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[quote=Anonymous]My mom gets stressed when we travel to visit her, or when she travels to visit us.  She is high anxiety, drinks too much, and is a child of an abusive, alcoholic mother and an absentee father.  I am very impressed that she was a good and loving mother to me as a kid despite that.  She also has extreme anger 30 years after her divorce from my dad who cheated on her.  She lives in a very remote and beautiful place but the quiet life she is living seems to translate into her increasingly losing her ability to cope with anything other than her isolation.  She has a life partner and is retired.  She has lots of friends in her remote mountain town, loves animals, loves my kids, and generally is kind and loving, except to me.   She has hostility towards me and I don't know why.

She stresses out and worries about every little thing when we visit.  I realize this is a super trivial example, but perhaps it gives you the idea:   she discussed at length with my 12 yo daughter in the car on the way to the grocery store about "Now when we get to the grocery store, you are going to have to pick out a flavor of ice cream, so think about the flavor you want now.  And if they don't have that, you need a second choice in mind".... that's just one trivial example.  Who makes back up plans for ice cream flavors?  My daughter is a normal kid and would not freak out about ice cream flavors.

Another example, she yelled at me for asking for soda that she didn't have in the house.  "I asked you when we were at the store if you wanted anything!".  Startled I responded, "I forgot, I forgot, I'm sorry!"  I felt like a little kid afraid of setting her off, trying to defuse her.  It's just nuts.

She confided to me that she lost sleep worrying about our visit.  She can't relax.  We'd be sitting somewhere quietly and she'd start in with "now tomorrow, we are going to take the Honda.  It will be a bit crowded.  But I'll move the dog crate and you can sit here and DD can sit there and so and so will drive and etc. etc. ".

She complains that she doesn't see us enough and then she's insane when we are with her.  A hotel is not an really an option when we visit her because she lives up on a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

No sooner had I exited the airport than she started asking me, "What's wrong?!  Are you OK?  Are you stressed?"  Here I am thinking everything is fine and the second after I say hello, I feel as if I have done something wrong because I guess I am not happy enough or smiling enough or (something) enough, because as with every visit, she accuses me of being unhappy.  Which ultimately I am because she acts crazy.  Ugh!

Last summer she came to visit me and drank too much and got angry and actually became threatening with me.  I said something and she got in my face like we were going to throw down or something! She didn't remember this the next day.  I told her that was unacceptable and could not happen again.  She had stopped drinking after that but I was surprised to find out she has started again when I arrived.

I have plane tickets to go back in a month.  I split the visit up into two four-day visits this year.

I just don't know what to do.  I love my mom and I don't want to only have a long distance relationship.  But I'm a single working parent of two kids and putting all the travel on me due to her travel anxiety is tough.  And she can't relax when we are there.  And she can't travel to visit us.

I offered to rent a beach house next year for her and her partner and me and my kids so we could celebrate her 70th birthday.  She responded "no because we stress each other out too much".  :(

I just don't know how to have a relationship with her.  I have a therapist and she's on meds for anxiety but, any words of wisdom?  I am beginning to wonder if behaviors I believed were normal as a kid maybe aren't.

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