Living with depression is so, so hard. It eats the nerves from the inside out, and doesn't stop even when its full. However, I'm not talking about my depression, since I don't have it, but my mother's. Some days are fine. She feels great, she's happy, she's up and about in the house, and she's not dwelling on the past. Other days, like today, I can't wait to escape to my upstairs "space" and not be around her. However, I can still hear her crying/sobbing, muttering to herself things like, "I don't care"; "it doesn't matter"; "**sighhhhhhhh**"; "what's the use"; etc. When I go down to ask her what's wrong, or just to sit with her, she tries to hide the fact that she was crying. When I ask her why she's crying, she'll say "I'm not." Right.
It's so hard to be around her because I know I can't help her; I'm so helpless in alleviating any of her pain. She is in chronic, severe pain 100% of the time, so much so that her pain pills take the pain level from maybe a 15 (on a scale of 10 being the highest) to a relatively bearable 11.
It's not only her pain, but also her loneliness. She really doesn't have any friends any more. Her very, very best friend, Miss Dorothy, died two (one? no, I think it was two) years ago from lung problems. My two aunts are both gone--Aunt Carole died in 1984/85; Aunt Sis died in 1999. Her other best friend, Miss Mary, has dropped off the face of the earth, but we think she has some psychological problems and that's why she stopped communicating with my mother years ago. Except for Aunt Sis, who lived down the street from us up here in Maine, everyone else lived in Maryland; so most of the friend relationships were kept up by phone. But, it was still a connection to her friends, her past, and things that were familiar. She had never made any close friends since moving to Maine 20 years ago, so it's not like there are people up here who can drop in for friendly visits.
She has no idea how negative she is; she thinks she is so very understanding of people. In fact, she thinks she is much more charitable, forgiving, and understanding than most people! Ummm.....no. Not only does she automatically criticize everyone and everything, but she gets irritated when someone else does. It does no good to point this out to her. The few times I've tried, I've gotten the "Oh, so I can't even have an opinion? You're taking that away from me, too?" If she feels slighted or wronged by someone, she will never, ever forget, and will bring up the fact many times during different conversations. My father is a huge case-in-point, but he is only one case. I know it was bad; I know ALL the stupid and rotten things he did, but give it a rest after a while. She really doesn't admit what she did wrong, or that maybe she wasn't perfect. It's always the fault of someone else. I think that even if you can't forgive and forget, then at least move past it. Holding on to the wrongs done to her seems to give her something to do. Almost noble in a strange sort of way.
She feels very, very cheated in and by life. I know from our many, many conversations that she would love not to have been born, and if she died tomorrow she wouldn't care. I also know that she considers suicide many, many times. Yes, we have talked about this. She has made it clear that the only reasons she has not done it is because she is chicken/knows God wouldn't like it, and she feels she's more use to me alive because she at least brings in a Social Security check which pays some of the bills. How in the world do you reason or comfort someone who deep down has no desire to even be on this earth? It's staggering to me. I know she had accepted Christ about 15 years ago when she went to church at Bangor Baptist Church with me, but I don't think she has embraced all that He is able to give her. She envies me my absolute faith, yet she won't take that one last step and completely give herself over to Him. I've tried to explain it to her. Well, I have explained it to her. She just won't give that one last piece of control over to Him. So, I keep trying to explain it and live it in front of her, but...... time will tell.
However, my heart is not in it anymore of trying to help her. I feel like I'm constantly going up against a brick wall. I think sometimes I'm too practical or logical. I mean, if someone truly doesn't want to be alive, why am I trying to make her feel good about living? If I could take her pain away, I would. But, I know that wouldn't take away her loneliness or unhappiness, so why try. That doesn't seem very nice of me, but I'm honestly getting to the point of not caring. I hate writing that. I am always the person who cares; who will get people out of a bad mood so they feel better; who will put my feelings last to make someone else happy; who will stuff my impatience/irritation so they won't see they are driving me crazy because that would make them feel bad.
Just once I'd like to be ignorant, uncaring, and a total bitch. Sometimes I think it would save my stress level and make me sleep better knowing I don't have the weight of the world on my shoulders. OK, I really don't want to be all those things, but every once in a while I need to think so, just because I'm human. If I didn't care so much, I wouldn't have so much stress of other people's moods effecting me. I want to be able to wave a magic wand and make everyone better. But, I can't do that.
She has been wanting to go out to Walmart for the past week. Everytime she thinks she's able to go, she gets up and walks from one room to the other and has to sit because of the pain. Her doctor thinks she might have arthritis in her pelvic bones now. He wants her to get an X-ray, but that request was months ago, and she has yet to get any X-rays. So, now she is getting more depressed because she wants to get out of the house, but she can't get out because she's always in such pain; on top of all the pain, she has been exhausted lately and will sleep so, so much. I know a lot of that is from the depression, but it seems like a deeper exhaustion than "just" depression.
I'm really at my wit's end with how to deal with her. Somehow, no matter what happens, it always becomes my fault. She let her driver's license expire a few years ago; even though it was pretty much a "team decision", she makes little comments that I didn't take her to get her license; I didn't encourage her; etc. She forgets that back when we had two cars, she didn't drive at night, so I still had to take her places; it hurt her muscles to drive, especially with her fibro myalgia; she doesn't like to drive on "busy" roads, and every road out from our immediate house road is "busy" to her.
I don't know; maybe today was just an extra-sensitive day for me. Or, maybe today was an extra-sensitive day for her. I need to pray tons and tons, and I need prayer tons and tons. She's my mommy, and I love her; but it's gotten to the point where I'm the care-taker. It's exhausting.
I'll try to be more patient. I just feel so helpless.
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