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Eabtrees
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Default Jun 05, 2018 at 05:40 PM
  #1
Hey guys.

My name is Elizabeth. I’m 26. My birthday is at the end of the month. Today is the first time I’m reaching out to anybody about my mom, truly and desperately, since I was 16.

My mom is dying. She weighs less than 100 pounds. She looks like a speckled skeleton. She has scabs and bruises all over. She can’t walk without someone holding her hand. She can’t eat very much if at all. She can only drink and sleep and say awful things.

I remember her drinking, a glass of wine when I was 9.

Then she broke her leg that winter. I became her vodka girl. She’d have me do the laundry and fix dinner, she’d have me pour her glass after glass of vodka. I was 9. I didn’t understand that I was hurting her by obeying her. And I knew better than to question her. And I thought it was weird that I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone that I poured her drinks. I thought I was being a good girl. I wanted her to heal and get better. My father divorced her a few months later.

I could go over my whole childhood, but it would be easier to say the my mom slowly gave up on herself over the next decade, and then even more the decade after that.

She wasn’t a functional alcoholic when I was high school. Not really. She barely functioned. But she managed to keep it together enough.

We had moved in with her boyfriend when I was 12. He was a mean drunk, and not at all a good guy to raise a kid. He died when I was 19? Maybe 20? It destroyed my mom far more than I ever thought it could.

She has been set on killing herself ever since.

This past Christmas my family, her parents and my brother and her sister and her niece, we all decided to intervene. My family was supposed to meet my brother and I at her house. We were supposed to try to help her. A few days before THE DAY, my family said they weren’t coming. We weren’t going to intervene. My mom wouldn’t get our help.

I hate this. I can’t do anything on my own. And I think it’s gotten to the point of no return.

I was supposed to pick up my mom this morning from her home, an hour and so south of here, drive three hours north, and meet her sister and my brother at the beach. But last night we were uninvited and given the reason “there’s too many plans, sorry”. This hurt my mom so much. I know it did. And I am angry that they would do this. It’s like they don’t care. I understand why she drinks. I understand why she is so depressed.

But I don’t understand my mom anymore. She called me, angry as hell last night. I told her I’d take her to the beach even if our family didn’t want to hang out. She was angry but adamant that we would go and have a great day at the beach.

I picked her up at 9:15. She was weird and skeletal and bragged about all her injuries. She talked smack about our family, was angry and childish. She said she was hungry and could we stop at a restaurant. She had told me the night before that we would “eat and drink cheap, and just hang on the beach!”. I wasn’t hungry. It was hell to have to see her so bad off and hear the awful things she said. I could smell the alcohol on her. I realized when we stopped at Hooters, the only thing she wanted was more alcohol.

That’s why she wouldn’t let me do fast food.

She needed a shot of Perron. And I watched her drink and eat four tater tots and be ready to go.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to slap her and shake her and wake up the woman who raised me.

She was so sad that i didn’t want to eat any of the tots she ordered. And I know it would have made her happy. But the woman I took out today is not my mom. She sounds a little like her, and looks kind of like her, and she tells me how much she loves me, and about how next time we go to the beach we’ll get a hotel and we’ll do all these great things.

I think today is the last time my mom will ever see the beach.

I don’t know how to express how angry and how sad and how lonely I feel.

I miss her so much. She was such an amazing and tough woman. And the hallucinatory skeleton person I had to carry around today, because she can’t walk anymore, is not my mom.

I don’t have anyone to talk to about this. I want to help her so badly but deep down in my heart I know it’s too late. What can I do when she knows she’s killing herself but doesn’t care?

She has no concept of reality.

And I am so sad.
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Smile Jun 06, 2018 at 06:47 PM
  #2
Hello Eabtrees: Thanks for sharing your story here on PC. I'm sorry you are in the midst of this most difficult circumstance. Hopefully coming here to PC can be of some comfort & support.

I believe this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral! I hope you find the website to be of benefit. One other forum, here on PC, you may want to be aware of is the grief & loss forum. Here's a link:

https://forums.psychcentral.com/grief-loss/

Here are links to 4 articles, from PsychCentral's archives, that talk about the ACOA experience:

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/imper...el-in-control/

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/imper...dium=popular17

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/imper...dium=popular17

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/imper...had-childhood/

My best wishes to you...

