never find a partner, aspies can't dance etc). I decided not to go to keep her happy, but afterwards she was profusely apologetic.

I often feel like I'm being poisoned by my mother's hopelessness (as in pessimism, not as in inadequacy), and that a few months of independent living would practically turn me into a different person!

I think we're at odds in our motivation for wanting to move. She wants a bigger house because we currently have an extreme shortage of space, and expects me to carry on living with them, whereas I want to move them somewhere where they won't need me any more, so that I can make good my escape. If I could get my own place it would largely solve both my and their space problems anyway, unless the council forces them to move into a smaller house(which is a worry). Buying them a house would also mean they could no longer accuse me of being greedy. (I never buy my mother anything substantial as a present, because I can't think of anything that would make her life any better! And I can't just give her money because she'd refuse to take it!)

I printed off a list of about 60 houses within my budget in Peterlee (our nearest town), and she said none of them was big enough (and also told me off for wasting paper and printer ink!). I don't think it's just a matter of money though -- the lack of houses with larger bedrooms (it's bedroom size she's chiefly concerned about, not downstairs space) may be because Peterlee is a New Town. She often complains "why only Peterlee", but I'm not willing to buy them a house if it doesn't let me get a place of my own. She has her heart set on Durham City, but the kind of houses she's looking at there are WAY beyond my budget (as in, close to half a million pounds) . I don't think I'd have a chance in hell of getting a job that paid enough to buy something like that unless I moved down south (and even then, it would be touch-and-go).

My mother is an old-fashioned type who likes to see what she's buying, and is also convinced that people who get groceries delivered get the stuff with the worst sell-by dates. Even if I moved out I'd still be willing to take her for groceries provided I was still in North-East England, but I've become increasingly convinced that I have no serious prospects of bettering myself unless I can move down south. The kind of high-tech jobs I'd be interested in are clustered mostly in London, Cambridge and the M4 corridor AFAIK.

You can look at threads I started on Prospects.ac.uk and on the Physics Forums to this effect.