- #1
Jack21222
- 212
- 1
I'm worried about my mother, and I'm hoping a psychologist or psychiatrist can give me some advice. I'm not sure if this is the correct forum for this, or if it should be moved to general discussion, but I figured this is as good of a place as any.
My sister was shot and paralyzed two years ago, and for the past year and a half my mother has been taking care of her. Feeding her, doing bowel training, up until recently had to catheterize her, et cetera. All of this has taken quite a toll on my mother, and a few times, I've seen her "snap."
A few examples:
1) My sister is hypersensitive around her shoulders, so anything touching them is painful. She describes it as having a permanent sunburn. One day I was sitting with my sister, and my mother accidentally touched my sister's shoulder. My sister said "Ow, be careful" and my mother started laughing. She poked her again and laughed even harder.
The more my sister begged for her to stop, my mother kept poking her, laughing harder and harder, adding "What are you doing to do about it?"
When I glared at my mother and suggested she stop, she started yelling at me at the top of her lungs "F*** YOU! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!" and so on and so forth.
2) My sister told me the other day, my mother was in a bad mood, so my sister asked "What's wrong?" My mother responded "You know I blame you. My life sucks and it's your fault." My sister started sobbing, and my mother kept up the abuse, calling her stupid among other things. My sister said "I wish I were dead" and my mother responded "So do I! Die already!"
In addition, my parents have developed a nasty gambling addiction. It turns out they lost 26,000 dollars last year at the slot machines. Meanwhile, they're having trouble paying their bills, and they've gone deep into credit card debt. That 26,000 wasn't "extra" that they had set aside for entertainment. One day, my mother said she was running to the store real quick to buy some items for the house. She ended up going to Delaware Park instead and spent the money she had taken to buy the items on the slot machines, and came home empty handed.
I'm not sure what I should do in this situation. My mother obviously is under tremendous stress, and she isn't dealing with it in a healthy way at all. However, she doesn't think she has a problem. She always comes up with some excuse for her behavior. "The slot machines are just a form of entertainment," she says. "Oh, I was just having a bad day" she says about her actions to my sister.
I think it's a much more serious problem than that. I just don't know how to bring up the situation in a way that will make her understand, without her snapping at me. She probably needs to be on some sort of medication, but I'm not sure if there are any medications for whatever has gone wrong.
Any suggestions from anybody with some background training? I'm lost here.
Thanks.
***EDIT*** I know this forum is not for medical diagnoses, and I'm not looking for a specific diagnosis here. I'm more looking for a general direction, since I can't force her to the doctor. I'm looking for some possibilities on what she has, whether a doctor would help, maybe some ammo I could use to convince her to see somebody. If anybody has a suggestion of several different possible disorders or whatever that she has, that's great, but just some general information about what's going on would be useful. Heck, even just a website or a search term that I could plug into google would be useful, because I'm lost. Thanks again.
My sister was shot and paralyzed two years ago, and for the past year and a half my mother has been taking care of her. Feeding her, doing bowel training, up until recently had to catheterize her, et cetera. All of this has taken quite a toll on my mother, and a few times, I've seen her "snap."
A few examples:
1) My sister is hypersensitive around her shoulders, so anything touching them is painful. She describes it as having a permanent sunburn. One day I was sitting with my sister, and my mother accidentally touched my sister's shoulder. My sister said "Ow, be careful" and my mother started laughing. She poked her again and laughed even harder.
The more my sister begged for her to stop, my mother kept poking her, laughing harder and harder, adding "What are you doing to do about it?"
When I glared at my mother and suggested she stop, she started yelling at me at the top of her lungs "F*** YOU! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!" and so on and so forth.
2) My sister told me the other day, my mother was in a bad mood, so my sister asked "What's wrong?" My mother responded "You know I blame you. My life sucks and it's your fault." My sister started sobbing, and my mother kept up the abuse, calling her stupid among other things. My sister said "I wish I were dead" and my mother responded "So do I! Die already!"
In addition, my parents have developed a nasty gambling addiction. It turns out they lost 26,000 dollars last year at the slot machines. Meanwhile, they're having trouble paying their bills, and they've gone deep into credit card debt. That 26,000 wasn't "extra" that they had set aside for entertainment. One day, my mother said she was running to the store real quick to buy some items for the house. She ended up going to Delaware Park instead and spent the money she had taken to buy the items on the slot machines, and came home empty handed.
I'm not sure what I should do in this situation. My mother obviously is under tremendous stress, and she isn't dealing with it in a healthy way at all. However, she doesn't think she has a problem. She always comes up with some excuse for her behavior. "The slot machines are just a form of entertainment," she says. "Oh, I was just having a bad day" she says about her actions to my sister.
I think it's a much more serious problem than that. I just don't know how to bring up the situation in a way that will make her understand, without her snapping at me. She probably needs to be on some sort of medication, but I'm not sure if there are any medications for whatever has gone wrong.
Any suggestions from anybody with some background training? I'm lost here.
Thanks.
***EDIT*** I know this forum is not for medical diagnoses, and I'm not looking for a specific diagnosis here. I'm more looking for a general direction, since I can't force her to the doctor. I'm looking for some possibilities on what she has, whether a doctor would help, maybe some ammo I could use to convince her to see somebody. If anybody has a suggestion of several different possible disorders or whatever that she has, that's great, but just some general information about what's going on would be useful. Heck, even just a website or a search term that I could plug into google would be useful, because I'm lost. Thanks again.
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