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Default Jun 07, 2018 at 02:12 PM
  #3
Hi, Eabtrees, and welcome to PC.

I know I wanted to help my mother, but I knew it wouldn't happen. She drank until she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I don't know why she stopped then. It was her escape from reality. It sounds like it's your mom's escape too. It also sounds like her family doesn't want to face the reality either.

It's hard to see your parent self-destruct but they are the only person who can save themselves. All you can is take care of yourself. I don't really have any other advice. Maybe find an Al-Anon or ACOA meeting nearby. That would help.
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Default Jun 09, 2018 at 06:23 AM
  #4
Just remember that the thought process is only temporary.
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Default Jun 09, 2018 at 07:58 AM
  #5
Eabtrees, I am so sad for you. I can tell how much you love your mother and how hard it is to see her self-destruct. I don't have any advice for you, just wanted you to know I read your pain and felt it through your words. My birth mother was an alcoholic. My adoptive father was also an alcoholic, so I do understand the pain somewhat. I was not close to them, however, so your pain is different from mine. I wish your mother could see the loving daughter she has before her and figure out how to start living again.
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Default Aug 23, 2019 at 02:23 PM
  #6
Thank you all so much for the support. Alcoholism is a disease. I can’t cure her. But I’ll always love her. There are challenges on the horizon. I feel them. But I think I’ll be okay. I just have to learn from the bad.
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Default Sep 04, 2019 at 12:28 PM
  #7
Yes, Loving Her... that's all you can do, @Eabtrees. Keep Loving Her. I am SO SORRY for what you're BOTH going through! Please be kind to yourself and to her as well like you already are. It is not your fault. I'm sure you know that already. Sending many safe, warm hugs to BOTH You and Your Mother, @Eabtrees. Keep fighting and keep rocking as much as you possibly can like you're already wonderfully doing entirely on your own. Be near your Mother if you can Try to support her as much as you possibly can. I am SO, SO SORRY for what you're BOTH going through and for what you've BOTH been through in the past. I am REALLY, TRULY SORRY! The past is the past... focus on the future and make her spend the days she has left in Peace! Please be kind to yourself and to Her as well if you can. Feel free to PM me ANYTIME YOU WANT when you need advice and support or even simply someone to talk to! I am SURE plenty of others will also GLADLY and WONDERFULLY help you out as well! Sending many safe, warm hugs to BOTH You and Her, Eabtrees. Keep fighting and keep rocking as much as you possibly can together with her like you're already WONDERFULLY DOING ALL AND ENTIRELY BY YOURSELF!
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Default Sep 05, 2019 at 01:26 AM
  #8
Welcome @Eabtrees
I am so sorry its so hard for you. I have a unique perspective I think. I am a daughter of an alcoholic/drug addict father (who died when he was 47 due to complications involving his heart-I am 44 now) and an alcoholic in recovery. I have seven years of sobriety and used a 12 step program to stop. Since being in AA I have lost 5 people directly as a result of alcoholism and an assorted mix to OD's. An alcoholic death is miserable and hellish. You stop eating. You have neurological impairments that affect your thinking, you gait and your movements. Tremors. Combative irrational outbursts, easily start to withdraw within hours of last drink. Suicidal, isolating, abusive, incontinent. Obsessed with alcohol supply-running out or getting more. Esophagus bleeds, ulcers, bowel issues, cancer, cirrosis, liver issues.. you know the deal. I can assure you first hand that I have literally watched someone decline and die this way when they were unable to accept help. I realized that I could not be a part of that ever again. I work with other alcoholics as a part of my recovery. When I have tried everything, and the family has tried everything you have to tell the loved one something like " I (we) have tried to get you help and support you but you are refusing or unable to accept it. I love you but I can not watch you die. Continuing this relationship while you are doing this to yourself makes me complicit in your actions and possibly your death. I can not bear that weight or guilt so I need to distance myself from you". And then do it. Hold your bottom line. Its up to you of course. With parents there is tons of guilt on us kids but do you want your last memories of your mom to be 100lbs of alcoholic misery? Do you want to be her death caretaker? Only you can decide that but I promise you it will haunt you for the rest of your life.

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