[Renee6119]

Recently I have been diagnosed with several mental illnesses which has changed a lot of things. Since being diagnosed last week things seems to be a little different with my mother who is an alcoholic. Now, I've never had a relationship with her in my life. (I'm 23) Alcohol has always been chosen over me and my other older siblings, I"m the youngest. Last night my mom and I actually sat down and had a really long talk about things and how I have affected her all my life and have made her resent me. We had a great calm discussion and at the end decided we are really going to work hard on starting to put a mother/daughter relationship together starting with spending just 5 minutes a day together doing something we both enjoy which is playing wii. Now when this discussion began, she had any of few beers in her so I know she was drunk, but we've had talks like this before and she always falls through. Although this talk felt different, I'm scared to really hope and get excited that this might be it, that I may get to have a real relationship with my mom. I want to be excited and hopefully, but at the same time I'm so scared because I've been hurt so many times before. Is it wrong not to trust her for the fact alone that she's an alcoholic and tends to lie to me all the time? I don't know if it's worth going through the hurt again.

Hello, Renee6119. Yes, to risk hoping is scary. As long as your mother continues to drink, the likelihood of being disappointed is probable. Your mother needs help with her drinking. Both of your might benefit from therapy.

Even if your mother will not agree to treatment, please consider getting help for yourself. Good luck!

Hi Renee,

Ive been around this for quite some time . I know how to just let the alchoholic be where they are . But as far as finding truth in thier actions and what they say and how they feel .

No . its not true or honest because they are masking how they really feel .

Your mother needs to get into rehab and find her true self with out alchohol . One she will then beable to give to you .

I find active alchoholics are in big time denile about thier drinking and the effects on others .They will do anything to beable to continue drinking even feign some sort of relationship with you as long as they can still be under the influence.

Maybe this will help .. if you feel dissapointed .

Its fine to spend time together .Keep the conversations light. not to deep . not about your problems . or hers.Good time to practice boundries .

. This way you will not set yourself up to be the scape goat and the problem to be focused on which is very common for adult children to do .

Just some sugestions .

Patricia

[Hunny]

Dear Renee,

How sensible you are to understand that your Mom has always chosen alcohol over you and your siblings. It is smart not to be in denial. Does it mean she doesn't care for you? No. It just means that she cannot function in that caring for you right now without alcohol.

It is nice to have dreams and goals of a relationship with her but to expect them to become true is setting yourself up for disappointment. I like what Auroralso stated. Keep conversation within the 5 minutes very light and about lighthearted matters.

Also, in what you wrote you stated: "Last night my mom and I actually sat down and had a really long talk about things and how I have affected her all my life and have made her resent me."

I got a bit of a red light here. This actually could be you telling this to her, how her drinking has affected you. You see this is how things get convoluted by the drinker. They actually try to make you believe that you are the problem!

A phrase I read recently is alcoholics affect many people but so do recovered alcoholics and we hold out hope for those yet to be recovered including your Mom.

In the meantime work on your own healing mentally/emotionally and from the effects of the family disease of alcoholism upon yourself and do something really nice for yourself today.

Originally Posted by Renee6119

Recently I have been diagnosed with several mental illnesses which has changed a lot of things. Since being diagnosed last week things seems to be a little different with my mother who is an alcoholic. Now, I've never had a relationship with her in my life. (I'm 23) Alcohol has always been chosen over me and my other older siblings, I"m the youngest. Last night my mom and I actually sat down and had a really long talk about things and how I have affected her all my life and have made her resent me. We had a great calm discussion and at the end decided we are really going to work hard on starting to put a mother/daughter relationship together starting with spending just 5 minutes a day together doing something we both enjoy which is playing wii. Now when this discussion began, she had any of few beers in her so I know she was drunk, but we've had talks like this before and she always falls through. Although this talk felt different, I'm scared to really hope and get excited that this might be it, that I may get to have a real relationship with my mom. I want to be excited and hopefully, but at the same time I'm so scared because I've been hurt so many times before. Is it wrong not to trust her for the fact alone that she's an alcoholic and tends to lie to me all the time? I don't know if it's worth going through the hurt again.

[Bill3]

Renee,

Anything new to share? How are things working out so far?

Renne ,

I was the scapegoat in my family . And when I read that your mother became more intrested in communicating after you put yourself as the reason for resentment The word surfaced,

I googled and found a nice link that explains the falmily roles . I belive I had a bit of all of them . My Brother was set up as the hero .

http://www.counselingcenter.illinois.edu/?page_id=144

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-tia..._b_254896.html

And here is another one explaning scape goating .

Dianna had a real unfortunate fate .

My eating developed into a ful blown addiction when I was 16 and I was blamed for all the family ills and problems. I was completely ignorant of what alchoholisum was I was surrounded by it for years I thought it was what life was suposed to be like.

To show you how long it takes to unravel whats true and whats not . Just a few months ago My GP doctor explained to me that Ulcerative colitus is not caused by stress .

My mother was in the hospital for it . Durring that time when it was just me and my drinking father at home alone He said to me that I caused my mothers colitis.

I belived this for years.

I was verbally, emotionally ,physically and sexually abused by my father of course while under the influence . He always was at varying degrees.

I mixed his martinis for him . thats how I know.



Patricia

[VickiesPath]

Originally Posted by auroralso

Hi Renee,

Ive been around this for quite some time . I know how to just let the alchoholic be where they are . But as far as finding truth in thier actions and what they say and how they feel .

No . its not true or honest because they are masking how they really feel .

Your mother needs to get into rehab and find her true self with out alchohol . One she will then beable to give to you .

I find active alchoholics are in big time denile about thier drinking and the effects on others .They will do anything to beable to continue drinking even feign some sort of relationship with you as long as they can still be under the influence.

Maybe this will help .. if you feel dissapointed .

Its fine to spend time together .Keep the conversations light. not to deep . not about your problems . or hers.Good time to practice boundries .

. This way you will not set yourself up to be the scape goat and the problem to be focused on which is very common for adult children to do .

Just some sugestions .

Patricia

Patricia is right, Rene'. My mother drank her entire life and never, not once, did anything she said she would do. She was hiding, I never learned what she was hiding from and not sure if she had lived another 20 years if I ever would have learned.

All I knew was even when she died at age 78, she was not trustworthy. She never respected her children, especially when we were small.

As long as your mother is drinking, don't punish yourself by expecting anything to change about her. She will not change until she gives up alcohol. Even then, it will be hard for her.