Equality hasn’t made it into my home yet… at least not in the mind of my mother. Of course in her mind she’s still taking care of my brother and me, not the other way around. But her expectations of each of us are certainly archaic.

I moved to Oregon from Washington to help my mom after my dad passed away. I live in the house with her, help with the day to day, pay for all of the groceries, the water and extras, do her laundry and cook at least half of the meals. She can’t drive any longer, so until recently, I also took her on all of her errands. She also gets lonely, so I am expected to drop what I’m doing and sit in the living room to watch TV with her, but she refuses to go out and meet people or join a seniors group in the area to make friends.

My brother and sister-in-law moved into a trailer on the property when my dad’s health started deteriorating to help him with caring for the yard. My brother was put on all of my mom’s accounts and takes care of her finances, he also pays for the electric bill (mom’s retirement covers the mortgage and the rest of the bills). My sister-in-law just got her driver’s license in November, so she is now assisting with taking mom on errands.

The biggest split in the caregiving load used to be my mom’s doctor’s appointments. Because I have some flexibility in my schedule, it was expected that I take mom to her appointments. Then I got promoted and, while my schedule is still somewhat flexible, I am much busier than I used to be. But I was still expected to drive her to all of her appointments, because she hated making my brother miss work. Apparently in her mind, it was ok for me, who manages a program and team to miss work, over my brother who hated his warehouse job and was always missing work anyway. I made more money and had more responsibility, but in her mind, his job was still more important. He has since quit that job and is available in the mornings to take her to appointments now, so he has taken on that responsibility. But she still asks me first if I can take her, so she doesn’t inconvenience him.

In general, my mental health tends to deteriorate when I am with my mom for long periods of time. But she’s my mom and I feel responsible for her. I can’t share a lot about myself and how I feel with her because she is both judgmental of my lifestyle (and not in the ways you’d think), but she also takes everything personally and gets overly emotional.

While I think I would be 1000x healthier if I lived apart from her, I know that she would deteriorate and be at risk without someone living in the house with her. She forgets to eat, forgets to take her insulin and other meds, and has forgotten that she’s cooking and burned food before (thankfully someone has always been home to catch it, but we’re not always here). She’s also prone to falling.

Sometimes I feel trapped, and I hate myself for feeling that way. I love my mother, but we’ve always had a challenging relationship and that hasn’t changed over the last 50 years. I feel guilty for being so frustrated with her, but she also likes to make me feel guilty if I don’t give her the attention she wants.

I feel terrible to even be considering leaving her, but I’m trying to weigh what is better… taking care of my mental health or her physical health?