constant stranger
Well-known member
My 94 yr old mood disordered mother is now in hospice care and how long she will live is anyone's guess. I've been looking after her in one way or another for 60 years and sacrificed a lot of my life doing it.
When she's gone (an event I have looked forward to for years) a big part of my life...my time, my anxiety, my responsibilities, my always having to think ahead to what might go wrong with her, my having to compromise my personal life in order to fulfill my responsibilities to her....all that will be gone.
I feel very, very alone right now. Eventually I'll feel relief that her depressions and clinging and complaining will disappear but where will I direct my personal energies and care to then? In a very real way I'll have to re-invent myself.
It would be nice to have a personal relationship with me to tell me that I'll do well and make a meaningful contribution somehow in the years I have left.
But I'm very alone right now and feeling very uneasy in a limbo space.
When she's gone (an event I have looked forward to for years) a big part of my life...my time, my anxiety, my responsibilities, my always having to think ahead to what might go wrong with her, my having to compromise my personal life in order to fulfill my responsibilities to her....all that will be gone.
I feel very, very alone right now. Eventually I'll feel relief that her depressions and clinging and complaining will disappear but where will I direct my personal energies and care to then? In a very real way I'll have to re-invent myself.
It would be nice to have a personal relationship with me to tell me that I'll do well and make a meaningful contribution somehow in the years I have left.
But I'm very alone right now and feeling very uneasy in a limbo space.