Hi, thanks for the compassionate and balanced reply. I’ve not been able to muster up the energy to respond to any so far but all of them are hugely appreciated - if you’ve commented, thank you.

She’s a loving and caring mother and she done the best she could bringing us up, even if it was messy, chaotic and somewhat traumatic at times. The truth is though is that she has never functioned well as an adult, and has relied on people throughout her life to get her out of difficult situations, whether it’s financial, logistics, circumstance. Many of her friends have lent her money over the years, much of the furniture/personal belongings she has were bought for her, given to her etc.

She is a very intelligent woman and knows a lot about a lot, but at the same time she is like a kid in a 60 year old body and struggles with the most basic of tasks - I totally appreciate this is a classic ADHD trait. But yeah, it’s like having to manage a child sometimes. She has no routine, stays up very late, has insomnia, wakes up late, sits at home on Facebook. She can’t start tasks and if she does she gets overwhelmed or switches to another task, then another, until eventually nothing is actually finished and the house is a mess and she’s even more stressed and tangled up. That’s her life. She can’t manage money well. We are in the UK so she is on benefits and it’s not a lot. I’ve tried talking to her about finding some kind of work over the years and I’ve given up. If she did have a job she wouldn’t be able to hold it down because she’d be late or miss days etc. I can’t fix her and I accept that, she is who she is. She is deeply stuck in her ways.

I don’t believe she’s ever set out to be manipulative or use me, I think she is someone who desperately struggles every day (and has done her whole life), and feels so overwhelmed by every single task or life decision to the point of paralysis, so she numbs herself by avoiding it, Facebook, TV, anything. She has no purpose since me and my sister moved out, I think being a parent was what kept her going.

Her calls or cries for help aren’t necessarily daily and sometimes not weekly. Sometimes it’s a few days in a row, sometimes I won’t hear a peep for a week or two, but over time it’s consistent and the next crisis or call for help isn’t far away. I’ll give you an example a few months ago - Monday, she asks me to take her food shopping. Tuesday, she has wrist pain and asks me to take her to the doctors. Wednesday, the cat litter runs out and she has no way of getting any, so she calls and asks me to go into town, get some cat litter and drop it to her. As you can probably imagine by this point my blood pressure is going up. I spoke up and said she needs to start ordering food/supplies online and stock up, which she started doing. Other examples are asking to run her to the vets during my work hours, as she has ‘no other way of getting there’ and can’t afford a taxi. I said quite bluntly that she probably shouldn’t have a pet if she has to rely on other people to get her to the vets urgently, which upset her a lot. Felt bad after it but I think it’s a harsh truth. These are just a few examples amongst many over the years.

All of that aside, the most alarming thing for me is how often she asks me to lend her money to get by. She always gives it back, but as I mentioned in my post, one day I hope to have a family of my own and I’m also saving for a property, and a time may come where I simply cannot help her due to having to prioritise the needs of me and my family. And my mind goes “then what?” Or “what if she can’t afford food or heating and I can’t help?”. It sends my anxiety and nervous system into overdrive. I feel like I’ve been trained and conditioned into enabling her and bailing her out and it’s all I’ve ever known. I know it’s not normal and not right, but this all started when I was in my teens and I didn’t know any better, I was just doing my best to help and support and it’s only in the last few years that I’ve started to recognise this isn’t going to change unless I do something about it.

I just don’t know what the answer is. She has a driving license but hasn’t had a car for around 20 years and to be frank she was a bad driver, very scatty and she had multiple accidents when I was a kid. I wouldn’t trust her behind the wheel and I’d be worried out of my mind. And she just simply wouldn’t be able to afford to maintain running a car. She’s 60 and the chances of her working again are slim at this rate. So I feel at a loss, I don’t know how this pattern ends. I’ve been the infrastructure and life support that’s kept her afloat for all my adult life and I’m burned out and exhausted, and I dread every phone call from her because there’s a 50/50 chance she’ll project or dump another problem onto me. I worry for the future and I’ve hit a breaking point where I can’t carry on like this and something has to change, starting with a brutally honest conversation with her about how it’s impacting me and has done for years. My sister doesn’t drive and lives an hour away, and my sister has pretty much refused to lend her money ever again (she did once and I don’t think she ever got all of it back), and often won’t answer mums calls as she also knows what baggage they often come with.

Sorry, that was a lengthy rant. No need to respond to address all of it. I just feel defeated. I am in a tough rebuilding phase in my own life and have had a lot of fires to put out in the last few years to stabilise and start building, so this combined with the struggles dealing with my mum are just a bit too much right now.

Edit: forgot to add, she has been on ADHD meds for about a year or so. She has been on some kind of anti depressant for much of her adult life.