Help/Direction/Advice appreciated

Hi there,

I am almost 35 and have a mother who has a mental illness, and has had it for as long as I can remember.

When I was a young girl, she used to abuse me quite badly. She used to wake me up kicking me, pulling my hair, and screaming at me calling me a "bloody whore" and "bloody cock sucker" and that I was "sucking my father's cock spiritually in my sleep". I was about 9 years old and didn't even understand what that meant. I guess I would smack my mouth in my sleep which caused her to believe this.

As long as I can remember, she would always claim to be under spiritual attack my Masons, Nazi's and occasionally "Octopus' with eight limbs". This may sound humorous to some, but was horrifying and traumatic for me as a child.

I remember sitting in my room writing out prayers, over and over and over. She would keep our toiletries locked in a toolbox in fear of someone poisoning them.

I was placed in foster care at 12 and lived on my own at a young age. My mother, who is on a disability pension was unable to support herself when i was about 27, so I moved her in with me for a little while. I will never know why she is on disability, but I do know she was going to group support and she finally started taking meds for what she says is anxiety, depression and sometimes she says she has PTSD.

WHile on the pension, before she lived with me, she told me that her landlord entered her bachelor suite, so she immediately checked her cat's vagina to ensure she was not raped by the landlord.

While she was living with me as an adult, I thought she may have gotten better until I overheard her talking to herself in the basement saying "suck suck suck the cock" while she was folding laundry. I was positive that the medication was helping her, but I guess not.

She no longer lives with me but I found her an affordable apartment about ten minutes from me. Just last week she told me that I need to know something very important. When she was eight years old, she was sacrificed by Masons. She still remembers the black and white checkered floor during her sacrifice....

I have basically skimmed over many years and just gave a brief overview. I have phoned her doctor when she first moved in with me, but nothing worked. My mother knows that these thoughts are not accepted will easily deny any of this. What is she suffering from? She refuses to get more help, insists that nothing is wrong with her and thinks everybody is attacking her spiritually. Every time she brings up these things that aren't real I feel like everything is back to square one.

She buys things on the internet that have been "blessed" by priests, like water, or flower seeds, etc... She refuses to believe that many of those things are scams. It's like she is in her own little world, and nobody can get through to her.

What do I do? What CAN I do? Clearly she is delusional, and it worries me, but she can live on her own. I feel so helpless, I wish that the ambulance can pick her up and take her to the psychiatric ward where she WILL receive the help she needs, but that will not happen.

I wish I had some good advice for you, but I don't.

Is she still going to the group?

Perhaps she would consider supported living? That could either be without moving, having a mental health nurse visit regularly, or she could move to a place designed to allow people with mental health live fairly independently, but with professional support available constantly.

I'd suggest you find a mental-health professional of some kind in your community who can sit down with you, listen to your mother's history, and offer suggestions - preferably someone who knows what type of support is available locally.

It is much to your credit that you continue to be an advocate for your mom.

She stopped going to the group therapy. I will contact the mental health association for my city to see what is available. This has a horrible effect on me.

I can only imagine how difficult it is for you. I hope that there are some great services around that are able to support you, and that there is someone who can help your mum.

Thank you, it has caused me depression all my life. When she acts this way, it reminds me of all the suffering I endured because of her sickness. It has been a chain of events for me, I was having a horrible time at work due to a bad boss, became depressed, them the love of my life broke up with me, and now my mom is talking crazy again. At least the problem boss has been sorted out now...

For the past week or so I have been lashing out at people and confrontational. I am waiting to see a psychologist but they are backed up. Also, when my mom's doctor comes back from holidays I will be stopping by and having a chat with him.

Just be aware that there is a strong tendency in our society to push pills that mask emotions and don't work to ease the burden of grief or suggest even simple practical changes in our lives that could ease our situations. Medication is easier and more lucrative. Usually people come to the system in crisis and medication definitely can help take the edge off extreme stress, depression, mania, or whatever is our crisis state, so I don't absolutely hate the whole idea of taking meds. Just understand that in my opinion people generally can't reply on medication to bring us back to any long term state of balance and happiness.

The better approach, the one that will reach closest to the core, is the work we do ourselves that makes us better caretakers of our own emotionaL and physical lives. It's also possible to find wise counselors/physicians who will listen and make suggestions about how best to do this but mainly this is our own work to do.

It seems strange to me that we wouldn't, for example, stay willingly in an environment that put us in touch with an enraged person with a knife menancing our physical safety but we do continue to associate with people who use emotional weapons on us. Emotional pain is as real as physical pain; in fact much of the time emotional pain is also physical pain. Emotional injuries have genuine, severe, and long lasting effects and are far harder to "heal" than most if not all physical injuries.