Thankyou both for your kind words praxis and lexicon78. I know that nothing will change until she really wants to change things and that is one reason that I am struggling to cope, I have absolutely no control over the situation and it is eating away at me all the time. The rest of the family have given up hope, as she has basically been like this for 35 years - although it is continually getting worse. I think that part of me feels that she cant really be as bad as this 100%.