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I’m woman in my 40s. My mother has always been mentally weak. Since my father died of an illness about four years ago, her emotions have gone up and down to extremes. When I was a child, she was despondent because of his extramarital affairs. She went through a period of depression and even tried to kill herself.
After my father passed away, I thought she would feel better, but she is pessimistic, saying, “I’m lonely. No one understands how I feel.” She suffers from an intractable disease, but she throws away the medicine she has been given, saying, “I don’t trust doctors.”
She regularly meets with my brother, but says she cannot talk to him honestly because she wants to be nice to him.
She gets in touch with me every day. Most of the messages are negative. When I don’t contact her because I want to keep my distance, she sends me messages saying, “I haven’t talked to anyone all day.”
I feel bad when I make my mother feel lonely and I think I want to support her. However, I have a job and a family, and I’m fed up with having to deal with my mother.
Also, I can’t make a firm decision because I’m afraid that she might try to kill herself again.
— B, Tokyo
Dear Ms. B:
You sway between your feelings of concern for your mother and your desire to keep your distance. I think many people would sympathize with you.
You grew up watching your parents’ discord from a young age, and you had to support your mother, whose mental state was unstable. You have been made to feel that your mother might die if you were not there. In modern terms, I suppose it can be said that you were a young caregiver.
A daughter is not a mother’s parent, nor is she a counselor. Mothers inevitably turn to their daughters, who are of the same sex and with whom they feel comfortable talking, but there is very little that daughters can do.
At best, they can listen to their mother’s voice over the phone, go home to have a meal with her occasionally and accompany her to hospital appointments. It is important to realize that there is nothing more a daughter can do for her mother, even if she is asked to do more.
It is natural to feel sorry for your mother, but you must not get involved. You need to take strict measures, such as making her promise that you will never see her again unless she gets proper treatment.
Your mother has been keeping you under control by threatening to kill herself.
You are a victim who is terrified of losing a parent and who has had your time as a child taken away. Unfortunately, it is not you who can help your mother, but your mother herself.
