help please, my mother is crazy

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cliffs:
I started to write a tldr; about my mom, but I'll redo it. The longer and abruptly ended version is below.

My mother is dx bipolar and ocd. She's also an alcoholic and a hoarder. Because of a lack of skepticism and gullibility on my part I ended up living with her after maybe 12-13yrs of a 'typical' adult life. At this point, 3yrs on, I feel stuck. I'm actually planning a quick getaway in the next month. Currently I'm the adult of the household. I take care of all of the dishes, animal hoard, cleaning, well.. everything. My mother makes enough money to support herself.

I feel like I've been sucked into some sort of black hole of 'extreme female brain'. I fear my mother may be some sort of low IQ sociopath and I'm her current host. Maybe I'm slightly overreacting, but I could really use some moral support. Does anyone have experience with this? I'm fully self supporting with an independent internets job.

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tldr; don't read version, no reason to waste it....

I'd like to start by saying I'm from a tight rural family. My mother talks daily with her sis and mother. I'm a very typical extreme male brain(33yo) and 110% self efficient. My father died in a car wreck when I was <1yo. My mother is dx bipolar and ocd. Since I've been maybe 22, she takes a handful of psychotropics etc every day to make her tolerable. She's also an unapologetic alcoholic, and that entire side of my family are compulsives. They're all pretty much some level of hoarder, all have dependencies ranging from pot to dead from hard drugs. We're all convinced my grandmother is a lesbian, but since lesbians didn't exist in the 50's where she's from we just let it go. Oh yeah, one more thing I just thought of. My grandma used diet pills during her first pregnancy(my mom). YAY!! !

k, this is getting too long already.Anyway, it seems apparent that my autism stems from my fathers side. I have relatives of various states of autism on that end.

I moved out of my mothers house to live with my aunt part way through my final year of hs. After maybe 7-8 years of standard bachelor life I moved in with my first cousin on my mothers side. As I said previously we're from a close family and are siblings for all practical purposes. When our first lease was coming up I needed a reason to get out. As my cousin had 'developed' from a very messy child to a full blown trash hoarder. Like literally banana peels on the counter above an open trash can I would leave out and uncovered in hopes of possibly catching randomly thrown trash. Also, he's gay... and a hoarder.... So he doesn't clean up and he has 8x the typical persons stuff.You can recognize these people on the street because they have dirty cars with s**t piled up to the windows. It looks like they're moving house but they're defined by the contents of the poor overburdened car.

I'm not sure what you need help with. You have planned your getaway and you are self sufficient. You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family, as the saying goes.

I realize it sounds easy to just cut the strings, but its not. I'm extremely emotionally attached to my family. Outside of them there is only 2-3 people that I closely relate/interact with and of course they're the ones who introduce me to new people. I feel I'm in a really bad situation and Its not my fault. Another thing is my mother takes ambien to help her sleep. My issue with this is that maybe people with that many issues shouldn't be taking ambien?

If she gets up in the night, which is common, and I hear her. I have to wake up and baby sit her. Imagine that as someone with an autistic mind. Best possible case is that she stumbles back to bed, typically I have to carry her. Sometimes I find her passed out somewhere. Maybe on the floor in the kitchen, commonly in her room with the door open. Her sleeping gown pulled over her head because of the heat, the ceiling fan going on full blast, all the lights on.. nekkid!!

The real issue is that a couple of times she's left the flame on the stove on, or even worse, in her drunken ambien slumber she bumps into the stove and turns the gas on with no flame. This has happened twice in the past year. In fact I came up with a phrase we use 'ambien fairy' which is the f*****g HUGE mess she makes every night that I have to clean up because she couldn't give a f**k. She takes this medicine even when the following day isn't a work day. Even after I've pleaded with her. I think there may be a possibility that someone like her is predisposed to addiction and things like ambien. It literally appears to me like she pops an ambien just to get more f****d up in her stooper.

I brought some of this up to my grandmother on my dads side cos she's an RN and worked in the psych ward of a prison and she told me to be nice to my mother cos she 'takes things hard'. My grandma is as sharp as they come. I actually feel more able to be open an honest to her than my mother. I seriously feel like I'm being bent over by a sociopath. I'm not the crazy alcoholic, she is. She's just pathetic and (perhaps) pretends to be a very anxious person so that things get done for her and she stays secure?

Ah I see. Could you speak to anyone involved in her health, her doctor or someone? Perhaps you need to try a mental health referral for her as she is clearly a danger to herself and can't be left in this situation. There comes a point, as hard as it is, to take a step back as it will ruin your life otherwise. It's better that you are moving out for your own sanity, I would pass the responsibility for her onto the professionals and you can visit as and when you feel able.

She may be as trapped as you are. This does not mean that you should continue to subject yourself to this sort of an environment, but she's family and it does mean you should find her some help.

Your continuing to live with her is probably making it possible for her not to seek the help she seems to need. She needs to know you can't take care of her as a full-time job; she needs to hire her own help.

Can you talk to her doctor? Obviously you and your mom would need to go together, because her doctor can't (and shouldn't) discuss her case with you without her there. You need to move out, that's clear. And she's probably using your presence as a way to avoid dealing with her own problems. It's not good for either of you.

BTW, a social rule, for the record--"Crazy" is considered a pejorative term for those with mental illness. It is not unusual for people to use it for other purposes ("these prices are crazy!" "My cats are going crazy!"), but it shouldn't be used to describe people with mental illnesses, though we often use it to describe ourselves.

Its not that your mom is a sociopath, but that shes an addict. All addicts need enablers. Right now youve been sucked into the vortex of her addictions and are serving as her enabler.

BTW- I would class hoarding (along with the pills and the drink) as one of her addictions.

She needs supervision, and you need to get out from under her roof.

How to do that exactly I dont know. But get some kind of help from social services in your area.

Yeah, I agree here. And you wouldn't be mean to do it, either. She is suffering from her own addictions, and she's not going to get better if she stays in this rut where you're taking care of her. I hate the idea of "tough love", though. You don't have to be mean and you don't have to make any ultimatums; you just have to know that it is better for her to learn to cope with her own illness rather than depend on you to take care of her.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't support her. But I do think you should move out. Perhaps she could get a home-health aide to help her until she is back on her feet--not to do things for her, but to help her remember what needs to be done, and keep her life more organized. I have a person like that assigned to me by my school and she does a world of good to keep me from getting stuck in chaos.

Do you really have to mention who is gay and that whole male brained and female brained thing, as if you are more superior.

I have a sister with bipolar and OCD and a high IQ, so if she was a sociopath, she'd be one of those high IQ sociopaths. Got to watch out for those ones. This behaviour apart from the hoarding seems the norm around here. I do worry about my sister but she's not medicated and I really don't know what living with bipolar is like. I think the drinking and taking drugs is like seeking those highs. Stephen Fry described that once. So it's really not the person's fault. Earlier I was blaming her for not taking better care of herself because I know what bipolar triggers can be and to me she's breaking all those rules. But it must be really hard. I wouldn't survive without my ADHD medication and I can get pretty impulsive too.

I know you're stressed out. I am too. I've worried for the past couple of weeks about my sister and I want to get away, but I may have to be the one to turn off the stove, make sure the front door is closed, and feed all the pets.

Just try to see things from her point of view. Autism and bipolar doesn't mix well.We feel like the organised sensible ones here but we're both suffering from disorders. Do what you can to help her, get away for some sanity and to get your own life in order, but just open your mind. You just sound really arrogant in your posts. You would want someone to keep an open mind about your autism if you were the one that was having these same issues, right? It could have gone either way.