Does your family tiptoe around mental illness?

[Anonymous]

My mom has obsessive behaviors around cleaning and pretty serious anxiety issues. She also has reached the point where she can mostly only talk about what she eats or the weather most days. She has refused to see a doctor for years. My father tiptoes around her because if he does something that does not conform with how she thinks things should be she will shut him out or else come up with a very complicated work-around so that the situation does not occur. My brother sees her only once a year and has decided that just going along with whatever she wants is easiest for him.

She also avoids conflict at all costs and will deny that any problems exist in the family. I feel like this is an untenable situation - it is very painful to be around her - I feel deep pity for her while at the same time feeling very frustrated. I have tried so many times over the years to talk with her and it has never worked.

Has anyone faced this and come through it? I feel like she prohibits us from helping her but I can't see any way that this can get better.

[Anonymous]

Omg that is my mother. But now she has dementia. The anxieties and obsessions and rituals and rules have gotten so much worse. I have begged my dad to take her to a geriatric psychiatrist, she is miserable and making him miserable, but he is too afraid to even bring up the suggestion to her.
All I can do at this point is tell my husband that if I get that way I want him to take whatever steps necessary, including involuntary hospitalization if it comes to that.
Sorry. No easy answer. In fact, no answer at all.

[Anonymous]

My mother is like this as well. My father has always let her be, except when it interfered with his wants, which are very few.

The easiest way to deal with it is to limit contact and accept that I will never have the dream mother-daughter relationship. That way I'm not a witness to her sabotaging her own health, her own financial future, her relationship with others, etc.

I will see her sometime this summer, for the first time in two years, because I really want to see my father. It will be a long 3 weeks and I will do my best to keep the peace.

[Anonymous]

Yup. My parents live in la la land, where nothing bad happens. The sibling that attacked me in front of them? Never happened. Smile and pass the turkey. The alcoholic who had her kids taken away and was found in a ditch then put in jail? She's out now, so let's ave everyone over for dinner! Won't it be great? I think part of it generational. They lived in a rug sweeping time, where we all pretended we didn't know things. I was raised in the Oprah era, where we confronted or at least spoke of disjunction.

[Anonymous]

Therapist: "Does your family suffer from mental illness?"
Me: "No, they seem to enjoy it, really!"

[Anonymous]

Most families tiptoe around mental illness, alcoholism, eating disorders, hoarding, physical illness, and really any issues whatsoever, OP. People and systems desperately fight to maintain equilibrium at any cost.

[Anonymous]

My family, loaded with drs and nurses, ignore the elephant in the room. I suspect they are Borderline Narcisstic, just like mommy. They are toxic and it's sad. I have my issues and have gotten help and support.

[Anonymous]

My mother has major ocd, anxiety, an eating disorder, and delusions. To this day some of her siblings don't fully understand this/are in complete denial.