Depressed mother: How would you respond to this?

[Anonymous]

My parents did not set themselves up for a quality retirement, rejecting advice from both professionals and loved ones. My mother has partially-treated depression, I say partially because I don’t think she always takes her medication. When she’s in a mood and we happen to be on the phone, she will say something like, “What can I do, this is the life I was given,” or similar.

I never know how to respond or mostly, what she wants from me. I usually just tell her I’m sorry and change the subject to something more upbeat. But I hate being put in the middle of it. I NEVER call her to complain about my life, EVER. But sometimes it feels like that’s all she does with me.

[Anonymous]

Encourage her to see her physician. They have lots of screening tools and treatments for depression.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Encourage her to see her physician. They have lots of screening tools and treatments for depression.

As I said, she has and she does, she’s even prescribed medication. I don’t believe she takes it.

[Anonymous]

Does she have a therapist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents did not set themselves up for a quality retirement, rejecting advice from both professionals and loved ones. My mother has partially-treated depression, I say partially because I don’t think she always takes her medication. When she’s in a mood and we happen to be on the phone, she will say something like, “What can I do, this is the life I was given,” or similar.

I never know how to respond or mostly, what she wants from me. I usually just tell her I’m sorry and change the subject to something more upbeat. But I hate being put in the middle of it. I NEVER call her to complain about my life, EVER. But sometimes it feels like that’s all she does with me.

Mmm-hmmm... did I tell you that the raccoons got into our trash last night? or some other topic changer. You will never be able to give her the response she wants which is that you/your siblings will pay for her to have a fabulous retirement.

[Anonymous]

I got sucked into my mother's mental health issues my entire childhood and adulthood and it got really bad as she aged. She finally got medication and therapy-kept firing therapists and going off meds. I had to detach with my own therapy because I could not take another second of it and I had been trained to absorb her issues and try to rescue my whole life.

It enraged her. Boundaries are about you, not pleasing them. I won't allow her to emotionally vomit on me any more. Basically she gets to the point where she hits rock bottom, goes on meds, gets back into consistent therapy and does much better for a while. She even revisits friendships and develops a life... until she declares herself cured and repeats the cycle. The difference is she has mostly learned to keep me out of it and when she forgets,I do not cave. I enabled her to stay stuck for too long because I didn't know any better. This was bad for her mental health and mine. I think she did enjoy dumping on me and getting attention, but for her overall well being it enabled her to remain helpless, yet paradoxically very controlling of me.

[Anonymous]

I feel you OP. Our conversations are her telling all of the happy things that happened to her. They are the exceptions because the baseline is terrible. Anything perceived as bad is a tragedy or catastrophe.

Set your boundaries as kindly as you can and be consistent. I always get to the point where I have to tell my mom and I'm not listening to her complain about my dad. I can listen to all the other complaining, but that's my line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Encourage her to see her physician. They have lots of screening tools and treatments for depression.

As I said, she has and she does, she’s even prescribed medication. I don’t believe she takes it.

If she had diabetes you would be supportive of her adjusting to the treatment protocol, but if she refused to treat it, you would not want to listen to her complain about all the havoc diabetes creates with her body. You would tell her to share that with her doctor and encourage her to seek treatment. If she has a treatment and refuses to try it and go through the effort to adjust meds and find the right therapist, that is on her. You cannot cure her depression. It's her choice whether she tries to treat her condition, but no need to enable if she chooses not to even try.