The question My 60-year-old mum has had depression all her life, which has had a profound impact on our family. Since her parents died from Covid, she’s been her worst ever. She doesn’t eat, has panic attacks, cries all the time, is hateful towards everyone, tries to turn everyone against each other and has frequent tantrums. But she refuses to get any help. She won’t take medication nor seek therapy. And I’m exhausted. I dread seeing her number on my phone. My dad is thinking of leaving and, if he does, I’m afraid of what will happen to her. My parents retired to a rural village three hours’ drive from my life.
Her mum (my gran) was also depressed and barely left the house after the age of 65, until she died at 90. She became dependent on my mother and it took a huge toll on her – she essentially became her carer for 25 years. Mum is now going the same way and seems to expect the same treatment from me. But I don’t want history to repeat itself.
At last, at 34, I’ve got my life together, in terms of work, a flat, friendships and love. I feel I’ve now started living. My home life growing up was dysfunctional. She was uninterested and distant, and I felt so alone. I have worked for a long time in therapy on my mental-health issues to get to this point, it’s been hard. Now it feels like Mum’s problems are yet again bulldozing all my efforts.
I feel guilty if I keep my distance and I think she knows this and plays on it. What shall I do?
Philippa’s answer Sometimes we want people to make the same choices we made to reinforce the idea that our choices were the right ones, so that we feel better about ourselves. My guess is that how she treats others is probably how she treats herself; how she makes others feel is probably how she always feels. And making others feel how she feels is what she is doing rather than getting help. It is as though she hasn’t the optimism to even try. I’m sure you have told her what getting professional help has done for you and what it could do for her, but perhaps getting better so she can enjoy her retirement and independence might feel to her as though she was somehow being disloyal to her own mother and her choices. Maybe she is determined that you should be “loyal” to her in a similar way. I expect she is particularly troubled these days as she is grieving as well as missing the sense of purpose her parents gave her. If you gave up your life to care for her, you wouldn’t be helping. Instead, you would be enabling her to not help herself and she would drag you down with her. Think of it like this: yes, she is drowning but, if you jump in to save her, you are going to drown, too.
You are in the unenviable position of having to choose between guilt and resentment. Many people in your position choose to feel resentment as they can’t tolerate the inner turmoil brought on by guilt. They also struggle with the discomfort of witnessing the other person’s disappointment. But I’m trying to persuade you to choose guilt as the lesser of two evils. It takes courage to feel it, because it is painful. But if you don’t go through the pain of guilt, the pleasant life you have worked so hard to create will be under threat. If you chose to rescue your mother as she wants, firstly you would not be on the path you want to be and, secondly, your resentment towards your parents would feel worse than the guilt you feel now. To continue to improve your own mental health and to experience long-term emotional wellbeing, it is necessary for you to endure the challenging emotion of guilt in the short term.
As it is unavoidable, practise accepting the sensation of guilt without immediately reacting. Guilt may be experienced as physical discomfort. Familiarise yourself with its physical manifestations. All emotions are experienced physically and it’s how we interpret those sensations that we come up with a name for them. It could be muscle tension, a lurching feeling in the stomach, churning insides, racing thoughts, shortness of breath. The more you can embrace the bodily sensations guilt generates, the less inclined you’ll be to fear and evade them. Take a moment to determine where in the body you experience these sensations. Observe them and breathe into them. You have the capacity to endure this emotion.
You must set boundaries – not in anger but with kindness and love. Limit those phone calls so you don’t spend your days in dread. You can give her the number of a crisis hotline such as the Samaritans (call 116 123), because I strongly advise blocking her number for periods when you’ve told her you won’t be available, so you can relax and live your own life rather than hers. If you believe your mother is in immediate danger and unwilling to seek help, you may want to involve her GP and/or her local mental-health crisis team to inform them of the situation.
Recommended reading Difficult Mothers: Understand and Overcoming Their Power by Terri Apter; and Toxic Parents by Susan Forward.
Every week Philippa Perry addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Philippa, please send your problem to askphilippa@guardian.co.uk. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions
The Book You Want Everyone You Love* To Read *(and maybe a few you don’t) by Philippa Perry is published by Cornerstone at £18.99. Buy it for £16.14 at guardianbookshop.com
